For more information about Austin-East, click here.

At Austin East we are the invited guests of the school administration and of Mrs. Loretta Perkins, a veteran English teacher. Mrs. Perkins is always looking for ways to enrich her classroom and to engage her students in reading and writing about subjects they care about. We have found that the young people in her classes are usually quite interested in learning more about law and the legal system. My students have also found that the pupils at Austin East have a lot to teach them -- about the way that law plays out in their lives, and how "law on the streets" is sometimes importantly different from "law in the books."

Each semester the students from UT and from Austin East have decided to pursue different topics through different means. Subjects have included the juvenile justice system, family law issues, violent crimes and their punishment, school rules on matters like the dress code and absentee policies, the history of school desegregation, and the role of the media in framing public opinion about law.

The first semester of this partnership, three different English classes collaborated to produce an anthology of student writing, and we ended the semester with a party at Austin East. More recently, we have been inviting the Austin East students to the law school at the end of the semester. Each of the classes works toward this event over the course of the semester by creating a trial of some kind based on issues they have been discussing in class, and usually based on a narrative they themselves have constructed. When the Austin East students come to the law school, they get a tour of the school and a pizza lunch. But the high point of the day is when they present trial scenes in one of our moot court rooms.

The project has proved to be a highly successful partnership. Of course, Mrs. Perkins and I, and the students as well, are constantly aware of things we hope to improve, and we are regularly frustrated at the constraints we face, given the demands of law student schedules and the demands of high-stakes standardized testing in Knox County schools. Nevertheless, we are very pleased at what has been accomplished so far, and it has been exciting to see the synergies created between the two different worlds of this inner-city high school and this college of law.

One challenge with which we are still struggling is how to get better at securing the consent of both the high school students and their parents or guardians, so that I can post photographs of the high schools students on this website. It turns out to be quite a task, and we have many wonderful images that we cannot post because consent forms have not been returned. Luckily, we do have some fine photos that you may view by clicking here.

Project carried out: Fall 2002 to present
Exhibit developed: Summer 2004

Law Student Alums of the Ongoing Austin-East/UT College of Law Partnership