We Still Have Not Learned From Anita Hill's Testimony

Polish Journal of American Studies , 2008

S. Cal. L. Rev., 1991

1368 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 65:1367 Television added a different dimension to the process, which became a human drama when Professor Anita Hill's sexual harassment claim and Justice Thomas's denial were aired. The nation watched mesmerized, waiting ...

PS: Political Science & Politics, 1992

2017

In his twenty-five years on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas has earned the (sometimes grudging) respect of legal scholars and commentators, including many who disagree with him, for his careful, principled, analytic approach to many areas of law. Race is not among them. For his allegiance to a “color blind” Constitution, Justice Thomas has been accused of judicial activism, rank hypocrisy, racial self-hatred, and racial betrayal. These criticisms, which profoundly misrepresent Justice Thomas’s views on race, are both unfortunate and avoidable. In the race context, more than any other area of the law, Justice Thomas has explained the reasons for his views, including his desire to restrain government policies that he believes harm minorities. As he has explained, “It pains me deeply . . . to be perceived by so many members of my

1996

2014

As typified by its recent decisions in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin and Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court's jurisprudence concerning race has long imposed strict judicial oversight over any use of race for the formulation of public policy. This top-down approach has invited various undesirable outcomes, the most pernicious of which are the endorsement of silence on the subject of race and the delegitimizing of most public deliberations about race by non-Court actors. Consequently, speech within universities and other learning environments regarding race has become a psychologically challenging risk for both students and faculty, who justifiably perceive themselves as lacking either the competence or the authorization to venture into the realm of race. At the same time, the Court has delegated to university administrators a role for race in admissions on the condition that they master locutions marking discourse about race as an expert argot. This Article proposes an alternative path in which control of race is wrested from the courts-and their appointed delegates in university administration-through the creation of small, experimental university communities. Such communities would select their own membership with a conscious concern for a healthy racial discourse in higher education. This shift in responsibility for racial discourse and community * Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law. Director, Legal E-Marriage Project. I wish to thank my research assistants Mary Elizabeth Oshei and Yassaman Hajivalizadeh, my husband Robert C. Rich, my colleague Professor Phil Pucillo, and librarians Barbara Bean and Brent Domann for close readings and useful comments. I am indebted to and greatly appreciative of Katie Eyer, Paul Horwitz, and Mark Tushnet for useful feedback on a draft of this Article. I also benefitted from presenting early versions at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law's Third Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium, November 2 & 3, 2012, and at a summer faculty workshop at Michigan State University College of Law. All errors of any kind belong to me if I insisted on a point that my co-author did not agree with, or sneaked it in. I am immensely grateful to Charles Adside, whose collaboration on the subject of this Article has been immensely enriching and rewarding, and with whom I enjoy robust debates occasionally worthy of raised voices.

The American Historical Review, 1987

The presenter, Sally Ann McReynolds, described the major themes of the book 1 and offered her reflections, questions, and critiques of the material. Barbara H. Andolsen clarified significant points and elaborated on aspects she felt she would want to further develop. This report summarizes the oral presentations of both women. McReynolds noted that Andolsen's treatment of the interstructuration between racism and American feminism offered a very promising basis for ethical and theological reflection. This is due in large measure to the rigorous and incisive presentation of the historical and theological facts that characterize the faces of racism in the women's suffrage movement. McReynolds described the tasks the author addresses in the book: First, delineating the facts and voices of racism in the women's suffrage movement. The author presents, as examples of women who carry both the voice for women suffrage and racist attitudes, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Anna Howard Shaw. Second, offering an ethical analysis of the dilemma that was faced by white suffragettes. On the one hand groups do have a right to advance their own cause, but just how far can groups go when they encroach on the rights of others? Third, presenting the black woman's perspective on the feminist movement in the United States. The fact is that white women's agenda has frequently ignored aspects of life in the black community. Such aspects include the victimization of black women by rape, the oppressiveness of their workplaces, and even the concept of beauty, which is based on the ideal of whiteness and white characteristics. McReynolds briefly presented the theological implications when we realize that racism persists throughout the theological enterprise. We need to ask ourselves who the theological institutions are available to. There also is the question of language in the methodology of theology itself, particularly of feminist theology. The author criticizes Mary Daly. In Beyond God the Father, Daly sees a movement in feminist theology that includes preparation, castration, and exorcism. Daly says it is necessary to castrate the male image of God, the male image of life, and sexually that one image is the act of castration. The author finds this

Feminist Media Studies, 2018