The document summarizes a talk given by John Powell on advancing strategies for civil rights. It discusses how the courts have narrowly defined civil rights and retrenched protections granted by the Reconstruction Amendments. It notes remaining tools like affirmative action are in doubt and examines how systems and structures become racially entrenched when institutions reinforce one another. The document argues a systems approach is needed to understand how areas like education, housing, employment interact to produce racialized outcomes.

1. “The Unfinished Work”
Advancing New Strategies in the Struggle
for Civil Rights
UNC Center for Civil Rights
November 1-2, 2010
john a. powell
Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

2. Judges have tried to narrowly define Civil
Rights….
But everything is connected.

3. Radical Origins of Reconstruction Amendments

4. Retrenchment, Step 1: The Trilogy
 The Slaughter-House Cases (1873)
 Nullifies the Privileges or Immunities Clause
 The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
 State action doctrine
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
 Separate but equal

5. Retrenchment, Step 2: Modern Precedent
 Brown v. Board of Education
 Ambiguous whether anti-subordination or anti-classification
logic applies
 Adarand Constructors v. Pena
 All govt. racial classifications must pass strict scrutiny
 Grutter and Gratz
 Racial considerations okay to promote diversity in higher ed,
but must be part of holistic process
 Parents Involved
 Plurality, save J. Kennedy, says 14th Amendment means anti-
classification/colorblindness approach

6. Remaining Equity Tools
 Affirmative action programs increasingly in doubt
 State action requirement is an obstacle
 Structural remedies very difficult
…

7. Examining one wire is not enough
One wire cannot explain why a bird cannot fly. But multiple wires,
arranged in specific ways, reinforce each other and trap the bird.

8. We must look at systems, structures, and
structural racialization
School
Lower
Segregation &
Educational
Concentrated
Outcomes
Poverty
Increased
Neighborhood Flight
Segregation of Affluent
Families
We see that the answer to “why aren’t we moving forward” is
more structural than we realize.

9. The Need for Systems Thinking
An analysis of any one area
will yield an incomplete
Health
understanding.
Childcare Employment
Housing
We must consider how
institutions interact with Effective
Education
one another to produce Participation
racialized outcomes. Transportation

10. For more information please visit us online at
www.kirwaninstitute.org