Race and the Law Series: Equality Still Dampened

Join Colorado Law for a new, interactive lecture series focused on the relationship between race and the law, with the objective of generating thinking about the barriers to and possibilities of the law serving as a vehicle of racial justice. Dean Anaya delivered the first session, which included time for small-group discussions to spark ideas for action.

From the beginning, race has been a feature of American law. Racial disparity was embedded in the country's colonial foundations, and for nearly the first two centuries, since independence race overtly surfaced in federal and state law as a tool of exclusion. The post-Civil War constitutional amendments ended slavery and proclaimed equal protection for all, but racism and law's alignment with it proved stubborn. In recent decades, racism's historical legacies persist along with its ongoing manifestations, while in important ways the law's longstanding embrace of equality has turned on racism with some success. Law's equality has a strong pedigree, but so does law's tolerance of inequality and racism.

In his lecture, Dean Anaya discussed how race and the idea of equality have played out in federal law, through the lens of several United States Supreme Court and other appellate cases. He examined the extent to which racism and its legacies are still present or enabled in federal law and judicial decision-making, and discussed how law's call to equality can be a rival but not always sufficient force. Finally, he highlighted the need for an energized anti-racist stance by all legal professionals, in as much as each one may influence or determine the law's content and application.

Event Details

Speakers	S. James Anaya, Dean and University Distinguished Professor