{"id":17226,"date":"2021-02-16T15:03:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T21:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/?p=17226"},"modified":"2021-03-30T08:30:45","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T13:30:45","slug":"professor-ibram-x-kendi-law-schools-are-absolutely-central-to-antiracism-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/2021\/02\/16\/professor-ibram-x-kendi-law-schools-are-absolutely-central-to-antiracism-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Ibram X. Kendi: Law schools are \u201cabsolutely central\u201d to antiracism work"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The heartbeat of racism is denial, and heartbeat of antiracism is confession.” — Ibram X. Kendi<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Screen grab of Monday’s event with Ibram X. Kendi, along with moderators Gloria Contreras-Eden \u201905 and Deanna Burns.<\/p><\/div>\n

Historian and antiracist scholar Ibram X. Kendi called on Mitchell Hamline and other law schools to be at the center of antiracism work in the United States, during an online event Monday evening. The discussion, which drew more than 1,000 people, is believed to be the largest non-commencement event held at Mitchell Hamline or its legacy schools in recent memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crux of the solution will be law and policy,\u201d Kendi said. \u201cThose who are studying law who become policymakers will be in the forefront of creating an anti-racist society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendi is the author of six award-winning and bestselling books, including \u201cHow to be an Antiracist.\u201d His latest work, which he co-edited, is \u201cFour Hundred Souls<\/a>,\u201d a history of African America as told through the contributions of 90 leading Black voices.<\/p>\n

Kendi focused during Monday evening\u2019s event on the importance of knowing the history that got us to here.<\/p>\n

As one example, he outlined the history behind the terms \u201ccolor-blind\u201d and \u201crace neutral,\u201d noting they were borne from racist pasts that many people who use the terms are not aware of.<\/p>\n

The term \u201ccolor-blind,\u201d Kendi notes, came from Justice John Marshall Harlan\u2019s lone dissent<\/a> in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em> ruling that upheld Jim Crow segregation laws. While Harlan laudably described the Constitution as \u201ccolor-blind,\u201d Kendi reminded attendees the justice also noted in the same dissent that \u201cthe white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of color-blind also came in the same section in which [Justice Harland] substantiated white supremacy,\u201d Kendi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s tragic is you had certain Americans who were able to convince other Americans that anti-racist policies would hurt white Americans because they were helping people of color. They convinced us it was a zero-sum game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key to understanding this, Kendi continued, lies in the misguided practice of determining whether a policy is racist simply by the policy’s language rather than its outcomes: Never mind if the effect<\/em> of the policy is to disproportionally hurt certain people; it\u2019s only a racist policy if the language<\/em> that establishes the policy is race-conscious, he said. \u201cThose who substantiated the maintenance of racial inequality coined the term \u201crace neutral\u201d to legally assault those policies that targeted inequities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have so many folks and institutional leaders and everyday Americans for whom if we defined a policy as \u201cracist\u201d because it maintained inequities, they\u2019d have to look at their own policies as racist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendi then pivoted to how schools can work to be antiracist, including centering work and curriculum on helping to address issues in the communities where campuses are located; addressing the student debt crisis in the country that might keep some people from even considering law school; and rethinking the place tests like the LSAT have in admitting students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been told the cradle of racism is ignorance and hate \u2013 that ignorant and hateful people have racist ideas and institute racist laws,\u201d Kendi said. \u201cI find in my research is it\u2019s not hate at the core, it\u2019s self-interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of economic or political self-interest, people in power enact racist laws, then they justify them through racist ideas. Too often people only think about what they\u2019d lose<\/em> if we fundamentally transformed this society, instead of what they\u2019d gain<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell Hamline President and Dean Anthony Niedwiecki, who opened the evening, noted a gap between the diversity within law schools and the legal profession. While law schools are slowly becoming more racially diverse, he noted ABA statistics that show people in the legal profession are no more diverse than they were a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Last year, data from the American Bar Association<\/a> found five percent of all lawyers in the U.S. are African American, an unchanged percentage from ten years ago. The entire country\u2019s population is 13% African American.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a role in this,\u201d Niedwiecki said. \u201cSchools aren\u2019t doing enough to break down those barriers. Even if our own student bodies are getting more diverse, it\u2019s not translating into a more diverse legal profession after law school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niedwiecki lauded an effort by five black women law deans who started the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project<\/a> in 2020 to try to address such issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to be committed to diversity and equity. We must also be actively antiracist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event was moderated by Mitchell Hamline trustee Gloria Contreras-Eden \u201905 and Deanna Burns, the assistant director of Mitchell Hamline\u2019s Intellectual Property Institute. Contreras-Eden\u2019s firm and the IP Institute also sponsored the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The heartbeat of racism is denial, and heartbeat of antiracism is confession.” — Ibram X. Kendi Historian and antiracist scholar Ibram X. Kendi called on Mitchell Hamline and other law schools to be at the center of antiracism work in the United States, during an online event Monday evening. The discussion, which drew more than … <\/p>\n

Professor Ibram X. Kendi: Law schools are \u201cabsolutely central\u201d to antiracism work<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5668,"featured_media":17158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,77],"tags":[125,127,126,110,65],"class_list":{"0":"post-17226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-news","9":"category-office-of-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","10":"tag-antiracism","11":"tag-dei","12":"tag-event","13":"tag-ibram-x-kendi","14":"tag-racism","15":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}