Creating Safe Spaces for Dialogue in Immigration Law

By Sharaban T. Zaman, Legal Studies

Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2025

The Teaching Problem: While teaching “Immigration and Citizenship” in the Legal Studies undergraduate program at the law school, I encountered a significant instructional challenge. Many students had personal or family experiences with immigration issues, making the subject emotionally charged. This created three specific problems: First, participation was uneven—students with immigration backgrounds often remained silent despite possessing valuable insights. Second, other students hesitated to engage for fear of saying something insensitive. Third, discussions frequently devolved into political talking points rather than substantive legal analysis. Collectively, these issues prevented the development of a comprehensive understanding of immigration law principles and hindered the creation of an inclusive learning environment.

The Solution: I developed a three-part approach to address these challenges:

First, I implemented anonymous case sharing where students could voluntarily submit personal immigration experiences through our course website without attribution. After reviewing for confidentiality, I incorporated these narratives alongside traditional cases, demonstrating how doctrine affects real people while protecting student privacy.

Second, I established rotating small groups with assigned roles based on legal perspectives (e.g., constitutional analyst, humanitarian advocate, enforcement officer). This structure required students to engage with multiple perspectives regardless of personal views, creating intellectual distance that facilitated more objective legal analysis.

Third, I designed a “building block” discussion format where debates progressed from established statutory language to increasingly complex interpretive questions. This approach ensured all students, regardless of background knowledge, could contribute meaningfully by referencing concrete legal texts before advancing to more theoretical discussions.

Assessment Method: I assessed this approach through three complementary methods:

Quantitatively, I tracked participation rates before and after implementation. Average student contributions increased by 34%, with the most significant gains among previously silent students. More importantly, participation became more evenly distributed, with the standard deviation of student speaking time decreasing by 47%.

Qualitatively, I conducted anonymous mid-semester feedback surveys asking specific questions about classroom comfort and learning. 83% of students reported feeling “more comfortable discussing sensitive immigration topics,” with 76% indicating they had “gained new perspectives” they wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

Finally, I evaluated learning outcomes by comparing early and late-semester written analyses. Final papers demonstrated measurable improvement in students’ ability to articulate multiple legal perspectives on immigration questions, with a 38% increase in the number of competing precedents and policy considerations integrated into their arguments.

This multifaceted approach created a learning environment where students could engage with sensitive immigration issues through a structured legal framework. By providing both intellectual and emotional scaffolding, students developed not only a deeper understanding of immigration law but also the capacity to discuss controversial legal issues with both analytical rigor and appropriate sensitivity—skills essential for future legal professionals.