Law Commons^™

Affirmative Action After Sffa, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

In SFFA v. Harvard (SFFA), the Supreme Court further restricted a university’s right to consider the racial identity of individual applicants during admissions. The ruling has spawned considerable confusion regarding a university’s ongoing ability to pursue racial diversity, racial inclusion, and other equality-oriented goals—whether through “raceconscious” or “race-neutral” means. To assist institutions attempting to navigate the ruling, this article outlines a set of key legal rights and responsibilities that universities continue to possess following SFFA.

Deficit Frame Dangers, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Civil rights advocates have long viewed litigation as an essential, if insufficient, catalyst of social change. In part, it is. But in critical respects that remain underexplored in legal scholarship, civil rights litigation can hinder short- and long-term projects of racial justice.

Specifically, certain civil rights doctrines reward plaintiffs for emphasizing community deficits—or what I term a “deficit frame.” Legal doctrine, in other words, invites legal narratives that track, activate, and reinforce pernicious racial stereotypes. This dynamic, even in the context of well-intended litigation, risks entrenching conditions that drive racial inequality—including the conditions that litigation is often intended to address. …

Free Expression On Campus: Mitigating The Costs Of Contentious Speakers, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

“If you’re afraid to offend, you can’t be honest.”

“If you offend me, I can’t hear what you’re trying to tell me.”

—overheard on campus

The debate over how colleges and universities should respond to contentious guest speakers on campus is not a new one. A quick look back to the early 1990s, among other times, shows commentators squaring off much as they do today about the tensions between protecting free expression and ensuring meaningful equality.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the issues that contested speakers address are also much the same as they have been for several decades – government action …

Toward A Race-Conscious Pedagogy In Legal Education, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Faculty Scholarship

It is both an honor and a pleasure to write the Foreword for this issue of the National Black Law Journal. This project represents the culmination of a joint effort involving the NBLJ, Dean Susan Westerberg Prager and me. The project grew out of discussions that began in the Spring of 1987 in which we explored various ways that the law school could support the production of publishable student material for the Journal. I initially considered sponsoring interested students in independent research projects; however, a high level of student interest, an obvious overlap between proposed student topics, and my …