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Published Nov 2020
368 pages
Genre: Essays
Publication Information
The preeminent civil rights attorneys and scholars of the past quarter-century weigh in on some of the most controversial aspects of race and the law, published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the prestigious Derrick Bell Lecture Series.
Carving Out a Humanity gathers some of our country's brightest progressive legal stars in a volume that illuminates the facets of the law that have continued to perpetuate racial inequality and to confound our nation at the start of a new millennium.
"To what extent does equal protection protect?" asks Ian Haney López in a penetrating analysis of the gaps that remain in our civil rights legal codes. President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill describes the hypersegregation of our cities and the limits of the law's ability to change deep-seated attitudes about race. Patricia Williams explores the legacy of slavery in the law's current constructions of sanity. Anita Allen discusses competing privacy and accountability interests in the lives of African American celebrities. Chuck Lawrence interrogates the judicial backlash against affirmative action. And Michelle Alexander describes what caused her to break ranks with the civil rights community and take up the cause of those our legal system has labeled unworthy.
Originally delivered as Derrick Bell Lectures in a series at NYU School of Law, begun in 1995 and running up through 2019, Carving Out a Humanity offers an unprecedented array of today's most creative and brilliant thinking on race and the law.
"[P]rominent contributors include Lani Guinier, Paul Butler, Stephen Bright, and Michelle Alexander. Many [essays] powerfully acknowledge the persistence of structural racism and offer in-depth discussion regarding particular aspects of the law's effect on marginalized communities...An erudite collection to alarm conservatives and gratify progressives." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[I]ncisive essays on racial injustice in America...Deeply enriched by the classroom and courtroom experiences of its contributors, this consistently insightful collection is a valuable resource for students and teachers of the law." - Publishers Weekly
"Providing a lens on issues of race in America and how scholars have responded, this potent work draws conclusions about systemic injustice and race...Scholars and lay readers alike will be enlightened and spurred to thought and discussion." - Library Journal
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Vincent Southerland is the executive director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU Law. The co-editor (with Janet Dewart Bell) of Carving Out a Humanity: Race, Rights, and Redemption (The New Press), he lives in New York City.
Janet Dewart Bell is a social justice activist with a doctorate in leadership and change from Antioch University. She founded the Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society series at the New York University School of Law and is the author of Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement (The New Press). An award-winning television and radio producer, she lives in New York City.
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