Cheryl I. Harris

Bio: Cheryl I. Harris is an academic researcher from University of California, Los Angeles. The author has contributed to research in topics: Affirmative action & Preference. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 15 publications receiving 4637 citations. Previous affiliations of Cheryl I. Harris include University of Chicago & Fordham University.

Whiteness as Property

Abstract: Issues regarding race and racial identity as well as questions pertaining to property rights and ownership have been prominent in much public discourse in the United States. In this article, Professor Harris contributes to this discussion by positing that racial identity and property are deeply interrelated concepts. Professor Harris examines how whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law. Professor Harris traces the origins of whiteness as property in the parallel systems of domination of Black and Native American peoples out of which were created racially contingent forms of property and property rights. Following the period of slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege - a type of status in which white racial identity provided the basis for allocating societal benefits both private and public in character. These arrangements were ratified and legitimated in law as a type of status property. Even as legal segregation was overturned, whiteness as property continued to serve as a barrier to effective change as the system of racial classification operated to protect entrenched power. Next, Professor Harris examines how the concept of whiteness as property persists in current perceptions of racial identity, in the law's misperception of group identity and in the Court's reasoning and decisions in the arena of affirmative action. Professor Harris concludes by arguing that distortions in affirmative action doctrine can only be addressed by confronting and exposing the property interest in whiteness and by acknowledging the distributive justification and function of affirmative action as central to that task.

Whiteness as Property

Abstract: Issues regarding race and racial identity as well as questions pertaining to property rights and ownership have been prominent in much public discourse in the United States. In this article, Professor Harris contributes to this discussion by positing that racial identity and property are deeply interrelated concepts. Professor Harris examines how whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law. Professor Harris traces the origins of whiteness as property in the parallel systems of domination of Black and Native American peoples out of which were created racially contingent forms of property and property rights. Following the period of slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege - a type of status in which white racial identity provided the basis for allocating societal benefits both private and public in character. These arrangements were ratified and legitimated in law as a type of status property. Even as legal segregation was overturned, whiteness as property continued to serve as a barrier to effective change as the system of racial classification operated to protect entrenched power. Next, Professor Harris examines how the concept of whiteness as property persists in current perceptions of racial identity, in the law's misperception of group identity and in the Court's reasoning and decisions in the arena of affirmative action. Professor Harris concludes by arguing that distortions in affirmative action doctrine can only be addressed by confronting and exposing the property interest in whiteness and by acknowledging the distributive justification and function of affirmative action as central to that task.

The New Racial Preferences

Abstract: Michigan's Proposal 2 and California's Proposition 209 explicitly prohibit their state governments from discriminating or granting "preferential treatment . . . on the basis of race." Proponents of both ballot initiatives specifically employed this language to eliminate state promulgated race-based affirmative action programs. For advocates of Proposal 2 and Proposition 209, affirmative action is the quintessential example of a preference on the basis on race. They reasoned that the policy benefits blacks and Latinos and burdens whites and, in some formulations, Asian Americans.This Article neither defends affirmative action nor critiques anti-affirmative action initiatives. Instead, we take Proposition 209 and Proposal 2 seriously by engaging in something of a thought experiment: what concretely does it mean to make institutional processes colorblind or race neutral? We believe it particularly productive to explore this question in the context of school admissions policies, where selection procedures have been highly scrutinized and debated. Our more particular focus is on the personal statement, which remains an important but under-examined part of the admission process. While it is clear that post-affirmative action admissions criteria exclude or omit race from consideration, what that means for evaluating the personal statement is decidedly less than clear. Surprisingly, this issue has received little scholarly attention. Most commentators have focused on the demographic consequences of eliminating race from consideration, and not the mechanisms college and university admissions employ to attempt to purge race from the admissions process. The assumption seems to be that implementing the colorblind imperative of Proposition 209 and Proposal 2 is easy institutional business. But this is not so. Focusing on the personal statement, we will demonstrate that eliminating race from admissions is far from simple. Indeed, so long as the personal statement is part of the admissions process, it might not even be possible. Nor does prohibiting explicit references to race in the context of admissions make admissions processes race neutral. As we will show, again drawing on the personal statement, formally eliminating race from admissions decision-making installs a new racial preference. The new racial preference is not a preference for a racial category per se. Nor is this preference "on the basis of skin color," which is how opponents of affirmative characterize the policy. The new racial preference gives a priority or advantage to applicants who choose to suppress their racial identity over those who do not so choose. More specifically, this racial preference benefits applicants who (a) view their racial identity as irrelevant or inessential and (b) make no express mention of it in the application process. These applicants are advantaged vis-a-vis applicants for whom race is a fundamental part of their sense of self.One might think of this preference as a kind of racial viewpoint discrimination - analogous to the viewpoint distinction or preference that the First Amendment prohibits. Race is the "content" and colorblindness and racial consciousness are competing "viewpoints." Just as the government's regulation of speech must be content neutral and cannot be based upon the viewpoint expressed, a university's regulation of admissions should be content neutral and should not burden or prefer applicants based upon the racial viewpoint their personal statements express.We attribute the new racial preference to, among other things, a set of rhetorical conflations - "colorblindness" with "race neutrality" and "race consciousness" with "racial preference." We expose the false-necessity and contingency of these associations and explain how they obscure the very racial preferences they help to produce. In the context of doing so, we introduce a new racial vocabulary not only for administering admissions but for engaging broader problems of race, law and social policy.

The New Racial Preferences

Abstract: Michigan’s Proposal 2 and California’s Proposition 209 explicitly prohibit their state governments from discriminating or granting “preferential treatment ... on the basis of race.” Proponents of both ballot initiatives specifically employed this language to eliminate state promulgated race-based affirmative action programs. For advocates of Proposal 2 and Proposition 209, affirmative action is the quintessential example of a preference on the basis on race. They reasoned that the policy benefits blacks and Latinos and burdens whites and, in some formulations, Asian Americans. This Article neither defends affirmative action nor critiques anti-affirmative action initiatives. Instead, we take Proposition 209 and Proposal 2 seriously by engaging in something of a thought experiment: what concretely does it mean to make institutional processes colorblind or race neutral? We believe it particularly productive to explore this question in the context of school admissions policies, where selection procedures have been highly scrutinized and debated. Our more particular focus is on the personal statement, which remains an important but under-examined part of the admission process. While it is clear that post-affirmative action admissions criteria exclude or omit race from consideration, what that means for evaluating the personal statement is decidedly less than clear. Surprisingly, this issue has received little scholarly attention. Most commentators have focused on the demographic consequences of eliminating race from consideration, and not the mechanisms college and university admissions employ to attempt to purge race from the admissions process. The assumption seems to be that implementing the colorblind imperative of Proposition 209 and Proposal 2 is easy institutional business. But this is not so. Focusing on the personal statement, we will demonstrate that eliminating race from admissions is far from simple. Indeed, so long as the personal statement is part of the admissions process, it might not even be possible. Nor does prohibiting explicit references to race in the context of admissions make admissions processes race neutral. As we will show, again drawing on the personal statement, formally eliminating race from admissions decisionmaking installs a new racial preference. The new racial preference is not a preference for a racial category per se. Nor is this preference “on the basis of skin color,” which is how opponents of affirmative characterize the policy. The new racial preference gives a priority or advantage to applicants who choose to suppress their racial identity over those who do not so choose. More specifically, this racial preference benefits applicants who (a) view their racial identity as irrelevant or inessential and (b) make no express mention of it in the application process. These applicants are advantaged vis-a-vis applicants for whom race is a fundamental part of their sense of self. One might think of this preference as a kind of racial viewpoint discrimination—analogous to the viewpoint distinction or preference that the First Amendment prohibits. Race is the “content” and colorblindness and racial consciousness are competing “viewpoints.” Just as the government’s regulation of speech must be content neutral and cannot be based upon the viewpoint expressed, a university’s regulation of admissions should be content neutral and † Professors of Law, UCLA School of Law. For discussions about or feedback on this Article, we thank Kimberle Crenshaw, Carole Goldberg, Jerry Kang, Mitu Gulati, Luke Harris, and Russell Robinson, and Michael Schill. Laura Wirth, Emily Wood, Jordan Blair Woods, Nina Farnia, and Hentyle Yapp provided invaluable research assistance. We are indebted to as always to the research staff of the law library, including Cheryl Kelly Fischer. For their insight into the Cantrell litigation, we thank Mark Rosenbaum and Catherine Lhamon from the ACLU of Southern California, and Anurima Bhargawa of the NAACP-LDF. We also thank Angela Onwuachi-Willig for inviting us to participate in this symposium. Finally, we thank the editors of the California Law Review for their patience and for the care with which they engaged our ideas.

Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education.

Abstract: The goal of this chapter goal is to map critical race theory (CRT) scholarship in education over the past decade and draw this map with respect to larger conceptual categories of the scholarship on CRT, primarily focusing on the ideas applied from CRT in legal studies. The chapter focuses primarily on the past 10 years and creates "spatial" markers based on the view of significant features in the literature. Some of these markers are whiteness as property, counternarrative, and interest convergence. Others are newly-represented such as microaggressions, intersectionality, and research methods. From the perspective of far too many students of color in schools, we are STILL not saved. While the chapter outlines several recommendations for CRT scholarship to move forward, perhaps the most important recommendation is to collectively seek to ensure that CRT becomes more than an intellectual movement.

Just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education?

Abstract: Critical race theory (CRT) first emerged as a counterlegal scholarship to the positivistand liberal legal discourse of civil rights. This scholarly tradition argues against the slow pace of racial reform in the United States. Critical race theory begins with the notion that racism is normal in American society. It departs from mainstream legal scholarship by sometimes employing storytelling. It critiques liberalism and argues that Whites have been the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation.Since schooling in the USA purports to prepare citizens, CRT looks at how citizenship and race might interact. Critical race theory's usefulness in understanding education inequity is in its infancy. It requires a critique of some of the civil rights era's most cherished legal victories and educationalreform movements, such as multiculturalism. The paper concludes with words of caution about the use of CRT in education without a more thorough analysis of the legal literature upon which it is based.

On the political

Abstract: Since September 11th, we frequently hear that political differences should be put aside: the real struggle is between good and evil. What does this mean for political and social life? Is there a 'Third Way' beyond left and right, and if so, should we fear or welcome it? This thought-provoking book by Chantal Mouffe, a globally recognized political author, presents a timely account of the current state of democracy, affording readers the most relevant and up-to-date information. Arguing that liberal 'third way thinking' ignores fundamental, conflicting aspects of human nature, Mouffe states that, far from expanding democracy, globalization is undermining the combative and radical heart of democratic life. Going back first to Aristotle, she identifies the historical origins of the political and reflects on the Enlightenment, and the social contract, arguing that in spite of its good intentions, it levelled the radical core of political life. Contemporary examples, including the Iraq war, racism and the rise of the far right, are used to illustrate and support her theory that far from combating extremism, the quest for consensus politics undermines the ability to challenge it. These case studies are also highly effective points of reference for student revision. On the Political is a stimulating argument about the future of politics and addresses the most fundamental aspects of democracy that will aid further study.

When Multiplication Doesn't Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm

Abstract: In the past twenty years, intersectionality has emerged as a compelling response to arguments on behalf of identity-based politics across the discipline. It has done so by drawing attention to the simultaneous and interacting effects of gender, race, class, sexual orientation,andnationaloriginascategoriesofdifference.Intersectionalargumentsandresearchfindingshavehadvaryinglevelsof impact in feminist theory, social movements, international human rights, public policy, and electoral behavior research within political science and across the disciplines of sociology, critical legal studies, and history. Yet consideration of intersectionality as a research paradigm has yet to gain a wide foothold in political science. This article closely reads research on race and gender across subfields of political science to present a coherent set of empirical research standards for intersectionality.

Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California

Abstract: Geographic studies of environmental racism have focused on the spatial relationships between environmental hazards and community demographics in order to determine if inequity exists. Conspicuously absent within this literature, however, is any substantive discussion of racism. This paper seeks to address this shortcoming in two ways. I first investigate how racism is understood and expressed in the literature. I argue that although racism is rarely explicitly discussed, a normative conceptualization of racism informs the research. Not only is this prevailing conception overly narrow and restrictive, it also denies the spatiality of racism. Consequently, my second goal is to demonstrate how various forms of racism contribute to environmental racism. In addition to conventional understandings of racism, I emphasize white privilege, a highly structural and spatial form of racism. Using Los Angeles as a case study, I examine how whites have secured relatively cleaner environments by moving away from older in...