My Thoughts and Reflections on Bias Minimisation

My thoughts and reflections on bias minimisation

What is bias and bias minimisation?

Simply put, bias is a predisposition or a preconceived opinion that prevents a person from impartially evaluating facts that have been presented for determination. It is a personal prejudice formed out of subjective thinking. It can further be explained as a state of mind when you have already decided on the issue without even knowing the full facts or consciously distorting the facts to suit ones believes. Bias is similarly referred to as prejudice or being partial.For example, where a section of a racially mixed community believe more easily in the guilt of the accused if the alleged pickpocket is black or being shocked because a white have been convicted of shoplifting[1].

Bias is natural to all human beings. It results out of our natural inclination of exercising power of judgmentover what is right or wring; or what we like or dislike. It is therefore utopian to think ofeliminating bias in judgment. In other words, if we go about looking for a person who has no opinion on any issue, we may as well appoint robots to all the courts and law tribunals.Hence, bias minimisation is a concept that balances the reality of bias and the havoc it can cause if not controlled. In other words, bias minimisation speaking contextually is conscious efforts made by law teachers, in our context, to evolve a teaching curriculum and methodology that reduces implanting of bias tendencies in law students to the barest minimum. This has become necessary because most law students are at the formative age of developing their future personalities as good lawyers and judges or as bad layers and judges.

Research has shown that people are aware of differences in status, colour, language, gender, and physical ability at a very young age[2]. Numerous research studies about the process of identity and attitude development conclude that children and young persons learn by observing the differences and similarities among people and by absorbing the spoken and unspoken messages about those differences by their teacher[3]. The biases and negative stereotypes about various aspects of human diversity prevalent in our society undercut all young people’shealthy development and ill-equip them to interact effectively with many people in the world[4]. In essence, bias minimisation law curriculum seeks to nurture the development of every student’s fullest potential.

Bias minimisationcurriculum generally aims at fostering in the student:

1. constructive knowledge development
2. confident self-identity;
3. comfortable and globalised worldview
4. empathic interaction with people from diverse backgrounds;
5. critical thinking about bias;
6. ability to stand up for him or herself and for others, in the face of bias.

Who is a good law teacher?

The answer to that question traditionally depended upon one’s preferred approach to the teaching of law.[5]

If one favoured a doctrinal approach – privileging legal doctrine by locating it at the core of the legal curriculum and by emphasising its intellectual rigour, academic value and social importance – the good law teacher was the brilliant legal specialist, the scholar with the international reputation and comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter.

If one favoured a vocational approach – prioritising the teaching of legal skills and emphasising the importance of employability as an outcome of legal education – the good law teacher was the lecturer who was also a practitioner and who knew how the law ‘really’ worked.

If one favoured a liberal approach – endorsing the liberalising of traditional legal education by emphasising individual freedom, social responsibility and informed rationality – the good law teacher was the teacher who inspired a student’s interest in lifelong learning, in becoming a better citizen, and in seeking social justice.

If one favoured a critical or feminist approach – undermining the status quo within the law school and within the legal system by exposing and questioning the undisclosed political positions, gender biases, cultural biases and power relations within legal education and within law – the good law teacher was the passionate critic or the charismatic rebel who inspired insubordination and subversion.

However, if one favoured open mindedness in research and endorsing clinical mode of legal education by emphasising individual freedom, rationality of independent study, without right or wrong answers, but modifying opinions in the context of general class views – the good law teacher was the teacher who inspired a student in becoming themselves, un-indoctrinated, but better citizens in pursuit of social justice.[6]

For example, in the past 15 years in Australia,the good law teacher is now one who teaches in a manner consistent with the ideas and insights developed within orthodox education scholarship. His quality of law teaching is measured in terms of compliance with a range of clearly defined pedagogical criteria,[7]i.e. law teaching consistency with the pedagogical notion of ‘good teaching’ with the administrative goals of accountability, consistency and marketability.[8] Unfortunately, none of these classifications of who a good law teacher is used ethical standards to measure the goodness or badness of a law teacher. However, the only school of thought that relates closely to a teacher without prejudices is possibly the liberal and clinical legal educator. In other words, James and his group did not think that the teacher who is conscious of bias minimisation was material to who a good teacher is.[9]

The power of the law school teacher

The concept of pedagogicalism[10], is an expression of power of the teacher within the law school.[11]It is a means by which the ‘good teacher’ is accorded status within the law school as one with the privilege, autonomy and power to influence students in the law school. Today, “pedagogicalism-as-power” has been largely appropriated by law school and university administrators and has become one of the means by which modern pedagogy objective ismet.

If pedagogicalism as presently practiced in many law schools, is a standard, then the issue of bias minimisation is a fowl cry. The law teacher simply brings his/her biases on crime, sex, gender, colour, religion, philosophy, politics and life generally to influence his/her students who are potential judges. Those whom the teacher likes for whatever reasons or considers “decent” receives more favourable questions in class, commended most, and gets better scores at exams. While the “indecent” girl receives hard assignments, booed at wrong answers, and definitely would have her script poorly marked. After all, the teacher would assume, “she definitely went to the club last night and couldn’t have studied for the exam”. In countries like India, where judges can be appointed straight from the law school, the effect indeed could be catastrophic! The lawyer-turned judge taught,or do I say indoctrinated,by a law teacher who hates capitalism, as an economic ideology would easily convict any rich person who appears in his/her court for presupposed making his money by exploiting the poor.

I have had an experience witha teacher who detests any student studying art subjects in my secondary school. The effect lingers in my life, career and mind till date. I also know a university lecturer who believes that pre-marital sex is ideal and that sex is a daily exercise for all. He teaches that to his students in sex education classes and a girl close to me has had his carrier marred by practising what the professor indoctrinated her with. I have appeared before a judge who convicts any person appearing before him on a charge of rape, because her daughter had suffered that fate in the hand of gangsters. I personally declined presiding over divorce proceedings as magistrate because core Christian faith is against it. However, my approach was always to use mediation and other ADR methods to reconcile the parties. Assuming, all the dramatis personae here are law teachers with the “Pedagogicalism power” to influence like the sex education teacher above, what would happen to innocent litigants in their courts?

Training and appointment of judges in Nigeria

In Nigeria, although Judges are not appointed straight from the law school, they are however, appointed from the bulk of generally trained lawyers. The appointment of a person to the office of a Judge of a State High Court is made by the Governor of the State on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council,[12] to be appointed, he must have been a lawyer licensed to practice in Nigeria, with no less than ten years post qualification.[13]

The training received at the law school is still from naturally biased law teachers, who train the lawyers for all purposes: as solicitors, advocates, academics and judges. As I put in one of our earlier works:

Nigerian lawyers are trained for all purposes (solicitors, advocates, judicial officers and academics) using the same curriculum. … One fact is clear, a good prosecutor turned Judge may bring his bias against defendants as a Judge or magistrate. Similarly, a public defender turned a Judge will be naturally biased against the state or similar plaintiffs. A Judge without judicial training will not draw a line as to his role as an unbiased arbiter. He simply employs his personal and emotional idiosyncrasies in deciding public fate.[14]

How to ensure that the teachers' bias does not affect the results of students who may have different ideological placement

Although bias is inevitable part of human personality. What we need to do is to identify our hidden biases so that we may take a conscious decision to deal with it as teachers, lawyers and judges. We recommend the following to law teachers and justice educators:

1. Allow students to easily express their mind and opinion
2. Teach the law as it is, not how you think it should be
3. Be open minded and shun personal idiosyncrasies
4. Have a positive attitude to issues and various phenomenon
5. Recognize your students’ diverse perceptions of life, race, colour, crime, morality, religion etc.
6. Don’t yell at people
7. Don’t easily criticizing students
8. Don’t basically shut them off from a true dialog
9. Don’t have an already made opinion to sum up with. E.g.

“By and large, Islam is a violent religion and prone to crimes of terror”

10.Don’t bring personal prejudices to class. Listen to this:

“I think the worst thing is to assume/pre-judge these other teachers are evil because they are ignorant….because they are white/Italian/Greek/etc., that they can’t appreciate or understand what oppressed immigrant minorities experience; or assume that the only way to “work on them” is through some kind of forced methodology”.[15]

11. Teachers can consider ways to regularly integrate all anti-bias goals and issues into all aspects of their curriculum and methods.[16]

12. Cooperative learning is the best method for developing anti-bias awareness and knowledge. Everyone needs the diverse perspectives and honest feedback of peers to develop new insights and teaching practices.[17]

1. In any contentious matter, put your self on the other side of the divide, and see if they are any senses in what the other person is saying. You may be amazed, there would be!

1. Try using other teaching methods with more force and consciousness to confront or minimise bias as a law teacher.

Conclusion

A belief in the value of human diversity and the fair treatment of all people is a prerequisite for doing anti-bias work. When law teachers become committed to minimizing bias, the profession would have sound image and unbiased judges would better serve humanity. In jurisdictions where judges may be appointed straight out of law schools, as in India, the law school teacher should focus on judicial skills with bias minimisationmethods as crucial to the judicial system.

[1] Article Source: uploaded 7th July 2011.

[2] See Eric Digest (1992) Implementing an Anti-Bias Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms in

[3] Including those who teach them at home

[4] Eric Digest, op cit.

[5] See a study conducted in Australia by James, Nick "The Good Law Teacher: The Propagation of Pedagogicalism in Australian Legal Education" [2004] UQLRS 3; (2004) 27 (1) University of New South Wales Law Journal, 147-169, Last Updated: 7 May 2009

[6]This addition is mine and doest form part of the Australian model.

[7] James, Nick --- "The Good Law Teacher: The Propagation of Pedagogicalism in Australian Legal Education" [2004] UQLRS 3; (2004) 27 (1) University of New South Wales Law Journal, 147-169, Last Updated: 7 May 2009

[8] See the abstract of James paper, ibid.

[9]Unfortunately, the present writer has fallen into a similar error like James Nick. He ambitiously presupposed that the clinical law teacher which he added to the divergent views of the concept of a good teacher is devoid of bias in his teaching debriefings and wrap ups

[10] Other wise called “Pedagogicalism-as-power” by the proponents.

[11] Coined for Australian law teaching, modeled by Dr James Nick John James

[12] Section 271 (1) (2), Constitution of the FederalRepublic of Nigeria 1999

[13] Section 271 (3), Constitution of the FederalRepublic of Nigeria 1999

[14] Paper presented by Presented by Prof Ved Kumari, Amari Omaka et al at the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) conference in Honolulu, Hawaii 2010 and submitted to The Globe for publication.

[15]Statement by an anti-bias crusader, La Flecha, Former Print & TV Journalist, now an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher at an elementary school in NYC, via the NYCTF. Passionate about multilingualism and cross-cultural exchanges, immigrant/human rights, technology in the classroom, & changing the world, dammit. Posted by La Flecha on February 9, 2010 in

[16] See Eric Digest (1992) Implementing an Anti-Bias Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms in

[17] Eric Digest, Ibid.