Mr. McKinney’s motto was “doing well by doing good,” and he exemplified this throughout his extraordinary life, serving his community, his state, and his nation with integrity and passion.
For many IU McKinney students, a law degree is only possible if they can pursue that dream while working and supporting families. The fall 2023 launch of our hybrid J.D. was the innovative transformation of our foundational part-time evening program.
The practice of law carries an extraordinary power: a heavy responsibility to do good while avoiding harm. For this reason, law schools must be held to the highest standards in educating future lawyers.
Programs such as IU McKinney’s Supporting Rural Justice Initiative seek to introduce more law students to the opportunities for fulfilling lives and careers experienced by those who practice in rural communities.
The 2022-23 academic year has begun at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
The pandemic affected virtually every aspect of the ways in which IU McKinney educates and trains students and transforms them into the next generation of lawyers. In response, the school articulated the goal that the law school would thrive — not merely survive.
When I recently saw the video of George Floyd’s extrajudicial killing by law enforcement, a familiar sense of anguish, fury, hopelessness, and malaise swept over me. So did a sense of helplessness. We had seen this video before, over the long and many years. We had read this story. And yet, I had never before witnessed such a starkly calm extinguishment of a human life — a Black human life.
The incoming dean of Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law says in a letter today that she has a duty and obligation as the school’s first black leader to speak out in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and protests that followed.