Law as Microagression
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Description
In January of 1988, the Chief Judge of the highest court of New York commissioned sixteen citizens to consider whether minorities in that state believe the court system to be biased. The answer was immediately apparent. With striking regularity minority people, in New York and elsewhere in the United States, report conviction that the law will work to their disadvantage. Every relevant opinion poll of which the Commission is aware finds that minorities are more likely than other Americans to doubt the fairness of the court system." Having quickly discovered evidence of a widespread minority perception of bias within the courts, the Commission was left to consider its causes. The causes are not easily established. Those who perceive the courts as biased admit that incidents of alleged bias are usually ambiguous; that systematic evidence of bias is difficult to compile; and that evidence of bias in some aspects of the justice system is balanced by evidence that the system acts to correct or to punish bias in other sectors of the society.
Source Publication
Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge
Source Editors/Authors
Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic
Publication Date
2013
Edition
3
Recommended Citation
Davis, Peggy C., "Law as Microagression" (2013). Faculty Chapters. 2071.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2071
