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95 Va. L. Rev. 1893 (2009)
Making Good on Good Intentions: The Critical Role of Motivation in Reducing Implicit Workplace Discrimination

handle is hein.journals/valr95 and id is 1909 raw text is: VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW VOLUME 95 DECEMBER 2009 NUMBER 8 ARTICLES MAKING GOOD ON GOOD INTENTIONS: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF MOTIVATION IN REDUCING IMPLICIT WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION Katharine T. Bartlett* D ISCRIMINATION in today's workplace is largely implicit, making it ambiguous and often very difficult to prove. Em- ployment discrimination scholars have proposed reforms of Title VII to make implicit discrimination easier to establish in court and to expand the kinds of situations to which liability attaches. The re- form proposals reflect a broad consensus that strong legal norms are crucial to addressing the problem. Yet it is mistaken to assume that strengthening plaintiffs' hands in implicit discrimination cases will necessarily achieve the long-term goal of reducing its occurrence. This Article brings together several strands of social science research showing that (1) implicit bias is not only invisible and largely unin- tended, but not readily reachable through legal coercion; (2) people whose motivation to act in nondiscriminatory ways is based on an * A. Kenneth Pye Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law. I am grateful for the communities of scholars at New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School where I did most of the research for this Article on my 2007-2008 sab- batical visits. I also appreciate the opportunities to present this work in its early stages at workshops at Columbia Law School, Duke Law School, and the University of Ken- tucky School of Law, and at the Graylyn Lecture at Wake University School of Law when the work was near completion. Special thanks for the helpful comments I re- ceived along the way from Stuart Benjamin, James Boyle, Erwin Chemerinsky, Justin Driver, Elizabeth Emens, Catherine Fisk, Suzanne Goldberg, Mitu Gulati, Lewis Kornhauser, Kimberly Krawiec, Martha Minow, Jed Purdy, Elizabeth Scott, Chris Schroeder, Neil Siegel, Susan Sturm, and Neil Vidmar, and for research assistance from James McKell and Jennifer McGinnis. 1893

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