Logan was already awake when his alarm sounded at 4:00 am. Seven hundred miles stretched ahead of him and with them, the uncertainty of uprooting his family for a dream. Logan along with his spouse and child were moving away from family, friends, work, and everything familiar so he could begin his journey in law school.
As Logan drove ahead of his spouse and child, he reflected on his motivations for entering law school after working in student affairs for two years. Logan chose law school to become a hybrid higher education leader, one grounded in both educational practice and legal expertise to dismantle barriers that prevent marginalized student populations from accessing and thriving in college. And as Sarah Redfield argues in her article The Convergence Of Education And Law: A New Class Of Educators And Lawyers, education and law have also become increasingly intertwined and complex, requiring a new type of lawyer and administrator that is versed in the complexities of both the law and educational administration to effectively function in the complex regulatory field of education. Being an administrator with formal training in law would allow Logan to better navigate the numerous federal, state, and local statutes affecting education and better serve an increasingly diverse student population.[1]
Law School Culture Shock
Getting accepted into law school was only the first barrier. Logan was older than most applicants, established in a job he loved, married, and had a baby. Becoming a new father made leaving his extended family and existing support system even more difficult.
On the first day of orientation Logan was repeatedly asked, “What kind of law do you want to practice?” While he intended to return to higher education in a leadership role leveraging his legal training to promote systemic change through legislation and policy, Logan struggled to convince classmates why a law degree would be valuable outside of the courtroom. The assumption from fellow law students was that there is only one career path for individuals entering law school, and the only way to institute any change is within the court room, litigating matters. The question that echoed through his ears, “If you are not planning to practice in the courtroom, why waste your time and money going to law school?”
Unfortunately, this narrow view extended beyond peers. Professors routinely framed success through law firm culture, such as courtroom demeanor, billable hours, and high-paying clients. These messages ignored the larger purpose of what a law degree can do to enhance employment opportunities. A law degree does not just prepare an individual to take the bar exam; it equips leaders to challenge inequitable systems, reform institutions, and expand access to justice beyond the courtroom.
Why Higher Education?
When Logan graduated from his hometown university, he became a fourth-generation graduate of Southern Utah University, with deep ties that extended beyond academics. Logan’s father, instilled in him the transformative power of education and the inspiration to widen access for others.
Living and serving in Latinx communities deepened Logan’s commitment. For several years he worked with immigrant families who viewed education as generational hope. He provided community service and tutoring to individuals in these communities, many of whom were immigrants. He saw the sacrifices they made so that their children would have opportunities the parents could only dream of. He also saw the inequities and forced survival labor that individuals from these communities had to endure despite having high levels of education. One father, a Venezuelan therapist with a master’s degree, had to stock shelves at a grocery store overnight, and Honduran parents with bachelor’s degrees were forced to work manual labor to provide the basics for their children. These are examples that education opened some doors, but inequitable systems kept many others closed.
After graduating with his bachelor’s degree Logan secured a role as an academic advisor, further igniting his passion for student success goals. In this role, he became increasingly aware of how the intersections of students’ identities impacted the types of barriers or privileges they faced in obtaining a degree. Logan remembers speaking with one student, who was a mother and a member of the Navajo nation, about the obstacles she faced maintaining a high GPA to preserve tribal funding while serving as her child’s primary caregiver. Her story revealed how policy structure, though seemingly neutral, disproportionately burdened marginalized students. These interactions made him think deeply about barriers individuals face in pursuing higher education and how policies work to enforce those barriers. These experiences shaped his purpose in student affairs to lead systemic reform in higher education so that opportunity is not determined by identity.
Motivation for Law School
When Logan explained his path, people often asked, “Why law school instead of a Ph.D.?” Throughout his educational journey, he reflected on the challenges he faced pursuing an education in a rural community and his experiences working with Latinx populations providing community service and tutoring. He became increasingly aware of systemic barriers that marginalized groups faced in accessing higher education.
Logan’s academic background in public administration and political science taught him three important things. First, policy is power, one that can expand opportunity for some, while disadvantaging others. Policy reflects values, and those values shape whose needs are prioritized. Second, law shapes institutions, influencing everything from how students and employees experience campus life to how offices, curriculum, and resources are structured. Law determines the boundaries of what institutions can do, making it a quiet but constant force in everyday decision making. Finally, institutions shape opportunities, not only during a student’s tenure on campus, but across their lifetime beyond graduation. Institutions create conditions that influence who struggles and whose potential is fully recognized. Logan needed fluency in the language of the law to effectively address structural barriers in higher education.
Finding Alignment Through Inclusive Excellence
Logan’s first year of law school was disorienting, and he seriously questioned his decision to attend law school. He questioned whether he belonged and if he was chasing the right goal. Clarity came when he secured a graduate assistantship in the Office of Inclusive Excellence. There, his legal training and higher education experience converged. Logan co-led listening sessions with multicultural student organizations to identify gaps in inclusion efforts. He supported critical reading initiatives where participants challenged dominant narratives about equity and belonging. Dr. Nicholas Wright served not only as his supervisor, but also as someone to guide Logan in the higher education profession. With his supervisor’s mentorship, Logan pursued grant funding, facilitated workshops, and advanced policy reforms aimed at reducing barriers for marginalized students.
Coursework in employment discrimination, equal protection, women’s rights, and colonialism came to life as he applied what he was learning in the classroom to his position. Logan helped develop a workshop on microaggressions and utilized his knowledge of employment discrimination to inform his efforts to ensure that workshop participants would understand that microaggressions are not only demeaning to those targeted but may constitute actionable discrimination in the legal context. After completing coursework in law and colonialism, the land acknowledgment Logan and Dr. Wright included in Inclusive Excellence presentations became more than a performative measure and challenged them to reflect on what efforts he could make in his role to further the land acknowledgment from statement to practice.
Logan saw how his law degree could power equity-centered leadership roles within the field of higher education. He saw connections specifically related to positions such as Dean of Students, Title IX Coordinator, or Director of Human Resources. Law became Logan’s tool for institutional transformation.
Reclaiming Higher Education as a Site of Justice
American higher education is celebrated as a pathway to mobility, yet access remains stratified. Financial aid cuts, rising tuition, and the digital divide disproportionately exclude rural and low-income communities. Legal history underscores these inequities. In State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, where Lloyd Gaines was denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School.
Lloyd Gaines was a fully qualified Black applicant, but he was denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School because the university barred Black students by policy. Missouri argued it could satisfy “separate but equal” requirements by paying for him to attend law school in another state. Gaines challenged this structure directly, arguing that Missouri had a constitutional duty to provide equal, in‑state legal education rather than exporting Black students elsewhere. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed, ruling that the state must either admit him or create a truly equal law school for Black students within Missouri. But despite his legal victory, Gaines never enrolled. Before the state complied with the ruling, he disappeared in 1939 under unresolved circumstances and was never seen again. He therefore never attended or graduated from the University of Missouri, a stark reminder that even when the law recognizes injustice, institutional power and inequity can still determine who ultimately gains access to opportunity. This reinforces the role of power and inequity, even in the face of legal victory.
[2] Despite formal legal victories, Black students continued to face racial barriers to entering institutions of higher education. While policies and laws prohibiting individuals from attending higher education based on race may no longer be overtly practiced, the effects of those historical barriers are still seen today.
Institutions where the founders claimed a mission to educate Indigenous communities yet denied admission to Indigenous students and only enrolled White students is a contradiction of American higher education. Dartmouth is a clear example, founded in 1769 with an explicit charter to educate Indigenous youth, it quickly shifted resources, recruitment, and instruction toward White students, while Indigenous enrollment remained minimal for decades. This pattern was not simply exclusion, it was erasure of Indigenous language, culture, and identity through assimilation. This contradiction exposes how institutions have publicly claimed benevolent intent while simultaneously reinforcing systems of power and inequity that marginalized the communities they claimed to serve.
Discrimination did not end with civil rights legislation, it evolved. While federal and state statutes have been passed, seeking to prevent and address discrimination based upon various protected classes, discrimination has persisted. Many assume inequality is a relic of the past, dismissing equity efforts as unnecessary. This perspective ignores how historical injustice shapes present outcomes, especially in the field of higher education. Equity work is not focusing on the past; it is accountability in action.
The current political climate underscores this evolution. Contemporary debates over voting rights legislation and redistricting laws show how policy continues to shape whose voices carry weight and whose are constrained. These modern examples mirror the same dynamics that once excluded Indigenous students from institutions founded in their name. Laws and policies that appear neutral can still produce unequal outcomes. These histories and present‑day realities reveal how institutional power operates across time. They remind us that exclusion is not always overt, and that institutions must confront both their origins and their ongoing responsibilities if they hope to create conditions where all communities can thrive.
Conclusion
Higher education changed Logan’s life. It revealed his potential as a human being and affirmed his worth. Every student deserves this opportunity. Barriers must be dismantled, and systems must be reformed to meet the needs of marginalized populations. Laws establish minimum standards, but justice demands more than compliance.
Logan plans to utilize his knowledge of the law to push higher education institutions toward not only complying with applicable laws but going beyond the minimum standards to promote justice and equity. By integrating legal expertise with an equity-centered framework, he aims to help higher education fulfill its promise as a site of access, belonging, and justice.
The road to law school began before sunrise on a more than 700-mile drive, but Logan knows the road ahead is longer. Although the journey ahead poses challenges, it is clear we will work to build systems where opportunity is not inherited privilege, but institutional commitment.
Author Biographies
Logan Florence (He/Him/His) is a graduate student in the Gonzaga University School of Law and serves as the Inclusive Excellence Graduate Coordinator at Gonzaga University. He previously has experience as an academic advisor supporting students, and he is committed to expanding belonging in higher education, drawing on experience in program evaluation, and equity‑focused policy work.
Nicholas Lamar Wright, Ph.D. (He/Him/His) is a champion of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility who is motivated to build inclusive cultures for all people to express authenticity. He is a nationally recognized, award-winning higher education leader, scholar, and practitioner who identifies as a multiracial (Black/White) man with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dr. Wright serves as an Assistant Vice President at Gonzaga University.
[1] Redfield, Sarah E. The Convergence Of Education And Law: A New Class Of Educators And Lawyers. 36 Ind. L. Rev. 609 (2003).
[2] State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).