Workshop | Defining the Problem: A (Partial) History of Race in America, A Narrative Project

This workshop will help attendees understand how “otherness” is constructed by social forces, including by law and its institutions. The workshop opens with an example that illustrates the choice between colorblindness and color-consciousness made by Supreme Court justices. This choice is informed by very different understandings of this nation’s history and the role that race played and continues to play. The workshop provides a history that is critical in understanding how conflict between different groups is constructed, including specifically how Whiteness, Blackness, Indigeneity, Latina/o-ness, and Asian American-ness are constructed. This understanding will assist those who face DEI challenges themselves as well as those seeking to address DEI issues in the workplace and the delivery of services. Attendees will take away tools to understand colorblindness, diagnose deficiencies, and work constructively toward next steps, including how to work with others in coalition.

Handout(s):

1. Defining the Problem

Robert S. Chang is a Professor of Law and is founder and Executive Director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at UC Irvine School of Law. He writes primarily in the area of race and interethnic relations. He is the author of DISORIENTED: ASIAN AMERICANS, LAW AND THE NATION-STATE (NYU Press 1999) and MINORITY RELATIONS: INTERGROUP CONFLICT AND COOPERATION (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) and more than 60 articles, essays, and chapters published in leading law reviews and books on Critical Race Theory, LatCrit Theory, and Asian American Legal Studies. He has two forthcoming books: BANNED: FIGHTING FOR MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES IN THE STREETS AND THE COURTS (with Nolan Cabrera) (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2024); and THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT AND WHITE SOCIAL DOMINANCE (with Carlton Waterhouse, Michalyn Steele & Tanya Hernandez) (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025).

An elected member of the American Law Institute, he has received numerous recognitions for his scholarship and service. Most recently, he and the Korematsu Center are the 2024 recipients of the King County (WA) Bar Association Friend of the Legal Profession Award and the 2024 Justice Charles Z. Smith Excellence in Diversity APEX Award by the Washington State Bar Association APEX Award. In 2021, the ACLU of Washington named him as co-recipient of the Kathleen Taylor Civil Libertarian Award for his role as co-counsel representing Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County in its lawsuit against the City of Seattle for its use of force against people protesting police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. In 2018, the Society of American Law Teachers recognized him with the M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award for his work as co-counsel in taking to trial, successfully, a constitutional challenge to the enactment and enforcement of a facially neutral law that was used to terminate the Mexican American Studies Program at the Tucson Unified School District. For work in Washington, he was a co-recipient of the 2014 Charles A. Goldmark Distinguished Service Award from the Legal Foundation of Washington for his leadership role in a statewide task force on race and the criminal justice system. Following the murder of George Floyd, the task force was reconvened to produce a 10-year update to the 2011 report of the previous task force. This report was presented to the Washington Supreme Court in September 2021, and like the previous report, will be published simultaneously in the Gonzaga Law Review, the Seattle University Law Review, and the Washington Law Review.