Capstone Statement
At the University of South Carolina, we are a community of faculty, professionals, students, and alumni.
The Law School’s Mission
The University of South Carolina School of Law prepares lawyer-leaders to serve their communities through rigorous legal studies, exceptional experiential training, and comprehensive professional identity formation within an inclusive and diverse environment. We serve justice and advance the law through engaged learning, teaching, scholarship, and service.
The Law School’s Vision
To be an innovative, student-centered public law school that advances knowledge and the common good, with a local impact, a national voice, and a global reach.
The Law School’s Values
- Service. Serving justice, the legal profession, the people of South Carolina, the nation, and the world.
- Success. Placing students and their success in the center of all that we do, while promoting excellence and opportunity.
- Passion. Fostering a scholarly community that promotes passion for the pursuit of knowledge, the exchange of impactful ideas, innovative research, and transformative teaching.
- Integrity. Modeling and instilling integrity and professional values.
- Community. Cultivating – through our words and actions – a diverse, inclusive, and civil community where everyone is valued and supported.
Law Faculty Resolution Against Racism
The faculty of the University of South Carolina School of Law joins with other communities around the world, including members of our own student, staff, and alumni communities, to stand in solidarity with those in the United States and elsewhere who condemn the widespread pattern of both state sanctioned and private violence directed against Black Americans.
WHEREAS, the faculty is appalled by the frequent and disproportionate killings of Black Americans by police under the color of law and by vigilantes; and
WHEREAS, the faculty recognizes that such killings are rooted in the long history of white supremacy that has shaped this nation’s policing, laws, and judicial system, among others; and
WHEREAS, the faculty recognizes our country has a pervasive and enduring history of systemic and institutionalized racial oppression of Black Americans; and
WHEREAS, the faculty recognizes that the state of South Carolina, the University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina School of Law, including its faculty, have deep and long-standing histories of sanctioning systemic oppression of Black Americans, in both pre- and post-Civil War history; and
WHEREAS, the faculty recognizes that the School of Law, through its instruction and community, has and continues to play a profound role in shaping the laws of the state that have so frequently run counter to the highest ideals of the legal profession and the nation; and
WHEREAS, the faculty recognizes that as members of the legal education community we have a special obligation to acknowledge and combat the role of the law in the perpetuation of systemic violence and discrimination; and
WHEREAS, the faculty recognizes that the impacts of systemic racism are not uniform but overlap with and are influenced by many aspects of individual identity, including one’s gender identity, sexuality, and ability.
BE IT RESOLVED that the University of South Carolina School of Law faculty, as individuals and as a whole, commit to working to eliminate anti-Black racism and to advancing the cause of full equality and racial justice in our community and across the nation. We commit to ongoing dialogue with students, staff, alumni, and administrators and engagement with scholars, activists, and experts on racism as we actively seek to ensure that our teaching, scholarship, mentorship, and service support the advancement of a just and antiracist law school, state, and nation. Further, the faculty commits to the following specific actions to be undertaken in the 2020-2021 Academic Year:
- The faculty commits to working alongside the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to engage with our faculty and staff colleagues, students, and alumni to better understand the ways in which our community continues to struggle with systemic racism and discrimination.
- The faculty commits to developing, in concert with the administration, alumni, staff, students, clearly stated and assessable means and goals that support the Law School achieving its highest aspiration of a community that supports and advances justice and equity for all persons.
Adopted by the University of South Carolina School of Law Faculty on November 17, 2020.