Law Schools

Unsubscribing, Solidarity Statements, Critical Race Theory, And The Enervation Of One Quadruple-Minority Professor

It is difficult to feel connected to people who have different realities than we do.

By Nadia B. Ahmad and LawProfBlawg  
on

Avoiding work around midnight on the 31st of August, I took a moment to avoid working (yes, law professors work) on my Biz Orgs slides. So that’s what led me to my trash folder.

Oftentimes, being the minority puts you in an awkward spot. It is difficult to feel connected to people who have different realities than me.  So, I send all of my listserv e-mails to my trash folder as an Outlook rule. This is what it means to be a minority: Your reality is different from that which is commonly shared across such portals.

Beyond that, there’s too much. Teaching, writing, virtual schooling two kids in elementary school, managing a toddler, constantly sanitizing because my partner is a healthcare worker, and being committed to sending Donald Trump packing in January 2021. I don’t have time to care about anything else.

Even unsubscribers and solidarity statements.

So when things blow up, the pressure is on minority lawprofs. And I’m tired. I am tired of being the critical environmentalist on the environmental law listserv. I am tired of being the quadruple minority on the AALS Minority Listserv. I am tired of being the super progressive from the non-AALS law school on the AALS Muslim Law Professor Listserv. I am tired of being the hijabi on the Women’s Law Listerv.

So the flurry of requests to unsubscribe on the law prof business law listserv as described by Jessica Erickson on Twitter was not a shock to me. Someone sought to discuss race and racism in the business law curriculum. Soon, there was an unsubscribe movement. People leaving, people indignant about leaving. All mostly white with a speckle of Asians.

I don’t need to think about discussing race and racism. The race and racism was part of my lived experience and pervaded every area of the law. It was there in plain sight for me. And, when I’m feeling most saucy, I hate the we-need-to-do-better vibe because there-ain’t-no-change EVER.

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There are things I have thought, but didn’t say, as my peers debate the merits of unsubscribing and solidarity statement. Things like “because business law is nothing more than the perpetuation of white racial, extractivist capitalism, which is okay with mass incarceration, mass detention, and endless wars in the name of wealth maximization. Our entire economic system is built on land theft from Native Americans and slavery. We our powered by extracitivist capitalism.”

I didn’t. And it’s probably for the best, because after the brouhaha, things went back to normal.

Then I saw the e-mail that was forwarded to the Women’s Law listserv. It was about a solidarity statement, which was later posted on the Business Law Professors Blog.

I wanted to scream that I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO VIRTUE SIGNAL!!!

What happened to all those other statements? Did they move social justice forward? Or did things quietly slip into the status quo after everyone felt better?

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So, when I saw that email at midnight on August 31st, I rattled off a response to three authors of the statement and the forwarder.

I appreciate the sentiment behind this statement. But I have already been doing all these things. I don’t feel compelled to sign a statement that is about a commitment to treat people as equal when all of business law is about the maintenance of white global capitalism and a way to maintain systems of hierarchies.

I speak about capital wealth accumulation and how it has occurred over time since slavery and how it impacts all aspects of business. I also speak about how corporate crimes and fraud are largely overlooked while black and brown people are heavily policed and incarcerated for minor crimes. I read passages from Ibram Kendi last August to my class before it was a thing to talk about race in business classes. And I was nervous to do so, but I didn’t care, because they needed to hear it.

I think a big part of that is having textbooks that are written by people of color, particularly disadvantaged minorities. The only one I have found so far is the one by Lisa Fairfax.

I am in the middle of a multipart ABA webinar series on Beyond Redlining. These are concerns I had before I became a law professor and what actually led me to becoming a law professor. But there is also more backlash that is raised by discussing these issues especially if I see that I may be the only one doing so, because it’s part of my lived experience as well and not just a matter of relating broader current events into the classroom discussion.

I think all these issues have been discussed and researched heavily. I would recommend putting together a guide and list of references. And if you cared so much, it would have already been done. I find it deeply troubling that all this concern with race as if it wasn’t always there in plain sight before.

A guide was put together, but it didn’t make me happy. The AALS Antiracist Clearinghouse Project put together by Deans Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Boston University School of Law), Kim Mutcherson (Rutgers Law School), Carla Pratt (Washburn University), Danielle Holley-Walker (Howard University School of Law), and Danielle M. Conway (Penn State Dickinson Law) is far superior, but it doesn’t touch really on all the Islamophobia that gave rise to the Trump presidency. I wonder also if all the solidarity statements compiled by AALS will have their intended impact long-term.

I read the solidarity statement and my response to my students the next day in class, because I wanted to get a pulse from them how they felt about these communications. One student shared that she worked in another Pennsylvania store for Starbucks when the incident happened in 2018 when two black men were arrested in Starbucks by Philadelphia police. She said that the incident should not have happened. And hearing her speak, I realized she knew more than all those law professors on the business law listserv who felt the need to up and out because the word “race” was mentioned.

Seeing the rubble from the listserv mess two weeks ago and last week seeing Trump’s White House statement on critical race theory shows this trouble.

The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions. Accordingly, to that end, the Office of Management and Budget will shortly issue more detailed guidance on implementing the President’s directive. In the meantime, all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege,” or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. In addition, all agencies should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these un-American propaganda training sessions.

So, solidarity statement, anyone? Or should I just unsubscribe?

Nadia Ahmad is a law professor in Orlando, Florida. She teaches business organizations, property, and environmental law.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here. He is way funnier on social media, he claims. Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com. The overwhelming majority of this blog post is Professor Ahmad’s.

 

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