{"id":21610,"date":"2012-03-20T23:59:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T23:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=21610"},"modified":"2015-11-06T21:46:40","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T21:46:40","slug":"21610","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=21610","title":{"rendered":"The Obama Effect: Understanding Emerging Meanings of \u201cObama\u201d in Anti-Discrimination Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Obama Effect: Understanding Emerging Meanings of \u201cObama\u201d in Anti-Discrimination Law<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Indiana Law Journal<\/a>
\nVolume 87: Issue 1<\/a> (Spring 2012)
\npages 328-348
\nSymposium: \u201cLabor and Employment Under the Obama Administration: A Time for Hope and Change?\u201d<\/p>\n

Angela Onwuachi-Willig<\/a><\/strong>, Charles and Marion Kierscht Professor of Law
\nUniversity of Iowa<\/em><\/p>\n

Mario L. Barnes<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Law
\nUniversity of California, Irvine<\/em><\/p>\n

Panel 6: Employment Law: Antidiscrimination Law Under a Black President in a \u201cPost-Racial\u201d America?<\/em><\/p>\n

The election of Barack Obama<\/a> to the U.S. presidency on November 4, 2008, prompted many declarations from journalists and commentators about the arrival of a post-racial society, a society in which race is no longer meaningful. For many, the fact that a self-identified black man had obtained the most prominent, powerful, and prestigious job in the United States symbolized the end of an era in which Blacks and other racial minorities could make legitimate claims about the harmful effects of racism. In fact, on the night of the election, conservative talk show host Bill Bennett<\/a> proclaimed that Blacks would have no more excuses for any failures or unattained successes. Black actor Will Smith<\/a> essentially agreed with Bennett, proclaiming the following: \u201cI love that all of our excuses have been removed. African-American excuses have been removed. There\u2019s no white man trying to keep you down, because if he were really trying to keep you down, he would have done everything he could to keep Obama down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along the same lines, many conservatives pointed to Obama\u2019s election as a symbol of a racism-free society when they initiated constitutional challenges to the Voting Rights Act of 1965<\/a>. Despite the fact that Obama had earned only one in four votes from Whites in areas covered by section 5 of the Act<\/a> while earning nearly half of all votes from Whites nationally, Texas lawyer Gregory Coleman<\/a> argued that the Voting Rights Act was basically irrelevant in today\u2019s society; to him and other conservatives, Obama\u2019s election as president demonstrated as much. Coleman declared, \u201cThe America that has elected Barack Obama as its first African American president is far different than when [the Voting Rights Act] was first enacted in 1965.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, many pondered whether Obama\u2019s election signaled a new day for Blacks. The fact that Obama was biracial only made the symbolism stronger. The son of a black Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, Obama represented a break from our nation\u2019s troubled past with race and racism, not just because of his ability to become president but also because of his individual racial background.<\/p>\n

In this Article, we explore the proclamations that have been made about an emerging \u201cpost-racial\u201d society within the context of workplace anti-discrimination law. Specifically, as the title of our panel for this symposium asks, we inquire: What is the significance of having a biracial, black-white president (or more specifically, the first self-identified black president) to the enforcement of anti-discrimination law? What impact, if any, has President Barack Obama\u2019s campaign for the presidency and election as president had on discrimination in the workplace?<\/p>\n

Based in part on our review of discrimination cases in which President Obama\u2019s name has been invoked\u2014in most cases, either to demean minority workers or with an otherwise discriminatory purpose\u2014we conclude that having a biracial, black-white (or self-identified black) president has had a surprising effect on the enforcement of anti-discrimination law. Indeed, we contend that Obama\u2019s campaign and election have, to an extent, had an unusual effect in the work environment. Rather than revealing that racism is over or that racial discrimination is diminishing in the workplace, Obama\u2019s presence and prominence have developed a specialized meaning that ironically has resulted in an increase in or at the very least a continuation of regular discrimination and harassment within the workplace.<\/strong> In fact, our review of a number of anti-discrimination law cases filed during the political ascendance and election of Obama suggests that, within certain contexts, individuals have made references to Obama in ways that demonstrate racial animus against Blacks and those associated with Blacks or as a means for explaining why offending conduct toward racial minorities does not involve discrimination. In other words, in these contexts, the term \u201cObama\u201d itself has become a new tool for racial harassment and discrimination as well as a new tool for denying the reality of racism…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Obama Effect: Understanding Emerging Meanings of \u201cObama\u201d in Anti-Discrimination Law Indiana Law Journal Volume 87: Issue 1 (Spring 2012) pages 328-348 Symposium: \u201cLabor and Employment Under the Obama Administration: A Time for Hope and Change?\u201d Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Charles and Marion Kierscht Professor of Law University of Iowa Mario L. Barnes, Professor of Law University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,1467,8,20],"tags":[863,10119,10118,10117],"class_list":["post-21610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-law","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-angela-onwuachi-willig","tag-indiana-law-journal","tag-mario-barnes","tag-mario-l-barnes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43800,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21610\/revisions\/43800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}