Conference on Race, Law, and History at Michigan Law, April 1-2

"We Must First Take Account" is a conference the end of this week at Michigan Law on Race, Law, and History. 

As the organizers explain:

“To get beyond racism, we must first take account of race,” is the well-remembered phrase from Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion in the 1978 Bakke decision. Blackmun’s view may remain controversial in debates about constitutional jurisprudence. But for historians of law it is axiomatic. In the generation since Bakke, scholars have indeed taken account, mining legal culture’s archives to explain the origins and endurance of race. Today race is at the core of interpreting the history of law in the Americas. Understood as a set of ideas that
rely upon religion, culture, labor, biology, and politics, race has organized profound inequality and galvanized movements for social justice.

More information and the program is available here.   A stellar line-up of speakers!

RR