Yes. Lambda and other affinity organizations are referenced.
Yes on the JD application. LGBTQ+ students can sign up to join our Lambda student organization upon enrolling.
There is a space for the student to indicate a name of choice on the JD application. There is a University form that students can access to make name changes; there is no requirement that such students have changed their legal names. Students have the option of meeting with the Registrar or simply completing the form
Yes. The law school’s largest privately-funded scholarship is the Jeffrey K. Poile Memorial Civil Rights Scholarship (for students with a demonstrated commitment to the furtherance of LGBTQ+ rights).
Yes. McGeorge’s Career Development Office offers reimbursement of up to $150.00 (per student, per academic year) to help defray the costs associated with attending professional conferences and recruiting events, including the LGBT Bar’s Lavender Law® Conference and Career Fair. McGeorge’s Public Legal Services Society (PLSS) offers summer internship grants for students in the public sector or public interest, which includes legal organizations that promote LGBTQ+ rights, such as the Family Equality Council, which advances legal and lived equality for LGBTQ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change. Our Washington, DC Fellowship also funds public interest and public sector internships in DC, which included an internship with the DC office of the Family Equality Council in the summer of 2011.
Yes. The law school shares job postings with local and national diversity bar associations and diversity law faculty listservs and organizations.
All benefits to all employees are the same for same-sex and opposite-sex couples who are married or in registered domestic partnerships. Here is a link to our parent university’s benefits guide:
https://www.pacific.edu/Documents/hr/acrobat/2019%20Benefits%20Guide(1).pdf.
Neither same-sex or opposite-sex spouses or partners are eligible for student health coverage.
Gender Transition Medical Expenses. Our parent university’s SHIP (Student Health Insurance Plan) covers up to $10,000 per surgery or series of surgeries for in-net or out-of-network. Coverage includes, but is not limited to, medically necessary services related to gender transition such as transgender surgery, hormone therapy, psychotherapy and vocal training.
Travel Expenses. Certain travel expenses incurred in connection with an approved transgender surgery will be covered, when the Hospital at which the surgery is performed is 75 miles or more from the student’s place of residence, provided the expenses are authorized in advance by the university. The following travel expenses incurred by a student and one companion are covered:
- Ground transportation to and from the Hospital when it is 75 miles or more from the student’s place of residence.
- Coach airfare to and from the Hospital when it is 300 miles or more from the student’s place of residence.
- Lodging, limited to one room, double occupancy.
- Other reasonable expenses. Meals, tobacco, alcohol, recreational drug expenses and other non-food items are excluded.
No, as to mandatory training. The law school, however, has offered a Safe Zone Training to faculty, staff, students, and administrators on three occasions in the past year alone. The law school also includes two diversity and inclusion training sessions for students, one during orientation and one as part of the law school’s required first-year Legal Profession course. The trainings address, among other topics, LGBTQ+ issues.
The law school offers regular safe zone trainings for faculty and staff. We also offer trainings in implicit bias every other year.
McGeorge conducts two diversity training programs for its first-year students. First, during our First Week Program (what other law schools call orientation), we conduct a training focused on a wide variety of issues the students may encounter and communicate our inclusivity expectations. Second, as part of our required Legal Profession Course, we teach a session called “Lawyering Across Difference.” We touched on cultural and sexual orientation differences and their implications for being effective as a lawyer and a member of the community.
Yes. The law school uses large parts of a 13-acre campus, all of which was originally purchased by the law school but is now shared. In total, 34 of the 64 bathrooms on campus are gender inclusive. 26 are marked as such (the other eight have no gender markings at all and are used by anyone who chooses to use them). The door signage of the marked bathrooms has a picture of a man and a woman side by side. McGeorge does not merely have a large number of gender neutral bathrooms; we are also in the process of improving our signage for these bathrooms.
- “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and the Law”
- “Reproductive Rights”
Yes, we have the following applicable student groups supported by our school:
Lambda
If When How
Unity Caucus
Yes, the law school has a hate/bias incident policy that students are required to follow. Yes, the process identifies sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories. See the form at this link: https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?UnivofthePacific&layout_id=40. It allows a report of bias or hate relating to, among other categories listed, Gender Identity/Expression, Sex, and Sexual Orientation.
- The law school is the only law school in the country that has an on-campus, law student-focused Center for Inclusion and Diversity (CID) that explicitly serves, among others, LGBTQ+ students. The CID is staffed by professionals, faculty, staff, and students who are trained to support the students served by the CID.
- The law school’s Associate Dean for Administration, who is also a faculty member, is one of the senior leaders of the law school and is a gay man.
- The law school hosts an annual alumni event to support the Poile Scholarship mentioned in the law school’s answer to question 5.
- The law school hosts an annual drag show in which faculty, staff, administrators, and students participate, also as a fundraiser for the Poile Scholarship.
- The law school has offered a Safe Zone Training to faculty, staff, students, and administrators on three occasions in the past year alone.
- The law school delivers two diversity and inclusion training sessions for students, one during orientation and one as part of the law school’s required first-year Legal Profession course. The trainings address, among other topics, LGBTQ+ issues.
Yes. These activities are things we have done over the last six years but not each item is done each year.
The law school sends diversity email and postcard mailings to candidates who have listed their LGBTQ+ status. The law school sends welcome letters from an LGBTQ+ faculty member to applicants, admits, and deposited students that identified as LGBTQ+. LGBTQ+ faculty host off campus dinners with current LGBTQ+ students, alumni and allies. Additionally, McGeorge Lambda often co-sponsors events during diversity week which are open to our prospective students, applicants, etc.