Some Thoughts About Social Perception and Employment Discrimination Law: A Modest Proposal for Reopening the Judicial Dialogue
23 Pages Posted: 29 May 2012 Last revised: 2 Apr 2015
Date Written: 1997
Abstract
Part I examines how and why people engage in stereotyping and prejudiced thinking. It also summarizes the available data on the continued existence of racial discrimination in employment. Part II explains why the due process clause, the right to trial by jury, and elemental notions of fairness obligate judges and juries to listen to known facts about racism and discrimination and how this can be accomplished through jury instructions, judicial notice and expert testimony. Part III demonstrates that neither the language of the most controversial Supreme Court opinions nor the theories of the icons of contemporary conservative thought foreclose our modest proposal.
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