IN THIS ISSUE

Front Page

Letter from the President: Putting Race Back on the Table

Notes from the Right: Race and Poverty —Getting a Legal Burial?

Law Review Summaries: Racial Lines and Property Rights

Funders Support Innovative Meeting on Intent Doctrine

EJS and California Teachers Association Collaborate on Unconscious Bias Project

EJS Argues Admissions Policy of Hawai'i Private School for Native Hawaiian Children Does Not Violate Civil Rights

New Chief Justice: Where Will He Stand on Civil Rights?

Staff/Board News and Notes

Newsletter Editors:
Elaine Elinson
Miguel Gavaldon

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EJS and California Teachers Association Collaborate on Unconscious Bias Project

By David Salniker
Director of Administration and Finance

In October 2003, California faced the prospect of a ballot initiative that would have prohibited any state agency from collecting data concerning race or ethnicity. The Equal Justice Society brought together an astounding group of sociologists, doctors, public health officials, civil right lawyers, educators and a wide range of other academics at a conference at Stanford University to consider the impact of such a state policy.

Planting Seeds

Out of that conference, a number of program initiatives were birthed by EJS: "Putting Race Back on the Table" - a long term effort by EJS and its research collaborators and communications staff to find new ways for the public, academics and policymakers to talk about race; and the "Unconscious Bias Project" - a unique collaboration with California Teachers Association to look at racial bias in our classrooms and school environment and its impact on student achievement.

These projects have formed the heart of our work for the last two years at EJS and have each grown to encompass deeper conversations, cooperation and collaboration with other organizations and experts.

These program initiatives, directed by Eva Paterson, President of EJS, and Kimberly Thomas Rapp, our Director of Law and Policy, share underlying theoretical and practical assumptions that motivate EJS as an organization:

• That all of us, regardless of race, have cognitive biases that influence how we perceive and make decisions about other people and that we are often guided by racial and other stereotypes of which we are completely unaware;
• Most Americans believe that discrimination is over and, as a result, a phenomenon of "racial fatigue" has made it both difficult and socially disadvantageous to talk about race and/or discrimination in the courtroom, the media or even with each other;
• That we need to develop an awareness of unconscious racial bias, both legally and socially, in order to eliminate the discriminatory practices, policies and institutions that unconscious bias fosters.

You will read elsewhere in this newsletter of our meeting to plan legal attacks against doctrines that require proof of "intent" to substantiate claims of racial discrimination. Similarly, EJS's primary program of "Putting Race Back on The Table" will frame a considerable amount of work we are doing now, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, and on future issues . This brief article is intended to capture a beginning pilot project in Davis, Calif., focusing on "unconscious bias" in the classroom.

Pilot Project in Davis

Following the conference at Stanford, the California Teachers Association and EJS began discussions about researching how unconscious bias impacts student learning, particularly among students of color and language disadvantaged students. A project was approved by CTA's Board of Directors and, with the help of CTA's Director of Human Relations Jim Thrasher, teachers at the Davis School District were enlisted in the project. EJS, in turn, enlisted three outside consultants to assist in the project: Dr. Jim Outtz, an industrial and organizational psychologist at the University of Maryland, the primary researcher on this project; Dr. Shakti Butler, who has assisted numerous groups engage in dialogue about race and culture will use her tranformative learning expertise to serve as the facilitator and trainer; and Dr. Laura Luster, a program manager specializing in employment and education will direct the collaborative inquiry groups' experiential learning.

The Unconscious Bias Project will open a two-pronged approach:

• Dr. Outtz will lead a literature review of current research of unconscious bias in education and in particular any current research on the impact of bias within the classroom;
• Drs. Butler and Luster will conduct a "collaborative inquiry project' with the Davis School community, including teachers, administrators, students and parents - in essence a pilot, practical research effort.

These are the questions we will be looking at:

1. What is unconscious bias?
2. What does its practice look like in the classroom? Within the School Community?
3. What is the impact of those practices on students?
4. What is the relationship, if any, of that bias and academic achievement?
5. How do we raise awareness of unconscious bias and the practices it fosters?
6. How do we remedy the damage we believe it causes?

The first Collaborative Inquiry Group will begin meeting in Davis in November. But the project has already drawn the support of the National Education Association, which has provided additional funding to CTA to pursue the pilot and lent considerable research assistance to Dr. Outtz. NEA has selected only two other projects nationally for similar support: a parent outreach project in East Augusta, Georgia and a student leadership project in Dallas, Texas.

EJS's role is what it does best: facilitate and guide a complex project by bringing together researchers, academics, institutions and organizations to examine an issue of race and to advance social equity for all of us.