Diversity, Equality, Racism, Black Librarians, White Librarians
Race and Gender Determine The Value of A Federal Civil Suit
A Black librarian’s federal lawsuit against police is worth less than a White librarian’s lawsuit
The recent airing on CBS News of a traffic stop in 2019 concerns a case heading for federal court.
When a group of police officers yanked Stephanie Bottom, a librarian of African American descent and grandmother of five, out of her car in North Carolina for going ten miles over the speed limit, the officers wrestled her to the ground and injured her. Some people of different races say this would never have happened to a librarian of European descent.
For the sake of argument, if identical circumstances had happened to one of Bottom’s white female colleagues, would both federal lawsuits have equal value?
Many people have a media perception of what lawsuits are worth, misled by high-profile cases cited in the news. So the public might be surprised to learn that the foundational value of a civil suit is based on race and gender.
It’s not a movie about race, but the opening scene of the 1998 film A Civil Action, bluntly accesses the monetary value of clients in the civil legal system.
In “Valuing Black Lives: A Constitutional Challenge to the Use of Race-Based Tables in Calculating Tort Damages” by Kimberly A. Yuracko & Ronen Avraham — California Law Review, 2018 — two law professors wrote in part about the unfairness of using race-based data to calculate damage awards for injured parties.
And recently, Professors Yuracko and Avraham, in a Washington Post opinion piece, called for federal legislation to end the practice.
So far, it appears Stephanie Bottom’s federal case would be equal to that of a White colleague in Oregon state.
Sources
CBSnews.com April 30, 2021:
A Civil Action: Not A Typical Hollywood Film:
Opinion: The use of race-and sex-based data to calculate damages…Washington Post, April 29, 2021:
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