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A Republican state lawmaker is voicing concern over a mandatory DEI class at Penn State Dickinson Law recently flagged during a congressional hearing that led to the law school dean’s apparent demotion.
“A college institution that’s receiving federal funds in my district should be following the federal law,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Barbara Gleim said in a recent interview with The College Fix, citing President Donald Trump’s executive order to end illegal discrimination in higher education
But the law school teaches “critical pedagogy” intended to inspire “a political act of liberation” in students, she said via email.
“This goes way beyond what should be actually taught in class for a law student,” Gleim said.
At issue is a mandatory course called “Race & Equal Protection of Law” that is still a requirement at both Penn State law school campuses for the coming 2026-27 school year, according to the Dickinson Law fall 2026 course list.
The course remains required even though it was the subject of a federal civil rights complaint in May and a heated Congressional testimony in late July before a House Oversight Committee.
Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog organization, filed the complaint to several federal agencies accusing the law school of pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and “institutional antiracism” in its curriculum, admissions, and hiring. It cited the school’s own Strategic Plan as evidence.
David Blackman, a former student at Penn State Dickinson Law, testified on July 22 that the course, required for first-year law students, is designed “to teach the structure of the nation’s constitutional democracy through the ‘lens of enslavement and racism.'”
Blackman was denied a waiver for the course, prompting him to withdraw from Dickinson Law.
He told The College Fix the course’s curriculum seeks to discredit the law itself as a tool of racism.
“For years now, every law student who’s come through Penn State Dickinson Law has had to sit and be told that law enforcement is racist, the law is racist, and it needs to be overturned,” Blackman said via email.
“These are 1Ls who decided they wanted to go fight and uphold the law in our nation’s courts, and they’re being told that the very laws that they chose to defend are racist and should be overturned,” he said.
Blackman, in his testimony, said the course was created in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
“On my very first day of class, faculty … framed the course’s intent as dismantling ‘systems of oppression,’ a mandate they described as being ‘baked into’ the law school’s DNA,” Blackman told lawmakers.
Students were taught that “the fundamental problem with the American legal system is ‘white supremacy’ and ‘patriarchy,’ framing the justice system purely as an instrument of ‘racial subordination,'” he said.
The Penn State law school dean behind the controversial course stepped down as dean just days after the hearing. In a news release, the university announced Dean Danielle Conway would return to the school’s faculty “effective immediately.”
“In 2021, Conway launched the Antiracist Development Institute at Penn State Dickinson Law, which aims to dismantle structures that scaffold systemic racial inequality using a three-pillar approach based on systems design, institutional antiracism and critical pedagogy,” the news release stated.
“She also was instrumental in guiding Penn State Dickinson Law’s development of a civil rights, equal protection and social justice certificate program,” it added.
Penn State Dickinson Law and Protect the Public’s Trust did not return The College Fix’s request for comment.
Although Penn State’s news release simply said Conway was leaving her position as dean, Intellectual Property Law Clinic Director Jonathan D’Silva said Conway “characterized the move as a termination” in a call with her own executive staff, Penn Live reported Tuesday.
MORE: Penn State law school still requires students to take ‘antiracism’ class
