Faculty Voices: Veronica Valentine McNally

Veronica Valentine McNally is the assistant dean for experiential education at MSU Law and directs the Geoffrey Fieger Trial Practice Institute.

Veronica graduated from MSU Law in 2004, where she earned a jurisprudence award for Trial Practice. She serves on the advisory committee of the Michigan Supreme Court Learning Center, and has served as a member of the State Bar of Michigan (SBM) Standing Committee on Character and Fitness (2005-13) and the SBM Young Lawyers Executive Council (2005-07). Law & Politics selected her as a Rising Star from 2010 through 2016. In 2016, she received a Master Advocate Designation from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

Veronica is a public health advocate. She is the president of the Franny Strong Foundation and founder of the I Vaccinate Campaign (IVaccinate.org). In 2018, she was named as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Childhood Immunization Champion for Michigan and was appointed by the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services to serve on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for a four-year term as ACIP’s consumer representative. In this role, she provides perspectives on the social and community aspects of vaccination. The ACIP develops recommendations on how to use vaccines to control disease in the United States.

With a pandemic looming on the horizon, on March 11, Michigan State University became one of the first universities in the country to move to virtual instruction. Within two hours of the announcement, our faculty adapted to online teaching in a dynamic and meaningful way. Just six weeks later, we finished our spring semester with a stay-at-home order in place in a world we never envisioned. And then, just days later, we experienced yet another shock to our senses—the senseless and tragic loss of George Floyd after the horrific losses of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

As humans, we depend on experiences, or the observation of the experiences of others, to understand the world. Today, our experiences and our observations continue to remind us that our world is more complicated than ever. COVID-19 has highlighted long-standing systemic health and social inequities, with some members of racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting COVID-19 or experiencing severe illness, regardless of age.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that among some racial and ethnic minority groups, including non-Hispanic Black persons, Hispanics and Latinos, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives, evidence points to higher rates of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 than among non-Hispanic white persons. Non-Hispanic Black persons have a rate approximately 5 times that of non-Hispanic white persons, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaskan Native persons have a rate of approximately 5 times that of non-Hispanic white persons, and Hispanic or Latino persons have a rate approximately 4 times that of non-Hispanic white persons.

Why does it take a crisis to truly focus the need for change and turn the tide on unacceptable issues and conditions in our society? We should not need to see a disproportionate number of minorities dying from COVID-19 to amplify the critical need to bring systemic change to public health. Nor, should it take the senseless and tragic killing of countless Black Americans to unify a movement to end racial injustice that has plagued our society. I hope we have reached an inflection point; I hope change is coming.

Now is the time to address the needs of these populations and now is the time to train the lawyers to do this important work. In my opinion, experiential education has never been more critical. In law school, experiential education methods include both simulated practice experiences and clinical experiences. This active method of teaching that integrates theory and practice by combining academic inquiry with actual experience will train the advocates of tomorrow to lead in law in many arenas, but perhaps most significantly now, in the arenas of social justice advocacy and public health advocacy.

At Michigan State University College of Law, we are proud to offer a diverse array of opportunities. With 8 clinics, the top-ranked competition program in the country, a trial practice institute, and a robust externship program, we are creating lawyer-leaders. Since our founding in 1891, we have focused on inclusiveness. It is this culture of inclusion, coupled with the advocacy skills developed through the opportunities of experiential learning, which positions our future lawyers to be leaders in advancing justice and delivering transformative change to racial injustice wherever it might be found.

We call on our community partners in education, our alumni, and our students to support us. There is power in legal education—let’s use it for change.