Norman Dorsen, Founder of SALT

The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) is the largest membership organization of law faculty—doctrinal, clinical, and legal writing professors—and legal education professionals in the United States. SALT began in 1973 through the organizing efforts of Norman Dorsen, a professor at NYU Law School, and a cadre of fellow progressives with an extraordinarily ambitious agenda.

SALT had several main goals. The first was to encourage developments in legal education that would make curriculum, programs, and forms of instruction more responsive to current social needs. Law school pedagogy hadn’t really changed since Christopher Columbus Langdell, dean of Harvard Law School back in 1870 originated the “case method.” The early 1970s brought new waves of law school students, and faculty, into academies: women; African American, Puerto Rican, Latino, and other students of color; returning veterans from the Vietnam war; gays and lesbians who were open about their sexual orientation; and non-traditional students from different classes and backgrounds. SALT wanted to change the environment within law schools to encourage the participation and successful incorporation of these newcomers into the legal profession. SALT was particularly interested in reevaluating legal ethics, in the wake of the Nixon Watergate debacle, and broadening the scope of how the legal profession saw its responsibility to further social justice.

SALT also wanted to impact legislation and public policy through public statements, testimony before Congress and other governmental bodies, and papers on critical legal issues. Social change was also possible through strategic litigation, grounded in scholarship and incorporated into the activism of community-based practitioners. With federal judicial appointments for life terms, SALT wanted a progressive voice to participate in the evaluation of nominees to judgeships and other governmental positions that bear on the administration of justice.

Within the academy, SALT saw a role in making sure that this new wave of law teachers and students were afforded full academic freedom and that law teachers were not unfairly treated for their activism or choices of scholarship.

Over these thirty-five years, SALT has developed into an organization dedicated to scholarship that focuses on innovative analysis of pressing legal issues; mentoring a new generation of law faculty that represent the rich diversity of America; fostering a culture of social justice within law schools and among law school students; and impacting policymaking and discourse. Through its committees, SALT examines critical legal issues, such as immigration; peace post-911; affirmative action especially in law schools; the legitimacy of the bar exam as a predictor of legal competence; lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transsexual issues, with particular emphasis on ending discrimination against homosexuals in the military; and vetting nominations to judicial and federal law enforcement positions.

SALT’s teaching conferences are legendary. Many articles, casebooks, and collaborations grew out of ideas promoted at these bi-annual events. This year, on March 14-16, 2008, at the Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice at Boalt Hall on the University of California at Berkeley campus, SALT hosted a conference called “Teaching for Social Change.” Over sixty-five proposals were submitted. Workshops and panels included, for example, strategies for teaching progressive ideas to non-progressive students; teaching not preaching; teaching for social change in first year subjects; incorporating social change into advanced subjects; the pedagogy of social justice lawyering; constructing a social justice curriculum; sexual orientation in the classroom; and assessment issues that encompass opening the door to a more diverse bar.

SALT’s commitment to changing the complexion of legal education is core to its mission. Last fall, SALT co-sponsored a workshop with Seattle University School of Law on how to bring more women, people of color, lesbian and gay, and other non-traditional law professors into deanships. Over sixty-five people participated in that two day event.

In 2007, SALT was awarded a three-year capacity building grant from the Open Society Institute, which has allowed it to hire professional staff after thirty-four years of being an all-volunteer organization. Once again SALT has an ambitious agenda, including redesign of its website, increased visibility of SALT, and greater impact on policymakers, the media, scholars in other disciplines, and community activists.

Click here to download a copy of Norman Dorsen's remarks at the January 2008 SALT annual dinner.