Systemic Racism by Ruth Thompson-Miller & Kimberley Ducey

Author:Ruth Thompson-Miller & Kimberley Ducey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US, New York

Race in the Legal Field

The legal field offers a particularly useful site in which to assess how white racial framing shapes black professional women and men’s work lives, as well as the counter-frames that they are able to establish. As Feagin notes, there is a long history of anti-black discrimination enshrined in law. As early as colonial times, legal statutes legitimized slavery, allowed freed blacks to be returned to the south and re-enslaved, and established that blacks were not considered full human beings. In 1857, the US Supreme Court decided in the Dred Scott case that due to their race, blacks had no guaranteed rights to citizenship .

Post-slavery, white elites continued to enact legal decisions and statutes that enshrined their superordinate position relative to people of color . The Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) established the “separate but equal” doctrine. In doing so, the Court laid a legal foundation that would have enormous, far-reaching consequences, allowing states to establish laws that enforced segregation and Jim Crow policies. This decision meant that whites could openly—under the protection of the law—discriminate against people of color, denying them adequate, affordable housing, educational facilities, access to public spaces, and employment in certain jobs based solely on race.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), followed by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act , brought an end to the legal system’s unrestricted endorsement and support of openly racist doctrines. This does not mean, however, that the legal system has ceased to establish laws that contribute to racial inequalities . Despite ruling against segregation in the Brown decision, subsequent court cases have made it increasingly difficult for plaintiffs to use legal recourse when faced with racial discrimination. The courts have moved from a focus on the outcome of practices (e.g., disparate impact) to emphasizing intent. As such, if organizations can state that they did not mean to engage in practices that amount to discriminatory behaviors (which most can do simply by stating that they do not discriminate), then they can legally enact policies and guidelines that serve, in practice, to reproduce racial segregation and therefore perpetuate inequalities. 6

Apart from legal decisions handed down from the Supreme Court, various aspects of legal training reflect white racial framing as well. In her ethnography of elite law schools, sociologist Wendy Moore shows that the very process of legal training and socializing students to “think like a lawyer” involves a heavy reliance on common narratives , sincere fictions, and stereotypes inherent in the white racial frame. In particular, students learn that in the eyes of the law, individual intention trumps the outcome of an action. Thus, when they read cases where people of color offer accounts of racist violence, discrimination, or harassment, legal training encourages them to emphasize the perpetrator’s intent. This has the outcome of erasing the harm racist behavior visits upon people of color. Conveniently, however, it allows perpetrators to escape any ownership of or responsibility for the outcome of their actions.

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