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69 UCLA L. Rev. Discourse 2 (2021-2022)

handle is hein.journals/ucladis69 and id is 1 raw text is: The Soft-Shoe and Shuffle of Law School Hiring Committee Practices Carliss N. Chatman and Najarian R. Peters The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.2 -Ida B. Wells ABSTRACT It is in the spirit of Ida B. Wells that we seek to turn the light upon the systemic racism of hiring practices. We believe these practices are indicators of the systemic failures on campuses and in workplaces that prevent them from being antiracist. We seek to use this Essay as a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege.3 Our specific intention is to recognize the largely performative nature of claiming to be committed to an idea while substantively and concretely ensuring the opposite. This Essay is written with specific experiences, patterns, and practices in mind that are directly connected to broader contexts and phenomena. The data and trends on law school faculty hiring, and on the performance of students of color in law school and on bar exams show that acts of discrimination are often obscured by the outcomes of systemic oppression misconstrued as academic achievement.4 We wrote this not in the often fraught and silencing tradition of typical legal scholarship; but instead drew from diverse 1. This title references the tradition of minstrelsy, which included both performances by Black actors in stereotypical roles and the use of blackface by white actors. See Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Blacks on Stage: Are We Still Replicating Stereotypes From the Legacy of Minstrelsy, PRAXIS: J. FOR THEATRE, PERFORMANCE STUD., & CRITICISM, Jan. 17, 2013 AT 1. 2. While documenting the horror of lynching through her writings in Free Speech and Headlight, Ida B. Wells faced death threats and numerous attempts to silence her crusade for truth. She lived her life according to a maxim that is as important today as it was in 1892. 3. Daniel Sol6rzano & Tara J. Yosso, Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research, 8 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY 23 (2002). 4. In The Market for Lemons, George A. Akerlof posits that the decision not to hire minorities for certain types of jobs may not reflect irrationality or prejudice-but profit maximization. For race may serve as a good statistic for the applicant's social background, quality of schooling, and general job capabilities. Akerlof suggests that good quality schooling as opposed to slum schools could serve as a substitute for race as a statistic. George A. Akerlof, The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, 84 Q.J. ECON. 488, 494-95 (1970). 69 UCLA L. REV. Disc. 2 (2021)

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