In the past three decades, significant research links implicit assumptions based on race, ethnicity, and gender to assessments, presumptions, and judgments of individuals and their capacities. One example of such research is exemplified in the Implicit Association Test, available at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html. Another example is through the use of “blind” and “double-blind” testing. These assumptions influence how individuals are perceived and treated within the various institutional contexts, including the legal system. Often, implicit bias drives the differential treatment of various types of actors as they engage with law and legal processes. The way the implicit bias works is, therefore, important to understand in a system that proclaims itself to be “blind” to race and gender markers.
This panel will bring together scholars of different disciplines to probe questions of bias and metaphors of blindness. Because of new research concerning bias, relationships between perception, sight, knowledge, and judgment have spawned a debate about how to develop wise judgment. Given the complex history of the deployment of “color-blind” in reference to the U.S. Constitution and the variegated history of metaphors of blindness and the imagery of the blindfold, questions abound about the wisdom of relying on such a metaphor for law.