Dr. Shakti Butler delivered a presentation on unconscious racial bias at the luncheon

The Equal Justice Society’s 2nd Annual Judge Constance Baker Motley Civil Rights Fellowship Luncheon took place on Tuesday, July 24, at the Empress of China Restaurant in San Francisco.

EJS established the Motley Fellowship to invigorate the next generation of progressive legal practitioners seeking to transform anti-discrimination law and policy.

The luncheon featured a presentation on unconscious racial bias by Dr. Shakti Butler of World Trust Educational Services.

Special thanks to our sponsors:

* Morrison & Foerster LLP
* Harry B. Bremond
* James M. Finberg
* Heller Ehrman LLP
* Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Farrise & Greenwood Foundation
* Minami Tamaki LLP
* Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
* vanLöbenSels/RembeRock Foundation
* Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati Foundation

And our Luncheon Co-Chairs:

* Jessica Aguirre, KNTV - NBC Channel 11
* William Alderman, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
* James Brosnahan, Morrison & Foerster LLP
* James M. Finberg, Altshuler Berzon LLP
* Robert M. Hirsch, Esq.
* Shauna Marshall, UC Hastings College of the Law
* Raymond C. Marshall, Bingham McCutchen LLP
* Dale Minami, Minami Tamaki LLP
* Margaret Russell, Santa Clara University School of Law
* Hon. Rebecca Westerfield (Ret.), JAMS Resolution Experts

The Constance Baker Motley Fellowship was established to invigorate the next generation of progressive legal practitioners seeking to transform anti-discrimination law and policy. Our current Fellow is Sara Jackson.

Dr. Shakti Butler of World Trust Educational Services presented an intellectually stimulating workshop on Unconscious Racial Bias. In our work at EJS we have learned that a number of attorneys shy away from issues of race in the litigation context. Dr. Butler’s presentation expanded our thinking about discrimination by sharing social science research that may help shape a new progressive formulation of anti-discrimination practices to increase litigator and service-provider comfort with issues of race and lay the groundwork for proactive litigation strategies.

Since 2004, Dr. Shakti Butler has served as a program development consultant and workshop facilitator for our collaborative project with the California Teachers Association to mitigate the negative effects of unconscious racial bias on student learning and on the broader school community. Dr. Butler is a nationally recognized expert, using film and other creative tools to create a safe environment conducive to community building and transformational learning.

Our profound interest in the science of unconscious bias is a key component of our long-range initiative to dismantle the Intent Doctrine. In 1976, just a few years after Justice William Rehnquist joined the bench, Washington v. Davis was decided, placing a nearly insurmountable hurdle in the way of plaintiffs seeking redress for discrimination.

This decision placed a prohibitive burden on victims of discrimination and limited the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by restricting its remedial reach to cases in which the plaintiff could prove a decision-maker’s specific “intent” to discriminate.

Racial justice is impossible to achieve when the law fails to reflect the actual experiences of communities who have seen and felt discrimination. Social psychologists, critical sociologists and other social scientists have developed empirical and theoretical research showing that the Intent Doctrine fails to reflect how a large part of discrimination actually occurs.

According to these studies, all of us have unconscious biases that influence how we perceive and make decisions about other people. Individual and institutional discrimination, often guided by these cognitive biases and stereotypes, can occur even in the absence of blatant prejudice. Many of these powerful theories and studies, however, are not being fully utilized on the front lines of political debate or courtrooms by legal advocates.

In order to provide lawyers with the necessary tools to challenge the faulty assumptions of the Intent Doctrine, the Equal Justice Society brings together social scientists, lawyers, pollsters, legal academics and students to develop long-term strategies for introducing a more accurate understanding of discrimination into the law. Most Americans do not want to be racist and do not think they act in racially biased ways.

Not only does our promoting of the unconscious bias framework support our work to dismantle Intent, but it also allows for a more engaging approach to address racism - i.e., promoting unconscious bias takes a "building awareness" rather than a "blaming" approach.

The presentation led us through a transformative learning experience that will begin to explain how unconscious bias operates and introduce methods of reducing bias.