Legal Instruction Resources

In Bias in the Law, sixteen outstanding experts address the impact of racial bias in the full roster of criminal justice actors. They examine the role of legislators crafting criminal justice legislation, community enforcers, and police, as well as prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and jurors.--Publisher

Blackballed exposes the white fraternity and sorority system, with traditions of racist parties, songs, and assaults on black students, and the universities themselves, who name campus buildings after racist men and women. It also takes a deep dive into anti-affirmative action policies and how they effectively segregate predominately white universities, providing ample room for white privilege.--Publisher

In this thought-provoking book, Harris traces the origins of the black rage defense back through American history, recreating numerous dramatic trials along the way.--Publisher

The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) made headlines around the world in 2016. Activists rallied near the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota for months in opposition to DAPL, winning an unprecedented but temporary victory before the federal government ultimately permitted the pipeline. The water protector camps drew global support and united more than three hundred tribes in perhaps the largest Native alliance in U.S. history. While it faced violent opposition, the peaceful movement against DAPL has become one of the most crucial human rights movements of our time. Black Snake is the story of four leaders--LaDonna Allard, Jasilyn Charger, Lisa DeVille, and Kandi White--and their fight against the pipeline.--Publisher

The Cambridge Handbook of Policing in the United States provides a comprehensive collection of essays on police and policing, written by leading experts in political theory, sociology, criminology, economics, law, public health, and critical theory.--Publisher

In his no-holds-barred style, Butler, whose scholarship has been featured on 60 Minutes, uses new data to demonstrate that white men commit the majority of violent crime in the United States.--Publisher

Carl A. Zimring here draws on historical evidence from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism. The material consequences of these attitudes endured and expanded through the twentieth century, shaping waste management systems and environmental inequalities that endure into the twenty-first century.--Publisher

The Color of Creatorship contributes to a rapidly-developing conversation in critical race intellectual property. Vats argues that once anti-racist activists grapple with the underlying racial structures of intellectual property law, they can better advocate for strategies that resist the underlying drivers of racially disparate copyright, patent, and trademark policy.--Publisher

When The Color of Crime was first published ten years ago, it was heralded as a path-breaking book on race and crime. Now, in its tenth anniversary year, Katheryn Russell-Brown's book is more relevant than ever. The Jena Six, Duke Lacrosse Team, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, James Byrd, and all of those victimized in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are just a few of the racially fueled cases that have made headlines in the past decade.--Publisher

Blending memoir, courtroom drama, and a consideration of the unhealed wound of racism in our society, he shines a light on the conflict between the value of free speech and the protection of civil rights.--Publisher

In Contract and Domination, Pateman and Mills discuss their differences about contract theory and whether it has a useful future, excavate the (white) settler contract that created new civil societies in North America and Australia, argue via a non-ideal contract for reparations to black Americans, confront the evasions of contemporary contract theorists, explore the intersections of gender and race and the global sexual-racial contract, and reply to their critics.--Publisher

In Dark Matters Simone Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted.--Publisher

Destructive Messages argues that when hate speech is systematically developed over time it poses an even greater threat than when it creates an immediate clear and present danger. Tsesis offers concrete suggestions concerning how to reform current law in order to protect the rights of all citizens.--Publisher

The killing of Amadou Diallo, racial disparities in medical care, the dominance of Whites and men in certain professions, and even the uneven media attention paid to crimes depending on their victims' race and class, all might be cases of discrimination by, or as, default. Wang contends that, today, most discrimination occurs by default and not design, making legal prohibitions that focus on those who discriminate out of ill will inadequate to redress the largest share of modern discrimination.--Publisher

In this provocative analysis, leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts argues that America is once again at the brink of a virulent outbreak of classifying population by race. By searching for differences at the molecular level, a new race-based science is obscuring racism in society and legitimising state brutality against communities at a time when America claims to be post-racial.--Publisher

In the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision regarding Fisher v. University of Texas, For Discrimination is at once the definitive reckoning with one of America's most explosively contentious and divisive issues and a principled work of advocacy for clearly defined justice.--Publisher

Tracing the movement's roots, Luke Cole and Sheila Foster combine long-time activism with powerful storytelling to provide gripping case studies of communities across the US--towns like Kettleman City, California; Chester, Pennsylvania; and Dilkon, Arizona--and their struggles against corporate polluters. The authors use social, economic and legal analysis to reveal the historical and contemporary causes for environmental racism.--Publisher

In this revised edition of Health Disparities in the United States, Donald A. Barr provides extensive new data about the ways low socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity interact to create and perpetuate these health disparities.--Publisher

In Hybrid, Ruth Colker argues that our bipolar classification system obscures a genuine understanding of the very nature of subordination. Acknowledging that categorization is crucial and unavoidable in a world of practical problems and day-to-day conflicts, Ruth Colker shows how categories can and must be improved for the good of all.--Publisher

Examining the current surge in nativism in light of past waves of anti- immigrant sentiment, the volume takes an unflinchingly critical look at the realities and rhetoric of the new nativism. Immigrants Out! provides a needed antidote to the often poisonous attacks on America's most vulnerable.--Publisher

In the era of globalization, shifting political landscapes, and transnational criminal organizations, discourse around immigration is reaching unprecedented levels. Immigration and the Law is a timely and significant volume of essays that addresses the social, political, and economic contexts of migration in the United States.--Publisher

The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.--Publisher

In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime.--Publisher

In this collection of twelve searing, previously unpublished speeches, Davis confronts the interconnected issues of power, race, gender, class, incarceration, conservatism, and the ongoing need for social change in the United States.--Publisher

In Migrating to Prison, leading scholar Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez takes a hard look at the immigration prison system's origins, how it currently operates, and why.--Publisher

Murder and the Reasonable Man not only shows how largely invisible social norms and beliefs influence the outcomes of certain criminal cases, but goes further, suggesting three tentative legal reforms to address problems of bias and undue leniency. Ultimately, Lee cautions that the true solution lies in a change in social attitudes.--Publisher

Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.--Publisher

No Equal Justice is the seminal work on race- and class-based double standards in criminal justice.--Publisher

As acclaimed criminologist Elliott Currie makes clear, this pervasive violence is a direct result of the continuing social and economic marginalization of many Black communities in America. Compelling and accessible, drawing on a rich array of both classic and contemporary research, A Peculiar Indifference describes the dimensions and consequences of this enduring emergency, explains its causes, and offers an urgent plea for long-overdue social action to end it.--Publisher

Policing Hatred explores the intersection of race and law enforcement in the controversial area of hate crime. Drawing on her unprecedented access to a police hate crime unit, Bell's work brings to life the stories of female, Black, Latino, and Asian American detectives, in addition to those of their white male counterparts.--Publisher

Policing the Black Man explores and critiques the many ways the criminal justice system impacts the lives of African American boys and men at every stage of the criminal process from arrest through sentencing.--Publisher

Michele Goodwin expands the reproductive health and rights debate beyond abortion to include how legislators increasingly turn to criminalizing women for miscarriages, stillbirths, and threatening the health of their pregnancies.--Publisher

In Prison by Any Other Name, activist journalists Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law reveal the way the kinder, gentler narrative of reform can obscure agendas of social control and challenge us to question the ways we replicate the status quo when pursuing change. A foreword by Michelle Alexander situates the book in the context of criminal justice reform conversations.--Publisher

The criminal justice system is the latest in a series of devices, including slavery, Jim Crow, and legally countenanced discrimination, that have maintained white dominance over black people. Tonry pushes for overdue - and realistic - changes in racial profiling and sentencing, and to the War on Drugs, to reduce their staggering human and social costs.--Publisher

Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties.--Publisher

A compelling study of a subtle and insidious form of racial inequality in American law and culture. Roy Brooks, a distinguished legal scholar, argues that the reality is more complex. He defines the race problem African Americans face today as a three-headed hydra involving socioeconomic, judicial, and cultural conditions. Focusing on law and culture, Brooks defines the problem largely as racial subordination--"the act of impeding racial progress in pursuit of nonracist interests."--Publisher

In this uncelebrated corner of "La La Land" through which most of America's goods transit, pollution is literally killing the residents. In response, a grassroots movement for environmental justice has grown, predominated by Asian and undocumented Latin@ immigrant women who are transforming our political landscape--yet we know very little about these change makers. In Refusing Death, Nadia Y. Kim tells their stories, finding that the women are influential because of their ability to remap politics, community, and citizenship in the face of the country's nativist racism and system of class injustice, defined not just by disproportionate environmental pollution but also by neglected schools, surveillance and deportation, and political marginalization.

Saving the Neighborhood tells the charged, still controversial story of the rise and fall of racially restrictive covenants in America, and offers rare insight into the ways legal and social norms reinforce one another, acting with pernicious efficacy to codify and perpetuate intolerance.--Publisher

Gabbidon and Higgins address the generally neglected racial profiling that occurs in retail settings.--Publisher

In The Silicon Valley of Dreams, the authors take a hard look at the high-tech region of Silicon Valley to examine environmental racism within the context of immigrant patterns, labor markets, and the historical patterns of colonialism. The authors trace the origins of this exploitation and provide a new understanding of the present-day struggles for occupational health and safety.--Publisher

Standoff is award-winning journalist Jamie Thompson's gripping account of a deadly night in Dallas, told through the eyes of those at the center of the events, who offer a nuanced look at race and policing in America. Thompson's minute-by-minute account includes intimate portrayals of the negotiator, a surgeon who operated on the fallen officers, a mother of four shot down in the street, and the SWAT officers tasked with stopping the gunman.

In Tangled Up in Blue, Brooks recounts her experiences inside the usually closed world of policing. From street shootings and domestic violence calls to the behind-the-scenes police work during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration, Brooks presents a revelatory account of what it's like inside the "blue wall of silence." She issues an urgent call for new laws and institutions, and argues that in a nation increasingly divided by race, class, ethnicity, geography, and ideology, a truly transformative approach to policing requires us to move beyond sound bites, slogans, and stereotypes.--Publisher

From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers.--Publisher

In The Torture Letters, Laurence Ralph chronicles the history of torture in Chicago, the burgeoning activist movement against police violence, and the American public's complicity in perpetuating torture at home and abroad.--Publisher

In American Poison, the New York Times veteran shows how racial animus has stunted the development of nearly every institution crucial for a healthy society, including organized labor, public education, and the social safety net.--Publisher

In this brief, accessible, impassioned volume, Bill Piatt surveys Black/Brown relations in their entirety, devoting chapters to such issues as competition in a shrinking labor market, the re-segregation of our public schools, the language barrier, gang warfare, and voting coalitions. Reviewing similarities and differences between the Black and Brown experience in America, Bill Piatt emphasizes the need for solidarity and mutual understanding and offers explicit proposals for greater racial harmony.--Publisher

Bryan Stevenson has committed his career to fighting wrongful convictions, systemic poverty, and mass incarceration--here, he shares the lessons he's learned throughout his life. Stories include how his slave ancestry shaped his childhood, how a poignant conversation with a death row inmate impacted his work, and why he believes the worst thing that happens to a person shouldn't define their life.--Publisher

In Conversations in Black, Gordon brings together some of the most prominent voices in black America today, including Stacey Abrams, Harry Belafonte, Charlamagne tha God, Michael Eric Dyson, Alicia Garza, Jemele Hill, Iyanla VanZant, Eric Holder, Killer Mike, Angela Rye, Al Sharpton, T.I., Maxine Waters, and so many more to answer questions about vital topics affecting our nation today.--Publisher

As Dying of Whiteness shows, the right-wing policies that resulted from this white backlash put these voters' very health at risk-and in the end, threaten everyone's well-being. Physician and sociologist Jonathan M. Metzl travels across America's heartland seeking to better understand the politics of racial resentment and its impact on public health.--Publisher

This book argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one's own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.--Publisher

In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism.--Publisher

How to Be Less Stupid About Race is your essential guide to breaking through the half-truths and ridiculous misconceptions that have thoroughly corrupted the way race is represented in the classroom, pop culture, media, and politics.--Publisher

Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.--Publisher

It is only by healing from injustices and dissolving our personal barriers to connection that we develop the ability to view others with compassion and to live in community with people of vastly different backgrounds and viewpoints. Incorporating mindfulness exercises, research, and Magee's hard-won insights, The Inner Work of Racial Justice offers a road map to a more peaceful world.--Publisher

For the first time, acclaimed writer and feminist devotes a book to the complex personae of women writers, especially those whose work goes against the grain.--Publisher

Williams tells his riveting story of struggle against racism: Growing up white in segregated Virginia in the 1950s, he discovered at age 10 that he was black.--Publisher

This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.--Publisher

Tackling the ugly secret of unconscious racism in American society, this book provides specific solutions to counter this entrenched phenomenon.--Publisher

In this important volume, scholars positioned differently with respect to white privilege examine how privilege of all forms manifests itself and how we can, and must, be aware of invisible privilege in our daily lives. Individual chapters focus on language, the workplace, the implications of comparing racism and sexism, race-based housing privilege, the dream of diversity and the cycle of exclusion, the rule of law and invisible systems of privilege, and the power of law to transform society.--Publisher

Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence debunks the most pervasive myths using evidence, easy-to-understand examples, and practical tools.--Publisher

In Reclaiming Our Space, social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms.--Publisher

Legal scholar Daria Roithmayr provocatively argues that racial inequality lives on because white advantage functions as a powerful self-reinforcing monopoly, reproducing itself automatically from generation to generation even in the absence of intentional discrimination.--Publisher

In these five eloquent and passionate pieces (which she gave as the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC) Patricia J. Williams asks how we might achieve a world where "color doesn't matter"--where whiteness is not equated with normalcy and blackness with exoticism and danger.--Publisher

A reckoning with the way we choose to see and define ourselves, Self-Portrait in Black and White is the searching story of one American family's multigenerational transformation from what is called black to what is assumed to be white.--Publisher

In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.--Publisher

In this poetic work inspired by Hortense Spillers, Gumbs offers an alternative approach to Black feminist literary criticism, historiography, and the interactive practice of relating to the words of Black feminist thinkers.--Publisher

The essential guide to understanding how racism works and how racial inequality shapes black lives, ultimately offering a road-map for resistance for racial justice advocates and antiracists.--Publisher

In this book, Cyndi Kernahan argues that you can be honest and unflinching in your teaching about racism while also providing a compassionate learning environment that allows for mistakes and avoids shaming students. She provides evidence for how learning works with respect to race and racism along with practical teaching strategies rooted in that evidence to help instructors feel more confident.--Publisher

As America's only Black prime-time anchor [CNN], Lemon and his daily monologues on racism and antiracism, on the failures of the Trump administration and of so many of our leaders, and on America's systemic flaws speak for his millions of fans. Now, in an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, he shows us all how deep our problems lie, and what we can do to begin to fix them.--Publisher

Daniel Hill will never forget the day he heard these words: "Daniel, you may be white, but don't let that lull you into thinking you have no culture. White culture is very real. In fact, when white culture comes in contact with other cultures, it almost always wins. So it would be a really good idea for you to learn about your culture." Confused and unsettled by this encounter, Hill began a journey of understanding his own white identity.--Publisher

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.--Publisher

Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.--Publisher