Robert K. Vischer (Dean, St. Thomas-MN; Google Scholar), Legal Education in an Age of Polarization, 18 St. Thomas L.J. __ (2022):

Americans have always disagreed about particular issues, but those disagreements have intensified, widened, and coalesced around shared identities that shape the ways in which we view the world. An increasingly impermeable boundary between broad factions in our society can be seen in recent disputes over vaccines, masks, the 2020 presidential election results, climate change, responses to systemic racism, police reform, immigration, and various issues at the intersection of religious belief and anti-discrimination law. As disagreements become more deeply rooted in our social identities, attorneys can no longer presume that conflict over a particular issue is what it seems on its face.

More and more frequently, that issue is but one component of a much broader set of beliefs that together comprise the great American red-blue social cleavage. Can attorneys build trust across our cultural divide, and can law schools prepare them to do so?