The University of the District of Columbia Law Review (UDC Law Review) invites article submissions for our next volume topic, Law in Living Color: Democracy in Crisis and the Cost to Marginalized Communities.
ABOUT OUR SCHOOL
The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (UDC Law) is the law school of the University of the District of Columbia, a public historically Black land-grant university in Washington, D.C. and the only public law school in the nation’s capital. UDC Law ranked #1 in the nation for the Greatest Resources for Minority Students and #2 in the nation for sending its graduates into government and public interest jobs. U.S. News and World Report also ranked the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law #19 (tie) in the nation for Best Clinical Training Law Program. Its student body is one of the most diverse in the United States, with significant representation of women, minorities, and older students.
ABOUT OUR JOURNAL
UDC Law Review is a student-edited publication that features in-depth articles by legal scholars, practitioners, and judges, along with student-written comments and notes, and serves the community by raising awareness of modern legal and social issues. As the only public law school in the nation’s capital at a public historically Black land-grant university, UDC Law Review is particularly interested in legal scholarship and analysis that challenge systemic injustices to the Black community. UDC Law Review embodies the theme of community activism and public service. Our motto is Activism Meets Scholarship.
TOPICS FOR THIS VOLUME
UDC Law Review is currently preparing its 29th volume and invites article submissions that critically examine legal, jurisprudential, and legislative developments. We welcome scholarship that evaluates how public policy and law are weaponized to reinforce systemic oppression, calls for community-driven legal and policy strategies to resist and reform these systems, and unpacks how legal institutions criminalize difference and erase intersectional identities.
In a time marked by legislative rollbacks, educational censorship, anti-DEI backlash, and growing racial inequities in housing, policing, and public health, this volume will explore how law continues to function as both a weapon and a shield in the ongoing struggle for Black and brown liberation.
The 29th volume of UDC Law Review will focus on the following topical framework:
1. Legal Erasure and Policy Backlash
This pillar invites work that explores the rollback of civil rights protections, the dismantling of DEI frameworks, voter suppression laws, anti-critical race theory legislation, and historical memory bans.
2. Intersectionality
This pillar invites work that unpacks how the intersection of race with other social identities—such as gender identity, immigration status, class, and more—shapes the experiences of racially marginalized communities within the American legal system, with particular emphasis on the Black community.
3. Community-Driven Legal Strategies
This pillar invites work that highlights grassroots and non-traditional legal efforts to resist oppressive systems. Examples include mutual aid, community lawyering, participatory defense, and legislative advocacy grounded in lived experience.
4. Corporate Power, DEI, and the Law
This pillar invites work that examines increasing corporate resistance to racial equity initiatives and explores legal strategies to protect and advance diversity programs, labor protections, and the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in both private and public sectors.
5. Centering Silenced Voices
This pillar invites work that focuses on the lived experiences and legal narratives of groups often excluded from mainstream discourse—Black and brown trans individuals, queer youth, disabled activists, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, undocumented Black and brown migrants, and others living at the margins of multiple systems.
6. Radical Legal Futures
This pillar invites work that explores legal theories that challenge traditional views of the American legal system. Examples include critical race theory, abolitionist legal theory, Black feminist legal thought, and visionary frameworks that imagine life after liberation.
Submitted articles need not address all topics, nor fit perfectly into a specific pillar, to be considered for publication.
ARTICLE REQUIREMENTS
Font, Formatting, and Style
Articles tendered must be a Microsoft Word-compatible file type (e.g., .docx, .doc, or .rtf). All submissions should be formatted with 1” margins on all sides. Use 12-point Times New Roman font for the main text and 10-point Times New Roman font for the footnotes.
Citation Format
Please use footnotes, not endnotes. Footnotes must conform to the latest edition of The Bluebook. Authors must be prepared to supply any and all cited sources upon request.
Length Limitations
UDC Law Review strongly prefers articles under 25,000 words in length (40-70 pages), including text, footnotes, and appendices in accordance with the joint letter issued by a group of law journals across the country designed to improve the quality and accessibility of legal scholarship.
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
UDC Law Review accepts electronic submissions via Scholastica. Authors must submit through our Scholastica portal: https://udclawreview.scholasticahq.com/for-authors. author’s curriculum vitae should be submitted along with the manuscript.