Violent Images in Legal Education
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
6-11-2024
https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035307050.00007
Abstract
Law is enmeshed with violence. How does that truth impact legal teaching? Increasingly, law professors are talking about the violence inherent in law in their classrooms. Some go a step further and show graphic content to law students as part of the curriculum - videos of police killings or images demonstrating the cruelty of past legal regimes like slavery and Jim Crow. This strategy recognizes that photographs and videos have a different impact than mere description. This chapter serves as a guide for legal educators considering harnessing the power of graphic imagery in the classroom. It catalogues the risks and benefits of using such imagery - including the risk that images have a traumatic impact on students. It then describes how to use graphic imagery without creating unnecessary harm. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of how to equip law students with tools to handle graphic content in their future careers.
Recommended Citation
Amy F. Kimpel,
Violent Images in Legal Education,
How to Account for Trauma and Emotions in Law Teaching
40
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/fs/453