ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Social Inclusion in Cities
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsc.2025.1618450
Bridging the Divide: The Role of HBCU Law Schools in Addressing the Equitable Development Goals of US Metropolitan Areas
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., United States
- 2Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C., United States
- 3Lehman College, Bronx, New York, United States
- 4University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, United States
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This article explores the role of the clinical law programs of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and their role in advancing equitable development in urban communities which have been impacted by disinvestment, redlining, and gentrification. Building on the legacy of the Great Migration and subsequent urban decline, the communities where the six HBCU law schools, accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), are located have experienced a range of development challenges. They are Orlando, Florida, Durham, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Houston, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The study examines whether these law schools deliver what their stated priorities promise, namely, to meaningfully contribute to the equitable development goals of the communities where they are located. Using a systematic review of publicly available documents as well as case study materials from the five metro areas, the study reveals a strong alignment between the clinical work offered by the law schools in our sample and the development needs of the metropolitan areas where they are located. These alignments are particularly evident in the areas of affordable housing, youth advocacy, immigration, and economic justice. While the study is limited by its reliance on publicly available data, the findings suggest that HBCU law schools and their clinical programs provide critical contributions to the civic infrastructure of US metropolitan areas seeking to achieve equitable urban revitalization. The findings also identify opportunities for further research, to investigate the dynamics between law school clinical programs and equitable community development in more depth.
Keywords: urban revitalization1, legal clinics2, gentrification3, HBCU4, law schools5
Received: 26 Apr 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Akintobi, O'Hara, Harrison and Brittain. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Adeshola Akintobi, College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., United States
Sabine O'Hara, College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., United States
Elgloria Harrison, Lehman College, Bronx, 10468, New York, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.