Jody Armour

Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism

New York University Press eBooks, Jun 11, 2020

Stereotypes and Prejudice: Helping Legal Decisionmakers Break the Prejudice Habit

California Law Review, May 1, 1995

Courts are reluctant to allow attorneys to bring the issue ofprejudice into the open at trial. Ju... more Courts are reluctant to allow attorneys to bring the issue ofprejudice into the open at trial. Judges have barred attorneys who represent socially marginalized clients from pointing out that their client comes from a stereotyped group on the grounds that such references "'play to the prejudices of the jury." Although many legal commentators stress the need to reduce bias in legal proceedings, few commentators have considered whether the colorblind formalism advocated by courts actually helps legal decision makers avoid discrimination. This Article argues that colorblind formalism is counterproductive in reducing discrimination, and it develops an empirically grounded frameworkfor combating unconscious discrimination. After demonstrating the shortcomings of the "unconscious racism" model that has been the focus of much debate among legal commentators, the author draws on recent research in social and cognitive psychology to distinguish between stereotypes and prejudice. The Article defines stereotypes as welllearned internal associations about social groups that are governed by automatic cognitive processes. In contrast, prejudice consists of a set of

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Race Ipsa Loquitur: Of Reasonable Racists, Intelligent Bayesians, and Involuntary Negrophobes

Stanford Law Review, Apr 1, 1994

In this article, Professor Armour explores some of the legal implications of the disturbing notio... more In this article, Professor Armour explores some of the legal implications of the disturbing notion that, given the perception that blacks are more prone to commit violent acts than nonblacks, it is rational for criminal defendants claiming self-defense to consider race in assessing the risk of violence posed by a supposed assailant. Professor Armour identifies three distinct types of selfdefense claims that a defendant may advance, each of which requires the introduction of race-based evidence and arguments to establish the reasonableness of the defendant's actions. While recognizing that a supposed assailant's race may be formally relevant under self-defense doctrine, Professor Armour argues against legal recognition of race-based self-defense claims. Professor Armour's thesis implicates a wide array of jurisprudential concerns: the nature of the moral norm implicit in the reasonable person test; the acceptability of using statistical generalizations in adjudication; and the conflict between instrumental and noninstrumental thinking about legal liability. Professor Armour ultimately concludes that admitting race-based evidence in self-defense cases gives effect to private prejudice in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

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Toward a Tort-Based Theory of Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and Racial Justice

Loyola of Los Angeles law review, 2005

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Interpretive Construction, Systemic Consistency, and Criterial Norms in Tort Law

Vanderbilt Law Review, Apr 1, 2001

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Nigga Theory: Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity in the Substantive Criminal Law

Some will find the N-word in my title jagged-edged and hurtful. Words can wound: more than mere v... more Some will find the N-word in my title jagged-edged and hurtful. Words can wound: more than mere vehicles for the expression of ideas or the transfer of information, words are deeds-acts with consequences-and the words "nigger" and "nigga" are two of the most violent and blood-soaked verbal acts in the English language. Nevertheless, used with the precision and reticence of a surgeon's hands, these vicious epithets can also suture the places where blood flows. In that spirit, in profane language picked for its unparaphrasable power to focus attention on the implications of moral condemnation for racial justice and political solidarity, I use these jagged epithets here as part of a metaphoric redescription, in racial terms, of the criminal law's ancient subjective culpability or mens rea requirement. In this essay, in other words, a "nigga" is a metaphor for black wickedness, black mens rea, which I will use to probe the intersection of morality, race, and class in matters of blame and punishment and politics. An example of a non-racialized metaphor for mens rea would be the common law's "depraved heart" test of murderous mens rea in cases of unintentional homicidethe jury is given the depraved heart metaphor and told to use it as the litmus test. Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law, University of Southern California Law School. I dedicate this Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law article to the Ohio State Law School students who in the late 1960s helped my wrongfully convicted dad find the key to his own jailhouse door in the hornbooks, casebooks, treatises and reporters that they provided. #PoeticJustice.

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Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism

Forward LA, Performance: Mic Sessions, Youth, and Emotional Literacy, 2017-04-27

Forward LA: Race, Arts, and Inclusive Placemaking after the 1992 Civil Unrest conference, Perform... more Forward LA: Race, Arts, and Inclusive Placemaking after the 1992 Civil Unrest conference, Performance: Mic Sessions, Youth, and Emotional Literacy. For over three decades Mic Sessions and Aim4theHeart.org (AIM) has utilized arts as a vehicle to teach emotional literacy to youth and the incarcerated. This panel was led by founder Leila Steinberg, whose work helped shaped the legendary artist Tupac Shakur, and collaborator USC Law Professor Jody Armour who speaks about the power of art as disruption, 2017 April 27-28.

For the Commander

The ideas and findings in this report should not be construed as an official DoD position. It is ... more

Where Bias Lives in the Criminal Law and Its Processes: How Judges and Jurors Socially Construct Black Criminals

California. Armour's expertise ranges from personal injury claims to claims about the relationshi... more California. Armour's expertise ranges from personal injury claims to claims about the relationship between racial justice, criminal justice, and the mle of law. Armour studies the intersection of race and legal decision making as well as torts and tort reform movements. Armour earned his AB degree in Sociology at Harvard University and his JD degree with honors from Boalt Hall Law School at UC

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Law, Language, and Politics

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, 2020

This Article celebrates the creative role of language in producing profound social change. It the... more This Article celebrates the creative role of language in producing profound social change. It therefore argues for great circumspection in regulations of hate speech that may be used to limit socially oppressed groups' access to the words and symbols they view as most forceful and effective in political communication. Although many thoughtful racial-justice advocates support hate speech codes in the interest of racial equality, the Author worries that such regulation can actually hinder the fight for racial equality by being turned against members of marginalized groups who seek to deploy disruptive language in their discourse of resistance and struggle for equality. To explore these issues, the Article discusses current social contests over the meaning of the Confederate Flag and the N-word, two forms of symbolic communication often associated with hateful thoughts and deeds. It examines whether their hateful histories are baked into the meaning of each, so that any use of either constitutes hate speech, or if their meanings are mutable and contestable. The Article links these questions to ones about the mutability and contestability of the words that make up the legal lexicon, many of which have also been associated with rank racial discrimination. Drawing on Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and George Lakoff, it outlines a social theory of meaning that affirms the radical agency of the legal lexicon-and indeed of all language-and counsels against blanket prohibitions on disruptive or transgressive forms of symbolic communication. It argues that the language of lawyers and laypersons alike lack fixed and frozen meanings and, therefore, even the vilest forms of symbolic communication can be put to novel, or even revolutionary, legal, political, and artistic uses.

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Nigga Theory: Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity in the Substantive Criminal Law

Some will find the N-word in my title jagged-edged and hurtful. Words can wound: more than mere v... more Some will find the N-word in my title jagged-edged and hurtful. Words can wound: more than mere vehicles for the expression of ideas or the transfer of information, words are deeds—acts with consequences—and the words “nigger” and “nigga” are two of the most violent and blood-soaked verbal acts in the English language. Nevertheless, used with the precision and reticence of a surgeon’s hands, these vicious epithets can also suture the places where blood flows. In that spirit, in profane language picked for its unparaphrasable power to focus attention on the implications of moral condemnation for racial justice and political solidarity, I use these jagged epithets here as part of a metaphoric redescription, in racial terms, of the criminal law’s ancient subjective culpability or mens rea requirement. In this essay, in other words, a “nigga” is a metaphor for black wickedness, black mens rea, which I will use to probe the intersection of morality, race, and class in matters of blame an...

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Stereotypes and Prejudice: Helping Legal Decisionmakers Break the Prejudice Habit

California Law Review, 1995

Courts are reluctant to allow attorneys to bring the issue ofprejudice into the open at trial. Ju... more Courts are reluctant to allow attorneys to bring the issue ofprejudice into the open at trial. Judges have barred attorneys who represent socially marginalized clients from pointing out that their client comes from a stereotyped group on the grounds that such references "'play to the prejudices of the jury." Although many legal commentators stress the need to reduce bias in legal proceedings, few commentators have considered whether the colorblind formalism advocated by courts actually helps legal decision makers avoid discrimination. This Article argues that colorblind formalism is counterproductive in reducing discrimination, and it develops an empirically grounded frameworkfor combating unconscious discrimination. After demonstrating the shortcomings of the "unconscious racism" model that has been the focus of much debate among legal commentators, the author draws on recent research in social and cognitive psychology to distinguish between stereotypes and prejudice. The Article defines stereotypes as welllearned internal associations about social groups that are governed by automatic cognitive processes. In contrast, prejudice consists of a set of

Download

Bring The Noise

Boston College Law Review, 1999

Berkeley (Boalt Thanks to Connie Kimbell and the editors of the Boston College Law Review for the... more

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Software Product Liability

Toward a Tort-Based Theory of Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and Racial Justice

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Interpretive Construction, Systemic Consistency, and Criterial Norms in Tort Law

Vand. L. Rev., 2001

Interpretive Construction, Systemic Consistency, and Criterial Norms in Tort Law Jody David Armou... more

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Race Ipsa Loquitur: Of Reasonable Racists, Intelligent Bayesians, and Involuntary Negrophobes

Stanford Law Review, 1994

In this article, Professor Armour explores some of the legal implications of the disturbing notio... more In this article, Professor Armour explores some of the legal implications of the disturbing notion that, given the perception that blacks are more prone to commit violent acts than nonblacks, it is rational for criminal defendants claiming self-defense to consider race in assessing the risk of violence posed by a supposed assailant. Professor Armour identifies three distinct types of selfdefense claims that a defendant may advance, each of which requires the introduction of race-based evidence and arguments to establish the reasonableness of the defendant's actions. While recognizing that a supposed assailant's race may be formally relevant under self-defense doctrine, Professor Armour argues against legal recognition of race-based self-defense claims. Professor Armour's thesis implicates a wide array of jurisprudential concerns: the nature of the moral norm implicit in the reasonable person test; the acceptability of using statistical generalizations in adjudication; and the conflict between instrumental and noninstrumental thinking about legal liability. Professor Armour ultimately concludes that admitting race-based evidence in self-defense cases gives effect to private prejudice in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

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