Law and Race Commons^™

The Remedial Rationale After Sffa, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA) limiting the ability of higher education institutions to use race as a factor to advance diversity in the student body, at least one prominent commentator suggested that universities should now justify their affirmative action policies based not on diversity but on the need to remedy discrimination. Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion deems diversity — the rationale established in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and affirmed in Grutter v. Bollinger — a “commendable” goal. But the …

Corporate Racial Responsibility, Gina-Gail S. Fletcher, H. Timothy Lovelace Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The 2020 mass protests in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor had a significant impact on American corporations. Several large public companies pledged an estimated $50 billion to advancing racial equity and committed to various initiatives to internally improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. While many applauded corporations’ willingness to engage with racial issues, some considered it further evidence of corporate capitulation to extreme progressivism at shareholders’ expense. Others, while thinking corporate engagement was long overdue, critiqued corporate commitment as insincere.

Drawing on historical evidence surrounding the passage of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of …

(How) Can Litigation Advance Multiracial Democracy?, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Can rights litigation meaningfully advance social change in this moment? Many progressive or social justice legal scholars, lawyers, and advocates would argue “no.” Constitutional decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court thwart the aims of progressive social movements. Further, contemporary social movements often decenter courts as a primary domain of social change. In addition, a new wave of legal commentary urges progressives to de-emphasize courts and constitutionalism, not simply tactically but as a matter of democratic survival.

This Essay considers the continuing role of rights litigation, using the litigation over race-conscious affirmative action as an illustration. Courts are a key …