Law Commons^™

Mandatory Anti-Bias Cle: A Serious Problem Deserves A More Meaningful Response, Rima Sirota

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay addresses the problematic convergence of two recent trends: (1) the expansion of jurisdictions requiring anti-bias training (ABT) as part of mandatory continuing legal education (CLE), and (2) the growing recognition among social scientists that such training, at least as currently practiced, is of limited effectiveness.

Forty-six American states require continuing legal education (CLE), and eleven of these states now require lawyer ABT as one facet of CLE requirements. I have previously criticized the mandatory CLE system because so little evidence supports the conclusion that it results in more competent lawyers. The central question tackled by this essay is …

The Social Psychology Of Inclusion: How Diversity Framing Shapes Outcomes For Racial-Ethnic Minorities, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Research on the efficacy of organizational diversity efforts has yielded mixed results. It remains unclear when positive or negative outcomes should be expected, and why. This article fills a gap in the sociological literature by examining critical social psychological mechanisms. In Experiment 1, I found that common diversity messaging led to increased bias towards racial minorities. In Experiment 2, I examined how alternative framing may influence these outcomes. Findings revealed that the common “business case” emphasizing profit and performance gains made decision-makers less likely to select a Black job candidate than emphasizing civil rights law. I then examined social psychological …

Kicked Out, Kicked Again: The Discharge Review Boards’ Illiberal Application Of Liberal Consideration For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Jessica Lynn Wherry

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In recent years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has responded to the growing awareness of mental health issues for military servicemembers during and after service. This Article focuses on veterans who have already been discharged from service, and specifically those who have been discharged under other-than-honorable conditions for misconduct that is likely the result of a mental health condition, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, sexual assault, or sexual harassment. Thousands of former servicemembers have been kicked out of the military for misconduct rather than treated for mental health conditions they experienced due to their military service. When …

(Not The) Same Old Story: Invisible Reasons For Rejecting Invisible Wounds, Jessica Lynn Wherry

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thousands of former military servicemembers have been discharged with other-than-honorable discharges due to misconduct that can be traced to a mental health condition. These veterans may request a post-discharge change to their discharge characterization—known as a “discharge upgrade.” Discharge review boards consider discharge upgrade requests and typically (90-99% of the time) deny the requests. In the past few years, the Department of Defense has issued new policy guidance partly in response to the low grant rate and to specifically address the growing understanding of the relationship between misconduct and mental health conditions for military servicemembers. The policy guidance requires the …

How Copyright Law Can Fix Artificial Intelligence's Implicit Bias Problem, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to spread, we have seen an increase in examples of AI systems reflecting or exacerbating societal bias, from racist facial recognition to sexist natural language processing. These biases threaten to overshadow AI’s technological gains and potential benefits. While legal and computer science scholars have analyzed many sources of bias, including the unexamined assumptions of its often homogenous creators, flawed algorithms, and incomplete datasets, the role of the law itself has been largely ignored. Yet just as code and culture play significant roles in how AI agents learn about and act in the …

Upending Status: A Comment On Switching, Inequality, And The Idea Of The Reasonable Person, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article reviews Murder and the Reasonable Man: Passion and Fear in the Criminal Courtroom, by Cynthia Lee (2003).

Cynthia Lee has written a hard-hitting and insightful book on bias and the law of homicide. Her purpose is to document how murder law’s “reasonable person” may absorb the unreason of prejudice in its various forms (from biases of race to gender to sexual orientation). Doctrinally, Lee’s book is wide-ranging and ambitious, covering a variety of standard defenses, such as provocation (chs. 1–3) and self-defense (chs. 5–7), in contexts ranging from excessive use of force to intimate homicide, from hate …