Professor Meera Deo, founder of South Asian Legal Academics (SALA), organized another successful summer workshop for the group. SALA seeks to create and sustain a supportive space within which South Asian legal academics can learn and grow to achieve their maximum potential. Law professors of South Asian descent currently teaching at schools around the country met for an all-day workshop at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles on Friday, July 31, 2015. This meeting built on momentum from the first annual workshop, held last summer at UC Irvine School of Law.
“I am so proud of our growing group and the incredible community we are building,” says Professor Deo. “After our second successful workshop I can state with confidence that we will continue to meet yearly to share our scholarship and discuss strategies for professional success in legal academia.”
This year’s workshop incorporated both scholarly presentations and community building events throughout the day. The featured lunchtime speaker was Southwestern Law School Dean Susan Westerberg Prager, formerly Executive Director of the Association of American Law Schools and Dean of UCLA School of Law. Dean Prager led the group in a discussion about the importance of faculty governance. Assistant Professor Vinay Harpalani attended from Savannah Law School to present his recently published piece, DesiCrit: Theorizing the Racial Ambiguity of South Asian Americans.
The third annual SALA workshop is tentatively scheduled for Friday, July 29, 2016 and will be hosted by UCLA School of Law.