Boyd Law-sponsored workshop amplifies the voices of legal writing faculty of color
Written By Paul Szydelko
For too long legal writing has been undervalued in legal academia, and for even longer, the voices of faculty of color have been marginalized. Professor Nantiya Ruan co-founded a workshop in 2018 to provide essential mentorship and support for scholarship.
In December 2024, Boyd Law proudly hosted the Writing as Resistance (WAR) Legal Writing Professors of Color Scholarship Workshop. Over the course of two nights and three days, 25 professors from across the country came together to share experiences, reflect on challenges related to status, perception, and inclusion in legal academia, and focus on their scholarship. The workshop offered dedicated writing time and constructive feedback in a supportive, empathetic environment — intentionally designed to be objective yet free from the pressures of participants’ home institutions.
The Writing as Resistance tagline reflects a dual perspective, Ruan explained. “Legal writing scholarship should count as much as other topics that law professors decide to write on. We teach legal writing. We can write about legal writing, and that’s valuable,” said Ruan, who joined Boyd Law in 2023 and is the author of “Papercuts: Hierarchical Microaggressions in Law.”
The second meaning of Writing as Resistance acknowledges the deep personal passion these professors bring to their scholarship, whether they focus on family violence, discrimination, racial injustice, democracy or constitutional law.
“Many of us, because we’re people of color, we’re writing about topics that are personal to us,” Ruan said. “Writing about anti-discrimination or anti-racism measures, we’re talking about ways that the law and sociolegal concepts have been tools in which people are marginalized or [conversely] given power. We’re going to stand up and say the law shouldn’t be used in this way by the majority to repress or oppress the minority.”
In addition to regular Zoom-based gatherings throughout the year, Professor Ruan shared that Boyd Law will once again host the Writing as Resistance workshop on December 3-5, 2025.