Popular representations of race: the news coverage of BiDil

The BiDil story offers an ideal opportunity to explore the nature and tone of media representations of race and genetics. For example, was a biological view of race emphasized? Or was the notion of race presented in a critical fashion?     

Genotyping the future: scientists' expectations about race/ ethnicity after BiDil

The ongoing debate about the FDA approval of BiDil in 2005 demonstrates how the first racially/ethnically licensed drug is entangled in both Utopian and dystopian future visions about the continued saliency of race/ethnicity in science and medicine. Drawing on the sociology of expectations, this paper analyzes how scientists in the field of pharmacogenetics are constructing certain visions of the future with respect to the use of social categories of race/ethnicity and the impact of high-throughput genotyping technologies that promise to transform scientific practices.     

Imperialism, race, and therapeutics: the legacy of medicalizing the "colonial body"

The era of high colonialism in South Asia coincided with the period when eugenics came to dominate much of the scientific discourse in Europe and America. Such attitudes were naturally transplanted into the colonial world where medical researchers helped to establish a pathological "difference" between Europeans in India and the colonial "Other," thus creating a medical discourse dominated by racial segregated treatment regimes. With the growth of trans-national transfer of scientific knowledge, this colonial "research" began to underpin racially constructed medical practices wherever they occurred.     

Special section/issue on race,ethnicity, and the law

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Special section/issue on race, ethnicity, and the law     

Special Edition: Special Issues on Children,Families, and the Law

Law and Human Behavior -     

论"一国两制"下香港特别行政区行政长官的特殊法律地位

香港基本法明确规定 :香港特别行政区行政长官既是香港特别行政区的首长 ,也是香港特别行政区政府的首长。这说明行政长官在法律地位上具有双重身份。运用比较研究的方法 ,深入研究行政长官这一特殊法律地位的特性表现 ,并从行政长官所拥有的职权 ,进一步考察行政长官的职权与其特殊法律地位的关系 ,将有助于全面了解香港特别行政区行政长官的角色特征     

从“确认”到“正名”:中国百年宪法的内在逻辑

从历史上看,自从1908年的《钦定宪法大纲》以来,先后颁布的众多中国宪法尽管千姿百态,但是,在这些宪法文本的背后,却包含着一个共同的特征:从确认到正名的内在逻辑线索。对中国百年宪法的内在逻辑而言,确认是起点,正名是终点。从这条内在的逻辑线索出发,有助于全面地解释中国百年宪法一系列的外在特征。     

The states "race" with the federal government for stem cell research

This article presents an innovative study of the effect of individual states and private institutes in pushing forward stem cell research despite a federal ban on creating new stem cell lines. The author analyzes the impact of state legislation, proposing that states are reacting to federal policy by serving as laboratories for what is traditionally federally funded biomedical research.     

Law and Aging: Special Persons, Special Treatment?

Miriam K. Aronson (ed.) and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association, Understanding Alzheimer's Disease . Charles Scribner's Sons: New York (1988).
Robert N. Brown with Legal Counsel for the Elderly, The Rights of Older Persons (Second Edition). Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale, IL(1989).
John J. Regan with Legal Counsel for the Elderly, Your Legal Rights in Later Life . American Association of Retired Persons and Scott, Foresman and Company: Washington, D.C. and Glenview, IL (1989).
Ira S. Schneider & Ezra Huber, Financial Planning for Long-Term Care . Human Sciences Press: New York (1989).
James E. Thornton & Earl R. Winkler (eds.), Ethics and Aging: The Right to Live, The Right to Die . University of British Columbia Press: Vancouver, B.C., Canada (1988).
Mark H. Waymack & George A. Taler, Medical Ethics and The Elderly . Pluribus Press: Chicago (1988).     

Playing the race card: Making race salient in defence opening and closing statements

Purpose. Researchers have reported that making a Black defendant's race salient reduces White jurors' tendency to find Black defendants guilty ( Sommers & Ellsworth, 2000 ). We examined whether making race salient by including racially salient statements in the defence attorney's opening and closing statements (i.e., ‘playing the race card’) reduced White jurors' racial bias against a Black defendant. Method. We obtained scores on racial attitudes for 151 White college students who participated in an experiment where defendant race (Black, White) and race salience (not salient, salient) were manipulated in a between‐subjects design. Participants read one of four trial stimuli and completed dependent measures. Results. ‘Playing the race card’ reduced White juror racial bias as White jurors' ratings of guilt for Black defendants were significantly lower when the defence attorney's statements included racially salient statements. White juror ratings of guilt for White defendants and Black defendants were not significantly different when race was not made salient. This effect was separate from jurors' level of prejudice (as measured by racial attitudes) as high prejudice participants were more likely than low prejudice participants to find the Black defendant guilty, independent of the race salience manipulation. Conclusion. Our study indicated that an explicit attempt by a defence attorney to ‘play the race card’ was a beneficial trial strategy a defence attorney could use to reduce White jurors' bias towards Black defendants. However, the beneficial effect of such a strategy may not reduce White jurors' bias towards Black defendants for all White jurors.     

Employment,age, race,and crime: A labor theoretic investigation

The fundamental objective of this paper has been to reinvestigate the relationship between employment and crime, while taking account of deterrence, age and race effects. The data, a sample of Brooklyn arrestees, was collected by the Vera Institute of Justice simply to explore, with individual data, the relationship between employment and crime. In this research, a labor theoretic formulation is used incorporating a model that views the problem as one of rational choice between legitimate work and participation in crime. Factors affecting the diminution of crime participation with age are investigated. Changes at age 18 in economic opportunities and in deterrence effects from moving from juvenile to adult status are found to have a significant impact on crime participation. The results are important because they tend to confirm with official crime report data, results found in earlier studies using self-report data, i.e., (1) when the process is appropriately modeled, previous contacts with police are found to cause some experimenters with crime to become desisters, (2) prior work experience and economic opportunities tend to reinforce this tendency to desist, (3) even though blacks are found to have a greater prevalence of involvement in crime, when the data are standardized for all of the aforementioned factors and educational attainment, there is no significant difference between blacks and whites in their tendency to recidivate.