As the Ford Motor Company continues to dump resource after resource into the betterment of the local Detroit community, the Blue Oval brand has announced an innovative elective high school curriculum intended to make pursuit of legal education more accessible and welcoming to students of color.
This pilot program, developed jointly by the Ford Motor Company Fund and the Henry Ford Learning Institute, will begin rolling out in two Detroit-area public charter schools beginning this year. It is known as the Ford Law Career Academy.
“I know what it means to have strong mentors in my life, and I want that same experience for today’s students of color,” said Alison Nelson, a lawyer at Ford counsel and a program champion.
“We have a responsibility to work toward diversity, inclusion and racial equality. I am the proud product of Detroit public schools, was the first child in my family to graduate college, and was the first to become a lawyer,” she added. “I want more children of color to consider the law profession.”
Ford Law Career Academy was created in collaboration with both educators and Ford’s experienced team of legal professionals. The program gives students the tools to take the first steps in developing the skills, mindset, knowledge, and networking necessary to pursue a successful career in law.
To begin the program, students embark on elective coursework as freshmen and progress through four years of classes and subjects including law theory, mock trials, and field training with law firm partners. At the conclusion of the programs, students must complete a senior thesis project designed to prepare students to further explore legal education at the university level.
As of right now, African Americans make up more than 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet only 5 percent of lawyers. This number hasn’t increased in over ten years, according to the American Bar Association. “Our team wants to help change that,” said Nelson.
“As the U.S. works through a long overdue reckoning on race, we believe now is the time to act, and the law is where so much of real change happens. Ford wants to be a changemaker, by making the law accessible, representative and welcoming to children of color who otherwise may never have considered entering this field or believed it was closed off to them,” she added.
While the Ford Law Academy’s pilot schools are an important first step, Nelson noted that it is not the company’s end goal. In fact, Ford has already begun working to identify additional high schools across the country that may be beneficial in scaling and replicating the program.
The goal indeed, is to develop a national presence as soon as possible.