One of the most offensive slurs a Black person can call another Black person is an “Uncle Tom”. Taken from the leading character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, Uncle Tom – through his subservience to his slave masters and other white authority figures in his life – represents acquiescence to the peculiar institution of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, so any modern-day analogies are merely metaphorical. Yet, especially in the context of this course, the inquiry is a worthwhile one: are there 21st century “peculiar institutions” that threaten to enslave us, as law students, and evoke our inner Uncle Tom?