1L: My Experience as a Woman of Color
I used to paint a picture in my head of law school as this place of forward thinking, innovation, and change. However, once I finally made it here, it felt as if I had stepped into a portal to the past. The paradox of progress–making it here while knowing the legal field has been painfully slow to change–can be overwhelming, especially for marginalized students, including but not limited to students of color, women, LGBTQ+ students, neurodivergent students, and more. Although this field permeates all parts of society, law school creates this bubble that feels dangerously disconnected from the outside world. This comes as a surprise to those of us who are not your typical law student.
Nothing could have prepared me for the isolation I experienced as a 1L. I had already seen the stats, read countless articles about the consistent lack of diversity, and even did an undergraduate capstone project about the obstacles that limit access to the legal field, starting with the law school admissions process. Furthermore, I had already experienced a culture shock when I started college at the private, Catholic university I attended on scholarship. It took me a while to adjust to the new environment I found myself in after going to diverse public schools my whole life. However, 1L year was even more of a “cultural” learning curve than undergrad.
I quickly began to lose my confidence and sense of self. This wasn’t just because of the work; it was because of the bubble. I started to feel trapped. I had worked for what felt like my whole life to get here, after having difficult experiences with my own attorneys/guardians ad litem as a child, but once I got my foot in the door I started to question everything. The bubble that I found myself in didn’t leave much room for anything but law school.
Some people thrive in this environment–there’s a clear goal and a rigid timeline leading you to that goal. Even though law school is certainly difficult for any student, it may be easier to feel like you’re made for this or to remember that there’s light at the end of the tunnel when you have other lawyers in your family or can at least look around and see yourself well-represented in the field. But as a woman of color and a first generation law student, I didn’t feel like I had that, at least not to the same extent as some of my peers. My imposter syndrome got the best of me most days and the obstacles ahead, paired with the baggage I was dragging behind me, really started to weigh me down. It felt like there wasn’t enough room for someone like me in the bubble.
This feeling hit me even harder during the 2nd semester of 1L year after a friend I grew up with was shot and killed here in Louisville. Three days into 2023, six people in our city had already lost their lives to gun violence. He was one of those six. The third day of 2023 also marked the start of my second semester. That’s when the bubble really started closing in on me. My eyes were swollen from crying and I was mentally and physically exhausted from staying up late, scrolling through gun violence archives online, which I stumbled upon while hopelessly searching for more information on what happened. The archives kept record of those who have lost their lives to gun violence–those that are reported, at least. Ifound my friend’s name and photo among many others, most of them Black and brown.
The gravity of what I was (unsuccessfully) trying to process made it very hard to sit through classes. I felt a sense of survivor’s guilt. I struggled to appreciate my spot in this prestigious institution when
I was painfully aware of the things going on outside of it. Every day I struggled with inconsistent feelings of gratitude for having made it here in the first place and frustration with feeling like there simply wasn’t enough space for me or the weight of what I was carrying.
Thanks to the support of my friends, other women of color, some allies, and my family, I was able to process some of these feelings, think out loud, and feel less alone. As I talked with my 1L friends about the different “loads” we were carrying and how they affected us as law students, it made me realize just how unrealistic the bubble is. There is no way to escape reality or the “outside world” when our identities, our experiences, and systemic injustices associated with them are intertwined. Certain issues (gun violence, domestic violence, etc.) affect us, our families, and our community disproportionately, which inherently impacts our journey to our JD.
Acknowledging that helped me feel like less of a failure and more like a normal human being grappling with complex feelings while also trying to succeed as a 1L. These conversations led me to do more research on what other marginalized students, particularly women of color, had to say about navigating life as a law student while also processing so many other intense issues. The statistics I found validated my experience and helped me understand why the simplest tasks felt so daunting here. Things as seemingly simple as raising your hand to speak in class can feel exhausting.
Nonetheless, the people encouraging exhausted women of color and other “atypical” law students to keep pushing forward and claim their spot here are usually other exhausted women of color. This was no surprise to me because I have seen this outside the bubble, long before I started law school. It’s one of many reasons why I often laugh when people ask me “what are you?” and after telling them I’m biracial (Black and white) they respond with “you probably had a hard time fitting in with either side.” I find it interesting because that wasn’t ever really my experience.
People of color, Black women especially, have always supported me in big and small ways, since I was a little girl. This support only becomes more intentional and impactful the higher we climb. I am forever grateful to those who took me under their wing and showed me the ropes when I didn’t have a clue where to begin, those who offered me support as I began to find my way, those who still pick me up when I fall, and those who instilled the confidence in me to even give this whole law school thing a chance in the first place.
The support that comes from daring to be different in this field is immeasurable. Our bonds grow deeply, quickly, because in many ways we rely on each other to survive this crazy journey. But there must come a time when the circumstances aren’t so dire. When we can look around and see more of ourselves in all forms and have more of the same typical law school struggles as everyone else, rather than processing intense trauma in silence.
We need more from our larger law school community, or for them to at least acknowledge the greater systemic issues that affect our law school experience. These issues didn’t disappear with our acceptance
letter. Although women of color have a tendency to make the hardest tasks look effortless, we must remember that just because someone carries something well doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.
