Ian Haney Lopez

American democracy examined at racial healing conference

Ian Haney-López quoted in Native News Network, April 30, 2012

Haney Lopez detailed how racism has evolved from the challenge of segregation in the 1950s and 1960s to now “mass incarceration,” which has a disproportionate impact on young African American and Latino males, and “mass deportation” of undocumented persons, which has led to thousands of parents having to leave their children behind in the care of the child welfare system.

Ian Haney-Lopez Criticizes SCOTUS Affirmative Action Rulings

The New York Times, Room for Debate, February 23, 2012 by Ian Haney-Lopez
http://nyti.ms/Af4rxh

The court seems intent on making federal laws banning discrimination as ineffective as they’ve rendered the constitution in detecting racial mistreatment; and also poised to extend the ban on affirmative action to corporations, private hospitals, foundations and unions. If these come to pass, the court will have curtailed every direct means of achieving an integrated society.

Ian Haney-López Criticizes Restriction of Civil Rights Laws

The New York Times, November 2, 2011 by Ian Haney-López
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/opinion/a-new-way-to-achieve-civil-rights.html

Today’s narrow focus on isolated victims, rightly decried by Mr. Ford, does not reflect a failure of vision by civil rights leaders. Instead, it stems from four decades of efforts by conservative judges and justices (reflecting the preferences of the politicians who appointed them) to restrictively construe civil rights laws to ensure that they challenge discrimination barely at all.

Ian Haney-López Opposes Move to Restrict Birthright Citizenship

New American Media, January 8, 2011 by Ian Haney-López
http://newamericamedia.org/2011/01/op-ed.php

Under U.S. constitutional law, children born here are citizens here, irrespective of their parents’ citizenship. Seeking to end this purported outrage, Arizona and other states have announced plans to challenge this right…. Key to whipping up populist fervor is the specter of the “anchor baby”: the child born here to noncitizen parents, ostensibly as part of a nefarious plot to establish roots in this country.

Rachel Moran and Ian Haney Lopez Discuss Moran’s Job Offer as UCLA Law Dean

The Daily Journal, June 1, 2010 by Susan McRae
http://www.dailyjournal.com/ (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

“I think this is fantastic,” said Berkeley law professor Ian F. Haney Lopez. “I think she would make a phenomenal dean.”

In a brief interview with UC Irvine, Moran said her decision to go into law came when she was helping her professors at Stanford…. “That experience made me realize how powerful law could be in changing people’s lives, and so I went to law school instead of graduate school in psychology,” Moran said in the interview.

Ian Haney Lopez Says Sotomayor is Not Racist

San Francisco Chronicle, June 2, 2009 by Ian Haney Lopez
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/01/EDV017URB2.DTL

Sotomayor posited that racial identity matters in how judges make decisions. She said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life….” Does this sound like a racist? No. It sounds like someone wrestling frankly with the heterogeneous identities we previously used to erect inequalities, and on which America now seeks to build its strength.

Ian Haney Lopez Believes Identity Matters in High Court Nominee

The Nation, May 25, 2009 by Ian Haney Lopez
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/following_souter

The central point is not to provide diverse role models, and it’s certainly not to maximize differences of every stripe. The essential thrust of identity politics is to accord special consideration to race, gender and class (plus sexual orientation and disability)—because these constitute core, persistent, unjust hierarchies…. Judge Sotomayor deserves our support not because of who she is but because of what she thinks—especially about the most injurious forms of structural injustice in the United States: race, gender and class.

Ian Haney Lopez Says Immigration Reform Should Be a National Priority

CNN.com, April 10, 2009 by Kristi Keck
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/10/obama.immigration/

“We are a country of immigrants, and immigrants have always been essential to who we are culturally and socially. So it’s simply a mistake to see these people as somehow interlopers,” he said…. If immigrants were given amnesty and the opportunity to work for minimum wage, Americans wouldn’t see themselves as in competition with the undocumented workers, he said. “The way to reduce the attractiveness of immigrant labor is to legalize immigrant labor,” he said.