Advancing Racial Justice at FIU Law

2021 Diversity Rankings

FIU Law is Ranked:

• 3rd nationally by The Princeton Review for Faculty Diversity
  FIU Law’s faculty is the third-most diverse in the nation in its 2021 Law School Rankings.
• 4th nationally by U.S. News & World Report for Faculty Diversity
  FIU Law is 4th nationally for faculty diversity (48%) in its 2021 Best Law Schools Rankings
• 6th nationally by U.S. News & World Report for Student Body Diversity
  FIU Law is 6th nationally for student diversity in its 2021 Best Law Schools Rankings.

In 2021, FIU Law's JD students were 65 % minority

View more statistics about the Fall 2020 class profile here. FIU Law's ABA disclosures at this page contain the full year-by-year numbers for the student body makeup.

Achievements

• March 2022, On March 4th Professor H.T. Smith, founding Director of the FIU Law Trial Advocacy Program, was honored by the University of Miami with the unveiling of the Harold Long Jr. and H.T. Smith Student Services Building. Located in the heart of campus, the building is the first in U.M.’s 97 year history to be named after African-Americans. View the Trial Ad News brief for more information.
• October 2021, FIU Law's Path to the Legal Profession program earned the annual Programmatic Change-Maker Award from the Association of American Law Schools. The award recognizes a program that has created structural and systemic change in an effort to increase access to legal education and diversify the legal profession. View the news story for more information.
• May 2021, The ABA appointed Senior Associate Dean Michelle D. Mason as a member of the Council for Diversity in the Educational Pipeline. In this role, Dean Mason will focus on continuing the mission of the Pipeline Council, which is to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the educational pipeline to the legal profession.
• March 2021, The H.T. Smith Legal Studies Scholarship, funded by Miami law firm Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine was named in honor of Prof. H.T. Smith. The yearly scholarship will go to a student of color, with the aim to hire and retain talented attorneys in the area. Currently many of the best candidates leave South Florida upon graduation. Students from 6 Florida law schools will be eligible.
• June 2020, Florida NAACP Names Law Student Fellowship in Honor of Professor H.T. Smith. The fellowships are for law students who will draft white papers, resolutions, and memoranda of law on current issues in Florida civil rights practice.
• May 2019, FIU Law received the Law School Admission Council’s Diversity Matters Award for excellence in hosting pipeline programs that promote access to justice.
• May 2019, Senior Judge and FIU Professor Phyllis Kotey was appointed as member of the ABA Diversity Board Committee for the Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division.
• 2019, The College's Law Path Program received the Leading Advocate Award from the Caribbean Bar Association for advocacy promoting diversity, inclusion and professionalism.

Desmond Meade, J.D. 2014, was selected by the Open Society Foundations as a 2022 Justice Rising Awardee by the Open Society Foundation. The prestigious Justice Rising Awards recognize leaders working towards racial justice and equality in the Black community in the United States.

In 2021 he was named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow by the MacArthur Foundation to assist in his pursuit of ‘High-Risk, High-Reward’ work as a Civil Rights Activist.

Mr. Meade was also honored for his work as a democracy advocate with the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s 2021 Brown Democracy Medal. The major award was presented at a public lecture on November 2021 at Penn State University.

Mr. Meade was the guiding force for restoration of civil rights to over 1.68 million Floridians, advocating for Constitutional Amendment 4. He is an author, has been featured in 60 Minutes, was profiled by the Miami Times and named one of Time 100 Most Influential People 2019 by Time Magazine.

Mr. Meade is a formerly homeless returning citizen who overcame many obstacles to eventually become the current State Director for Florida Live Free Campaign, President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), Chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, and Chair of the Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation’s Black Men’s Roundtable. You can view a longer version of his bio here.

Jeremy Thompson, J.D. 2016, published Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: South Florida’s Approach in the Harvard Law and Policy Review. The article focuses on the positive outcomes achieved by Miami-Dade and Broward county’s school districts replacing zero-tolerance policies with restorative justice policies for child offenders.

While at FIU Law, Mr. Thompson served as the National Black Law Students Association’s Director of Education and Career Development and was promoted to Captain in the United States Army Reserves, JAG Corps. He now serves as an Honors Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office For Immigration Review and is an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law.