The prevalence of discrimination in our
legal system is no secret. Toward improving antidiscrimination law, legal
scholars work to illuminate the roots and effects of systematic exclusion.
While broadly successful, this endeavor often encounters the limits imposed by
research frameworks that do not involve direct observation of everyday legal
practice. This is where an ethnographic approach proves essential: through
participant observation and unstructured interviewing, ethnography offers
insight into discrimination as a contingent and processual phenomenon embedded
in the actions and utterances of legal actors. This panel shows that
ethnography contributes uniquely valuable evidence of discrimination’s dynamic
presence in legal institutions.
The Section held a virtual business meeting prior to the Annual Meeting.