“Talking about race and sex has never been easy,” legal scholar Gail Heriot has said, “but on November 22, 1991, by signing the Civil Rights Act of 1991 into law, President George H.W. Bush made the problem dramatically worse.”
Heroit, a long-time member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, will describe a chain of unintended consequences of that law in her talk, “Why We Walk on Eggshells,” on Dec. 8 at 5:30 p.m., in Statler Hall room 198. The talk is free and open to the public. It will also be streamed; register to participate online.
“Gail Heriot has vigorously prosecuted the case that making laws less intrusive can often help us to become a society that is more civil,” said Michael Fontaine, director of the Program on Freedom and Free Societies which is hosting the event. Fontaine, a professor of classics in the College of Arts and Sciences, will introduce Heriot and moderate the following Q&A.
One provision of the 1991 law made harassment lawsuits much more financially lucrative than they had previously been, according to Heriot. When employers set about minimizing their risk, a new industry arose to help prevent racial or sexual harassment lawsuits and to train employees in “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Heriot argues that the training rapidly became censorious and a predictable social dynamic followed. When ideas that ordinary people see as far-fetched or threatening can’t be challenged in polite society, two things inevitably happen: the ideas become more extreme (e.g., that minimum-wage janitors at Walmart should check their white privilege), and they invite a backlash.
“What follows The Age of Wokeness,” Heriot said, “is The Age of Trump. And it can be argued, curiously enough, that it was George H.W. Bush who got the ball rolling.”
A recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego, Heriot is an expert in civil rights, employment law, product liability, remedies and torts. She is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights and the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, “A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education.”
Her scholarly work has appeared in legal journals like the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Harvard Journal on Legislation. Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, National Review and many other newspapers and magazines. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emeritus of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
"Why We Walk on Eggshells” is being presented thanks to the generous support of Michael J. Millette ’87 and the Millette family as well as that of the Triad Foundation and other donors.
David Guaspari is administrative assistant for the Program on Freedom and Free Societies.
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