Jean Stefancic

Why Do We Tell the Same Stories?: Law Reform, Critical Librarianship, and the Triple Helix Dilemma

Commercial indexing tools used in legal and bibliographic research ease the job of the scholar or lawyer, but confine thought and discovery to predetermined channels, making it difficult to hit upon truly novel legal ideas or theories. The structure of legal research tools, then, exercises a powerful homeostatic force toward the current order, rendering reform difficult even to imagine.

Critical Race Theory and Criminal Justice

In this speech delivered at an inaugural colloquium at John Jay College, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic address the implications of Critical Race Theory (CRT) for criminal law and justice. CRT sprang up in the late 1980s when the Civil Rights Movement stalled; new theories were needed to cope with emerging forms of institutional or “colorblind” racism and a public that seemed tired of hearing about race. Critical race theorists showed how racism is routine, not exceptional, and that liberal accounts were inadequate to understand its persistence and power. Although Critical Race Theory has provided many useful insights, it has largely left crime and criminal justice unexplored. Delgado and Stefancic review the history of CRT, including the small number of efforts to come to terms with crime and delinquency by CRT scholars, and list a number of issues that seem ripe for critical analysis. They also show how such critical tools as interest convergence, social constructionism, differential racialization, legal storytelling, and the critique of White normativity may help understand societys fixation on Black and Latino criminality. They conclude by urging critical scholars to devote more attention to crime and race and to propose a research agenda for the future.

Hateful Speech, Loving Communities: Why Our Notion of a Just Balance Changes so Slowly

Identifies one reason why proponents of hate-speech regulation encounter resistance -- often, it is the stubborn manner in which we frame the two core values at stake, equal dignity and freedom of speech. Illustrates the shortcomings of judicial balancing as a way of resolving the tensions between these two opposing values. Uses narrative theory to show how society prevents canonical ideas and social structures from undergoing rapid change. Explores routes that reformers may take that may circumvent these obstacles.

A New Southern Strategy of Multigroup Oppression: A Response to Standard White by Michael Morris

Building on a recent essay by Michael Morris in California Law Review, shows how conservative strategists deploy regional animus against Latinos to improve GOP electoral prospects and set one minority group against another to the detriment of both.

The Racial Double Helix: Watson, Crick, and Brown v. Board of Education

In support of our bid for an alternative major prize for Derrick Bell and to honor his career and scholarship, this Essay summarizes some of his contributions to the understanding of racial replication, together with those of a few of his friends, including ourselves. A midget, you see, standing on top of the shoulders of a giant, can occasionally see even farther than the giant. Part I explains how culture replicates itself. Part II considers a set of homeo-mechanisms having to do with interest-convergence (one of Bells signature themes) or the structure of legal thought, both of the conservative and the liberal variety. Part III explores differential racialization, including the part played by breakthrough legal decisions like Brown.