The Faculty Lounge

CFP: Weaving it All Together: Hair, Health, Law, and Policy

Weaving it All Together: Hair, Health, Law, and Policy

Inaugural symposium examining the intersections between hair, health, law, and policy

Expressions of interest due: May 5, 2025

Program dates: Friday, September 25 - Saturday, September 26, 2025

Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, Philadelphia, PA

The Drexel Kline Law Review in conjunction with the Drexel Kline Center for Law, Policy, & Social Action and the Drexel Kline Health Law Program is pleased to announce the first symposium examining the intersections between hair, health, law, and policy. This ground-breaking symposium will take place on Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26, 2025, at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In innumerable ways, hair matters. Significantly, hair is connected to our identity formation and expression, exercise of freedom, educational access, professional prospects, economic security, as well as our health and well-being. As a consequence, hair influences society, law, policy, advocacy, and movements—contemporarily, historically, domestically and internationally.

Leonard Peltier

Two things: Leonard Peltier is going to indefinite house arrest (rather than just outright freeing). And I'm surprised that getting "house arrest" on February 18, 2025, rather than January 20. 

Update: Peltier was released on January 23.

New Book Announcement & Launch 11/11 - Social Movements and the Law: Talking About Black Lives Matter and #MeToo

On November 11, 2024 at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific, the University of Colorado School of Law and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law are sponsoring an on-line Zoom book launch for Social Movements and the Law: Talking About Black Lives Matter and #MeToo (Lolita Buckner Inniss & Bridget J. Crawford eds., 2024), to be published by the University of California Press.

The event if free and open to the public, with pre-registration here. The online book launch will feature these contributors:

Noa Ben-Asher
Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of Law

I. Bennett Capers
Associate Dean for Research, Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair, Professor of Law, and Director, Center on Race, Law, and Justice, Fordham Law

Linda Sheryl Greene
1855 Professor and MSU Foundation Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law

Aya Gruber
Harold Medill Heimbaugh Professor of Law, University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Osamudia James
Henry P. Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law

Keisha Lindsay
Professor, Departments of Gender and Women's Studies & Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Lua Kamál Yuille
Professor of Law and Business; Associate Dean for Research and Interdisciplinary Education, Northeastern University School of Law

Ruthann Robson
Professor of Law & University Distinguished Professor, City University of New York School of Law

Kathryn M. Stanchi
E.L. Cord Professor of Law, University of Nevada Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law

A description of the book and further details appear after the fold.

 

American Tax Policy Institute Symposium: Revealing and Addressing Gender Bias in Tax Law and Policy, Oct. 17-18, 2024

The American Tax Policy Institute is pleased to announce a Symposium on “Revealing and Addressing Hidden Gender Bias in Tax Law and Policy” to be held on October 17 and 18, 2024, in Washington, DC, at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

This program will explore the intersections between and among gender, taxation, and public policy. The goal of the Symposium is to shine a spotlight on gender issues in taxation and to bring consideration of gender impacts into mainstream discussions surrounding the enactment and administration of tax law and policy. The scope of the Symposium is broad, focusing not only on gender issues in U.S. tax law but also on gender issues in the tax laws of other countries; it will consider all taxes, including income, consumption, transfer, wealth-related, or other national-level taxes, as well as subnational taxes.

Symposium Announcement—The Federal Income Tax: Racially Blind but Not Racially Neutral

Ohio State Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity Seeks ED

This just in:

The Ohio State University, a top 20 public research land-grant university and the state’s flagship, invites nominations and applications for the position of Executive Director (ED) of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Established in 2003, The Kirwan Institute is an interdisciplinary engaged research institute named for former university president William E. “Brit” Kirwan in recognition of his efforts to champion diversity at Ohio State. The Kirwan Institute researchers, affiliated faculty, collaborators, and community partners conduct research to inform policies and practices that help create a just and inclusive society where all people and communities have an opportunity to succeed. The Institute fulfills its mission by connecting communities with opportunities needed for thriving by conducting research that leads to and/or supports educating the public, building the capacity and evidence-based policy knowledge of allied social justice organizations, and supporting efforts that advance equity and inclusion.

Reporting to the provost or her designee, the Executive Director is responsible for leading the Kirwan Institute’s education, research, and outreach missions. As a scholar leader, the Executive Director is expected to develop programs and strategies that support faculty research on race and ethnicity; build relationships and create new opportunities for Ohio State faculty to collaborate and engage in research with one another; advance collaborations and interdisciplinary research outside of the Institute, and partner on faculty development initiatives. As the leader of one of the nation's most prominent centers focused on racial equity and the role of race in society, the Executive Director will be responsible for a substantial operating budget and enjoy meaningful budgetary and resource support from the university. The Executive Director will be expected to contribute to building a community where faculty can come together to collaborate, learn, and excel together as a community of scholars.

This opportunity is a tremendous one for an active scholar of race and ethnicity to build upon the Kirwan Institute’s strong foundation and national reputation. The Executive Director will bring a commitment to interdisciplinary engaged research and an instinct for institutional collaboration. The individual will be a distinguished scholar with the talent and inclination for setting a strategy in collaboration with priority initiatives of the university.

 

Help Promote this Short Film About Environmental Racism

Confronted with a difficult issue of environmental racism in North Law Vegas, law professors at UNLV Boyd, Frank Fritz and Ngai Pindell, along with Senator Dina Neal and law students Candace Mays and Sebastian Ross, took a creative approach. Windsor Park, a historically African American neighborhood of North Las Vegas, was built on a fault and is now sinking. Many homes are uninhabitable and others are in dire need of reconstruction. Boyd Law School teamed up with the UNLV Film School professor Brett Levner and her graduate assistant Olivé to make a short documentary about Windsor Park.

It’s well worth 10 minutes to view this film, which is an amazing look into the segregationist history of Las Vegas and its enduring consequences for the city’s African American citizens. Please watch Windsor Park: The Sinking Streets and recommend it to others and share it widely with others.

#Liftupwindsorpark also needs help. If you have time and interest, please contact the team here. Help of all kinds would be appreciated, even if you are just willing to talk out ideas or be a sounding board or think you know a person or law organization who might be able to help. Follow on Facebook @liftupwindsorpark and on Instagram @liftupwindsorpark. To fix this problem will truly take a village. Environmental racism is a feminist issue. #liftupwindsorpark

-Kathy Stanchi

Thompson v. Clark & the "indications of innocence" standard under Section 1983

I wanted to share this excellent op ed piece by BU Professor Jasmine Gonzales Rose about the unfair "indications of innocence" standard used by some Circuits in Sec. 1983 actions and the pending Supreme Court case, Thompson v. Clark, which could change it. https://lnkd.in/dCRg9S-D #policeaccountability #criminaljusticereform #section1983

Using Rewritten Judicial Opinions to Teach CRT While Reinforcing Doctrinal Lessons

These are certainly interesting times to teach and write about critical race theory. As CRT becomes the new political scapegoat, US law schools are (finally) beginning to explore how to teach students law while also teaching them about the racism (and misogyny and homophobia) embedded in the law.

The question, of course, is always how to integrate CRT. Standalone courses are great, but they reach only a handful of students. And law professors often feel like they cannot add lengthy critical scholarship readings to already overpacked doctrinal courses.

One answer to the dilemma is to use rewritten judicial opinions. The Feminist Judgments series offers opinions that look like “real” judicial opinions but include critical race reasoning (as well as other critical legal perspectives). These rewritten opinions are shorter than most scholarly articles and can be a quick and effective way to incorporate CRT into your class. Because they are relatively short, they can be assigned ahead of time along with the original opinion or can be read as part of an in-class exercise as described by Bridget Crawford in this book chapter.

Teaching sexual harassment law? Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig’s rewritten opinion in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson uncovers the racial dynamics of sexual harassment that were obscured in the original opinion. Or maybe you are teaching employer appearance codes in your employment law class. Consider assigning Professor Wendy Greene’s rewrite of EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions, in which she reveals the racism and misogyny underlying what US law considers professional or appropriate for the workplace.

Teaching battery in Torts and want to stimulate a critical discussion of the bias inherent in determinations of intent or damages? Consider Professor Alena Allen’s rewrite of Robinson v. Cutchin, in which she criticizes the argument that an African American woman subjected to an unwanted tubal ligation during her C-section had suffered “no additional physical pain, injury or illness.” Professor Allen’s opinion is the perfect vehicle to teach students about the dangers of an ahistorical approach to doctrine because it places the concept of informed consent in the context of the history of involuntary sterilization of poor African American women in the United States.

These are just a few examples. Others include Professor Marley Weiss’s rewrite of Ricci v. Distefano in the Employment Discrimination volume, Professor Jennifer Wriggins and Professor Sara Cressey’s rewrite of G.M.M. v. Kimpson in Torts, Professor David Brennen’s rewrite of Bob Jones University v. United States in the Tax volume, and Dean Browne Lewis’ rewrite of O’Neal v. Wilkes in the Trusts & Estates volume, and Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb’s rewrite of Loving v. Virginia in the Supreme Court volume, to name just a few. Go to the Feminist Judgments website for resources about how to teach using alternative judgments.

The best part is that if your library subscribes to the electronic versions of the volumes on Cambridge Core, students and faculty can read and download individual opinions via their library websites with no extra charge. Right now, Cambridge University Press is running a promotion where readers can access free chapters and libraries (and others) can get a discount on purchases of volumes in the series.

If we are going to be criticized for teaching CRT anyway, we might as well run with it.

-Kathryn M. Stanchi

When the IRS Does Know Your Race

Professor Jeremy Bearer-Friend (GWU) sparked much productive academic dialogue with his article, Should the IRS Know Your Race? The Challenge of Colorblind Tax Data, 73 Tax L. Rev. 1 (2019). He ultimately argues that the IRS should not collect such data on the Form 1040, favoring instead alternative intermediate steps that he describes in the article. (Of course, as Professor Bearer-Friend points out, scholars like Dorothy Brown, Beverly Moran and others have drawn on other publicly available sources, such as the Current Population Survey and Survey of Consumer Finances, to triangulate on race-relevant tax data.)

I was discussing this concept of "colorblind" tax data with students recently. One of them pointed out that there is at least one place where the IRS does ask taxpayers about their race. There are optional race-related questions on Form 13614-C, the Department of the Treasury-Internal Revenue Service Intake/Interview and Quality Review Sheet. This is the form that volunteer income tax preparers typically use to gather information from clients at VITA programs around the country.

The optional questions, which the form states "will be used only for statistical purposes," elicit information about the client's ability to speak and read English, whether any member of the client's household has a disability, whether the client or the client's spouse is a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the race and ethnicity of the client and the client's spouse.

Judging by the positioning of the questions, my guess is that the "statistical purposes" have to do with gathering data about the demographics of the populations served by various VITA programs. I admit that I had never thought about the significance of that part of the form in light of Professor Bearer-Friend's  question, "Should the IRS know your race?" I'd love to know more about how this data is used and what it reveals. Sometimes the IRS does ask directly about a taxpayer's race.

Rosenblum: Our Shared Duty Now: Law Professors Must Bring Racial Equity into Each Course

The following is a guest post by Professor Darren Rosenblum (Pace).

The killing of George Floyd this summer has exposed, for a far broader (largely white) population, the endemic nature of racism and the urgent need to fix the vast inequities it creates throughout our legal system, but especially in criminal law. Recent data reveals how people of color are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than whites. As with allowing anti-Black police violence, our public health choices reflect deliberate decisions by governments and companies as to whose lives matter.

As legal educators, we cannot repair the world. But as Edward Hale said “I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do.” The urgent nature of the crisis obligates us to do something, and it must be now.

We law professors have seen how these exclusions play out within our institutions and our profession: Black students don’t advance as other students do. They don’t participate as much in class and in school governance. They join a legal profession that reflects a profound structural racism. Many Black associates join firms, but only a tiny number make partner.

It is our duty to begin to rectify this shocking inequality. We law professors share this responsibility, individually and collectively, to make law schools deliberately inclusive places for our students to learn. We must do this to make our Black students feel welcome so that they learn and become full members of our profession. We must also do it for all our students to model for them what our profession should look like.

Just as we labor over our first year curricula with fine-toothed combs to get the balance just right, we must endeavor to realize greater inclusion in our institutions. Many important conversations have happened this summer to evaluate these challenges, and the conclusions have been clear: we must do much more to include racial equity in our schools and classrooms.

I want to make a much more pointed intervention. While the conversations about racial equity should happen everywhere and in greater depth, here, I want to make a discrete challenge to my colleagues: each and every one of us – at my home institution and every other law school – should include one class in each course on racial equality issues.

 

 

Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, Race, Policing, and Zoning - Part 3 of 3

The following is a guest post by Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

Part 3: Policing, Race, and Minneapolis’s Single-Family Zoning Reform

Desirable reforms to the culture and economy of policing will not on their own overcome the disparities that are key to the tale of two cities, disparities that reflect the economic and social devaluing of people of color. The two cities trope at its core calls attention to a need to place institutions associated with property at the center of how we think about policing and race.

Perhaps the most consequential reform that Minneapolis has recently undertaken is one that does not relate to policing at all, but holds out the promise of fundamental change. Last year, the city finalized historic steps to abolish single-family zoning, the residential land-use classification enshrined in Village of Euclid that suppresses the diversity and affordability of housing within large swaths of cities, perpetuates class- and race-based exclusion in access to housing and neighborhoods, and, in adding obstacles to home ownership, limits the opportunities that rising property values afford to accumulate intergenerational household wealth. The measure was adopted to increase affordable housing options and acknowledge the city’s racially exclusionary history limiting access to single-family home ownership. Reflecting the goals of Minneapolis 2040, the city’s comprehensive plan, the zoning revision was not a symbolic gesture, but designed to break down economic barriers and make home ownership more accessible. 

Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, Race, Policing, and Zoning - Part 2 of 3

The following is a guest post by Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law. Part 1 is here.

Part 2: A Tale of Two Cities

The political, economic, and social realities of Minneapolis and New York City underscore how their local experience fits the “tale of two cities” trope. At a policy level, each embraces equity and racial equality. Yet significant differences based in race and socioeconomic indicators persist, and have challenged efforts to unify disparate communities. These differences exist in employment, housing, access to health care, and education. Minneapolis has adopted laws to improve the general economic well-being of workers, increase the minimum wage and paid sick leave, and protect against wage theft, but white residents, comprising 60% of the city’s population, are the most secure economically. They surpass people of color in earnings and in homeownership, a key determinant of ability to accumulate intergenerational wealth. In Minneapolis, almost 60% of white households are homeowners, whereas fewer than 25% of African Americans, Native Americans, and Latino households own homes, a legacy pointing to the history of racial covenants in the city as well as the federal redlining policies that denied residents of African-American neighborhoods and other “inharmonious racial or nationality groups” access to financing to purchase a home.  Race, ethnicity, and income-based differences are evident in Minneapolis, and across the state, in students’ performance on standardized tests and in college readiness, even as Minnesota has equalized funding across school districts, and Minneapolis desegregated its schools. Children’s life chances reflect differences long before school begins; in Minneapolis, infant mortality rates are substantially higher among African American and Native American households than for other residents.

Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, Race, Policing, and Zoning - Part 1 of 3

The following is a guest post by Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law

Author's Note: These reflections on recent developments in Minneapolis and New York City are offered through an urban lens and a property-based perspective, prompted in part by an  American studies/urban studies background,  past work co-editing two collections on policing (in the late Giuliani and early Bloomberg years in New York) and teaching property, real estate, and urban land use courses.

Part 1: Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, and the Limited Context of Policing Reforms

Minneapolis and New York, markedly different in size, demography, economy, and geography, have become bound together by the anguished exclamation, “I can’t breathe,” the shared cry of Minneapolis resident George Floyd on Memorial Day and, five years earlier, New York City resident Eric Garner, unarmed African-American men who died during police-initiated interactions.  Despite progressive political cultures, both cities have long been plagued by police violence against African-Americans as well as stark socioeconomic disparities. The social protests that have roiled both cities, and communities across the U.S. and globally, since the killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin have already produced legislative and policy reforms. Minneapolis has banned police use of chokeholds, and a “veto-proof” nine members of its City Council have committed to defund the city’s police department and create a new paradigm of public safety. Chauvin, and the other officers present at George Floyd’s killing, were dismissed and have been criminally charged. The New York City Council has criminalized chokeholds, among other reform measures, Mayor Bill deBlasio promised to transfer funds from the police department’s $6 billion budget to youth and social services, in a partial response to similar defunding demands, and the Police Commissioner reassigned 600 officers of a famously aggressive anticrime unit. The New York State legislature has also enacted reforms, and New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order requiring all localities to “reinvent” their police departments and adopt confirming legislation by next April 1.

Talking About Black Lives Matter and #MeToo

In April, 2019, the Wisconsin Journal of Gender, Law & Society sponsored a symposium on "Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Black Lives Matter and the Role of Intersectional Legal Analysis in the Twenty-First Century." Instead of preparing individual papers for publication, the speakers at the symposium collaborated on a joint essay--written in a conversational style--that both captures and extends salient portions of the symposium discussion. The essay--written by Linda Greene (Wisconsin), Lolita Buckner Inniss (SMU), Mehrsa Baradaran (UC Irvine), Noa Ben-Asher (Pace), Bennett Capers (Brooklyn), Osamudia James (Miami), Keisha Lindsay (Wisconsin, Political Science & Gender and Women's Studies) and me is now available on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

This essay explores the apparent differences and similarities between the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements. In April 2019, the Wisconsin Journal of Gender, Law and Society hosted a symposium entitled “Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Black Lives Matter and the Role of Intersectional Legal Analysis in the Twenty-First Century.” That program facilitated examination of the historical antecedents, cultural contexts, methods, and goals of these linked equality movements. Conversations continued among the symposium participants long after the end of the official program. In this essay, the symposium’s speakers memorialize their robust conversations and also dive more deeply into the phenomena, implications, and future of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.

This essay organizes around internal and external spatial metaphors and makes five schematic moves. First, internal considerations ground comparisons of the definitions, goals, and ideas of success employed by or applied to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. Second, external concerns inspire questions about whether both movements may be better understood through the lens of intersectionality, and relatedly, what challenges these movements pose for an intersectional analysis. Third, a meta-internal framework invites inquiry into how the movements shape the daily work of scholars, teachers, lawyers, and community activists. Fourth, a dialectical external-internal frame drives questions about the movements’ effects on law and popular culture, and the reciprocal effects between those external influences and the movements themselves. Returning to an external, even forward-looking, approach, we ask what the next steps are for both movements. This five-part taxonomy frames the inquiry into where the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements are located individually, but also where they are co-located, and, perhaps most importantly, where they are going.

The full essay is available here.

CFP: Thirteenth Amendment and Racial Justice Conference

Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Institute of Technology is hosting the Thirteenth Amendment and Racial Justice Conference on November 9–10, 2019. The conference focuses on the ways that the Thirteenth Amendment can be used in legislation and litigation, or in the context of social movements, to promote racial justice in the United States. 

The conference organizing committee invites Thirteenth Amendment scholars from all disciplines—including law, politics, and history, as well as practitioners and activists in the field of racial justice—to submit papers that interrogate the relationship of race and other markers of identity such as class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, and immigration status; to forms of subordination both past and present; and strategies for challenging them. The committee is interested in international perspectives and invite scholars from beyond the United States to participate.

This conference will be the third event of the Thirteenth Amendment Project, an interdisciplinary association of scholars of labor, class, race, caste, and poverty at law schools and universities throughout the United States and the wider world. For more information about the Thirteenth Amendment Project, please visit its website at scholars.law.unlv.edu/amend13/.

The committee is seeking publication opportunities in a variety of outlets for papers presented at the conference. It extends a special invitation to scholars new to the field (including junior faculty and senior scholars) to submit proposals for works in progress. Senior scholars who have written extensively in this field will provide feedback and detailed commentary for planned publication.

To submit a paper for consideration, please email an abstract of no more than 300 words by May 15, 2019, to [email protected]. The conference organizing committee will notify applicants of its decisions by June 30, 2019. A preliminary program will be posted by September 15, 2019. 

Editorial note: This conference is time to fit with the annual Constitutional Law Colloquium at Loyola Chicago Law School. The colloquium at Loyola Chicago ends on Saturday at lunchtime; this conference begins at Chicago-Kent on Saturday afternoon.

The Stennis Flag

In 1894 Mississippi adopted its current state flag, which prominently incorporates the Confederate battle flag saltire. Thus far every effort to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag has failed. In 2001, for example, 65% of Mississippi voters chose to keep the current flag in a statewide referendum.

But change may be afoot. According to a Washington Post article yesterday, a new flag is gaining traction in Mississippi. Known as the “Stennis Flag,” it consists of a large blue star on a white background, surrounded by 19 smaller stars, and bordered by two large red bars. 

As explained by Laurin Stennis, the flag’s designer, the Stennis Flag incorporates four distinct symbols:

Equality Law Scholars' Forum at UC Davis Tomorrow

The second annual Equality  Law Scholars' Forum kicks off at UC Davis tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to being one of the commentators on a fantastic set of papers. Here are some details:

Second Annual Equality Law Scholars’ Forum

Friday, November 16 – Saturday November 17, 2018

The Forum is designed to provide junior scholars with commentary and critique by their more senior colleagues in the legal academy and, more broadly, to foster development and understanding of new scholarly currents across equality law. 

This year, the Forum will feature six presenters (chosen from over forty submissions):

The New Coverture, Albertina Antognini (Arizona College of Law)

Stealing Education: Protecting Racial Capital in “White” Schools, LaToya Baldwin Clark (UCLA School of Law)

Affirmative Action Misclassification, Jonathan Feingold (UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion)

The Aesthetics of Disability Law, Jasmine Harris (UC Davis School of Law)

Legislating with Tall Tales, Goldburn Maynard (U. of Louisville School of Law)

 Diversity to Deradicalize: A New Theory for How Affirmative Action Became Tied to Intellectual Pluralism, Asad Rahim (American Bar Foundation)

The event is co-organized by Tristin Green, USF Law, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, UC Berkeley Law, and Leticia Saucedo, UC Davis Law. 

Comment and critique will be provided by the following scholars:

Bridget Crawford, Pace Law School

Jonathan Glater, UC Irvine Law School

Tristin Green, USF Law School

Angela Harris, UC Davis Law School

Jill Hasday, U. of Minnesota School of Law

Anthony Infanti, U. of Pittsburgh School of Law

Osamudia James, U. of Miami School of Law

Tom Joo, UC Davis Law School

Courtney Joslin, UC Davis Law School           

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Boston U. Law School

Kimani Paul-Emile, Fordham U. School of Law

Leticia Saucedo, UC Davis Law School

We will also hold a panel discussion on Producing Scholarship in Equality Law with the following UC Davis Law School panelists participating: Jack Chin, Kevin Johnson, Courtney Joslin, Tom Joo, Lisa Pruitt, and Brian Soucek.

 

Board Diversity In The News Again

Thanks to California, corporate board diversity or, more specifically, gender diversity, is in the news again. SB 826 which, according to news reports, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign, passed the state Senate in a 23-9 vote and the Assembly in a 41-26 vote. The statute would require “publicly held domestic or foreign corporation[s] whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California” to have a minimum of one female director on its board by the end of 2019. By the end of 2021, those numbers would increase for corporations with five directors, who would need to have a minimum of two female board members, and for corporations with six or more directors, who would need to have at least three female board members.

The bill provides the usual business case for board diversity, claiming that “publicly held companies perform better when women serve on their boards of directors.” The bill then goes on to cite as evidence a number of reports, including by MSCI and Credit Suisse, among others.

I have detailed at some length, both here, in a series of papers (co-authored with Lissa Broome and John Conley), in a piece for the NY Times, and in a recent public radio debate, why these studies that simply confirm the well-known correlation between board gender diversity and firm performance cannot be taken as evidence that gender diversity causes superior performance. This is more than just a recitation of the old “correlation doesn’t equal causation” argument. In this case there are strong empirical and theoretical reasons to believe that such a conclusion is premature.

As an empirical matter, although some peer-reviewed studies do show improved corporate performance (or other benefits, e.g. better compliance with legal mandates) from having more women on boards, others show no effect or even a negative effect. As a theoretical matter, there are other plausible explanations for the correlation. For example, better performing firms could have the luxury to focus on board diversity in a way that firms struggling to meet basic earning goals might not. In fact, this point was emphasized to us in a number of director interviews, including interviews with female and minority directors.

In addition, women and minority directors with the type of C-suite experience generally preferred for corporate boards are fairly scarce commodities who may have the luxury of choosing only the most profitable and least risky boards on which to serve. There are exceptions to this -- for example, financial and accounting expertise are in high demand, and many of our respondents told us that they thought this was an avenue by which more women might be included on boards. Moreover, we might question whether the qualifications demanded of directors do more to exclude women and minorities than they do to ensure director competency. These are valid and important questions, but don’t undercut the argument that women are drawn to profitable companies, rather than create profitable companies. Finally, both gender diversity and superior firm performance could be caused by some third factor – for example, a forward-looking management.

All of this is detailed in the articles that I will link to below. But, the point is that the evidence cited in SB 826 to justify intervention in the director selection process does not show what the bill and its supporters claim. In addition, as I discuss in Thursday’s radio interview, the bill has constitutional problems. The bill’s sponsors apparently recognize that quotas present an Equal Protection Clause problem yet argue that their proposal does not constitute a quota – a claim I contest in the interview. I expect discussion to increasingly focus on those issues if, as expected, the bill becomes law.

Including more women (and minorities) on corporate boards is a good thing. In all of our articles, Lissa, John, and I discuss a number of social goods that might emerge from having a more inclusive environment in the power structures of American corporations, including its boardrooms. For example, a focus on board diversity might encourage corporations (and search firms) to look outside of their usual networks for directors – networks in which women and minorities tend to be underrepresented. A diverse board might signal to consumers, employees, and other constituencies that their voices and views are represented in the highest reaches of American businesses. And one might simply argue that it is unfair that the (rather considerable) financial benefits that stem from directorships in many public corporations are not shared more equally by women and other underrepresented groups.

But we need to be realistic about what board diversity can and cannot accomplish, and more honest about what the evidence does and does not show. A failure to do so could well set back the cause of gender (and racial diversity) in the boardroom and, more importantly, in corporate management.

Comments to this post are closed, so if you want to talk to me about it find me on twitter @KimKrawiec.

Articles and book chapters about board diversity:

Diversity and Talent at the Top: Lessons From the Boardroom, in Diversity in Practice: Race, Gender, and Class in Legal and Professional Careers 37-80 (Spencer Headworth et al eds., 2016) (with John M. Conley & Lissa L. Broome)

A Difficult Conversation: Corporate Directors on Race and Gender, 26 Pace International Law Review 13-22 (2014) (with John M. Conley & Lissa L. Broome)

The Danger of Difference: Tensions in Directors’ Views of Corporate Board Diversity, 2013 University of Illinois Law Review 919-958 (2013) (with John M. Conley & Lissa L. Broome)

Dangerous Categories: Narratives of Corporate Board Diversity, 89 North Carolina Law Review 759-808 (2011) (with John M. Conley & Lissa L. Broome)

Does Critical Mass Matter? Views from the Board Room, 34 Seattle University Law Review 1049-1080 (2011) (with Lissa L. Broome & John M. Conley)

Narratives of Diversity in the Corporate Boardroom: What Corporate Insiders Say about Why Diversity Matters, in Discourse Perspectives on Organizational Communication 201-660 (2011) (with John M. Conley & Lissa L. Broome)

Signaling Through Board Diversity: Is Anyone Listening?, 77 University of Cincinnati Law Review 431-464 (2008) (with Lissa L. Broome)

 

In the media:

KQED Radio, debate with Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire, board member and past president, National Association of Women Business Owners of California, which sponsored SB 826

NY Times Room for Debate

Prior Faculty Lounge blog posts:

http://www.thefacultylounge.org/board-diversity/

The 1968 Fair Housing Act

Earlier this month marked the 50^thanniversary of the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. On March 1, 1968, the Kerner Commission issued its report to Congress on race relations in the United States, warning that “America is dividing into two societies, black and white, separate and unequal.”  According to the Kerner Commission, one of the chief manifestations of this inequality was residential segregation, which relegated Blacks to crowded urban ghettoes. Congress responded to the Kerner Commission report with the 1968 Act, an attempt to reduce residential segregation and provide access to economic opportunities for people of color.  Despite the urgency of the report, the Act stalled in Congress until the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. sparked nationwide riots in inner cities. The Fair Housing Act is far-reaching.  Among other provisions, it requires the federal government to engage in affirmative action to integrate federally owned and subsidized housing.  Unfortunately, the Act’s anniversary passed with little fanfare.

Two provisions of the 1968 Fair Housing Act were based on Congress’ power to enforce the 13^thAmendment.  The first, the “Anti-Blockbusting Provision,” prohibits realtors from using race-based rumors to scare people into selling their homes at a reduced rate.  The second, the 1968 Hate Crimes Act, makes it a crime for a person to interfere in certain “federally protected activities,” including economic activities, on the basis of their race.  According to New York Senator Charles Goodell, “the 13th amendment to the Constitution forever barred slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States.  It was viewed by those who had approved it as abolishing not just enforced service of one person for another but as a guarantee to all citizens, of the outlawing of all the badges and incidents of slavery.  One hundred and three years after its adoption the Congress has yet to remove all the disabilities of that servitude.”  Like the 1866 Civil Rights Act before it, the 1968 Fair Housing Act addressed the badges and incidents of slavery.

Given the significance of the Fair Housing Act, it’s surprising how little acclaim the Act received on its April 11 anniversary.  On the other hand, the 1968 Fair Housing Act was controversial when it was enacted, and its wide-reaching mandate is largely unenforced.  According to one of the act’s sponsors, Walter Mondale, “The public servants tasked with implementing it have often forgotten — or refused to pursue — its ultimate goal of building an integrated society.”  Mondale points out that federal officials balked at enforcing the Act’s integration mandate until the Obama administration.  Now, the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, referred to those Obama era regulations as “mandated social engineering.” 

Rather than celebrate the Act’s anniversary, Secretary Carson seems intent on undermining it.  For example, Secretary Carson recently removed anti-discrimination language from HUD’s mission statement.  As advocates for civil rights struggle to maintain hard won gains from the past 50 years, comprehensive measures like he 1968 Fair Housing Act seem sadly anachronistic.  However, 50 years after the Kerner commission report, little has improved.  Blacks experience unemployment at twice the rate as whites, and according to a recent study, our cities and schools are re-segregating.  Try as we might to ignore and deny it, people of color in our country are still suffering from the badges and incidents of slavery.