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Ambivalent Advocates: Why Elite Universities Compromised The Case For Affirmative Action, Jonathan Feingold
Ambivalent Advocates: Why Elite Universities Compromised The Case For Affirmative Action, Jonathan Feingold
Faculty Scholarship
“The end of affirmative action.” The headline is near. When it arrives, scholars will explain that a controversial set of policies could not withstand unfriendly doctrine and less friendly Justices. This story is not wrong. But it is incomplete. Critically, this account masks an underappreciated source of affirmative action’s enduring instability: elite universities, affirmative action’s formal champions, have always been ambivalent advocates.
Elite universities are uniquely positioned to shape legal and lay opinions about affirmative action. They are formal defendants in affirmative action litigation and objects of public obsession. And yet, schools like Harvard and the University of North Carolina—embroiled …
Deficit Frame Dangers, Jonathan Feingold
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. …
Getting At The Root Instead Of The Branch: Extinguishing The Stereotype Of Black Intellectual Inferiority In American Education, A Long-Ignored Transitional Justice Project, Camille Lamar Campbell
Getting At The Root Instead Of The Branch: Extinguishing The Stereotype Of Black Intellectual Inferiority In American Education, A Long-Ignored Transitional Justice Project, Camille Lamar Campbell
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Bakke’S Lasting Legacy: Redefining The Landscape Of Equality And Liberty In Civil Rights Law, Rachel F. Moran
Bakke’S Lasting Legacy: Redefining The Landscape Of Equality And Liberty In Civil Rights Law, Rachel F. Moran
Faculty Scholarship
The fortieth anniversary of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke is worth commemorating simply because the decision has survived. The United States Supreme Court’s opinion upholding the use of race in admissions has had remarkable staying power, even as other programs of affirmative action, for example, in government contracting, have been struck down as unconstitutional. That longevity might seem surprising because Bakke set forth an exacting standard of strict scrutiny under equal protection law that renders all race-based classifications suspect, whether government officials are motivated by benign or invidious purposes. That standard is one that few programs can …
For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Faculty Scholarship
This review essay analyzes Derrick Bell's provocative new book, Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (2004). In Silent Covenants, Professor Bell reviews Brown v. Board of Education, and inquires "whether another approach than the one embraced by the Brown decision might have been more effective and less disruptive in the always-contentious racial arena." Specifically, Professor Bell joins black conservatives in critiquing what he describes as a misguided focus on achieving racial balance in schools and argues that the quality of education for minority children, in particular Blacks, would have been better today …