Law Commons^™

What Men?: The Essentialist Error Of The End Of Men, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Many aspects of The End of Men are debatable. Among them is the critical issue of essentialism: do Rosin's claims about women withstand scrutiny when we ask, “Is this representative of all women?” While women as a group may have progressed in some domains, they have remained the same or worse in others, and some women have not progressed at all.

An even more significant shortcoming of The End of Men, however, is its essentialism about men. Rosin assumes a beginning, namely, men's prior place of power and privilege in the domains she addresses. To assume that is true of …

The R-Word: A Tribute To Derrick Bell, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Racism has become the “R-word,” an allegation that is so outrageous that it cannot even be spoken in public, let alone seriously addressed. In this brief exploration, I propose that it is exactly because racism continues to loom large in American society that talking about it has become taboo. In other words, banning the “R-word” serves a political function. It masks the failure of American society to confront the existence of racism and do something about its effects. Derrick Bell's path breaking work can be used to show why the focus of race discourse has moved from debating over what …

The Gender Bend: Culture, Sex, And Sexuality – A Latcritical Human Rights Map Of Latina/O Border Crossings, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the course of studying and theorizing about Latinas/os and their location in law and culture, critical theory has been simultaneously liberating and restraining, confining, and coercive. Critical theorists have made substantial inroads in recognizing the intersectionality, multidimensionality, multiplicity, and interconnectivities of the intersections of race and sex. These paradigms are central to an analysis of the Latina/o condition within the Estados Unidos (United States). However, much work remains to be done in other areas - such as culture, language, sexuality, and class - that are key to Latinas'/os' self-determination and full citizenship.

Cognizant of, and notwithstanding such limitations, this …

Progressive Race Blindness?: Individual Identity, Group Politics, And Reform, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

Critical Race Theorists advance race consciousness as a positive instrument for political and legal reform. A growing body of works by left-identified scholars, however, challenges this traditional progressive stance toward race consciousness. After summarizing the contours of this budding literature, this Article criticizes the "progressive race blindness" scholarship on several grounds and offers an alternative approach to race consciousness that balances skepticism towards the naturalness of race with a healthy appreciation of the realities of racial subjugation and identity.

Building Bridges Iv: Of Cultures, Colors, And Clashes--Capturing The International In Delgado's Chronicles, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Sex, race, gender, sexuality, color, religion, language, nationality, ethnicity, culture, poverty - socially constructed categories, social tropes that relegate "others" to subordinated positions in the varied and various cultural and economic marketplaces of both global and local societies. Richard Delgado's transformational work engages all of these tropes insightfully, disturbingly, and illuminatingly. His rich literature conceptualizes persons as multidimensional, complex beings and exposes society as the pre-fabricated stage in which diverse interactions evolve. Delgado's epistemological stance is fluid, non-rigid, and grounded on subjectivity.

In this essay I will focus on Delgado's latest book When Equality Ends: Stories About Race and Resistance. …

Sharing Space: Why Racial Goodwill Isn't Enough, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

Racism is understood by most White people to be an attitude of prejudice toward Blacks. In contrast, Blacks define racism more inclusively; it is a system of institutional preferences for Whites, resulting from historically ingrained prejudices Whites have against Blacks. People of goodwill are disinclined to attribute racial connotations to ordinary, everyday negative interactions involving Whites and people of color as long as the Whites are people of goodwill (people who do not think they have prejudiced attitudes). Second, goodwill comfort is important to maintain, causing many Whites to shy away from any discussions about race. People of goodwill have …

The Heart Of Equal Protection: Education And Race, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

Brown vs. Board of Education established more than the unconstitutionality of the separate but equal doctrine in public education. Brown also gave the importance of education a constitutional dimension. Involuntary racial segregation creates a stigma wherever it exists which indisputably affects all children's self-esteem by possibly undermining that of children of color and by artificially inflating that of White children. Unfortunately, more recent cases that raise questions about the right to a public education seem less willing to acknowledge the importance of education and the importance of integration in public education. Since Brown, the Court has held repeatedly that …