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17 October 2024

German Police Controls and Structural Racism

Police operations such as stops are prone for patterns of racial profiling. The contribution looks into the role of the new federal police commissioner (Polizeibeauftragte des Bundes) and his tools to address this. Continue reading >>
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16 October 2024
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Unmasking the Intractable

The first contribution of the online symposium explores the ineffectiveness of anti-racism laws. It raises the leading question whether their underperformance is a result of unrealistic expectations regarding the potential of law in general, or whether inherent flaws in legal design are the root cause. Continue reading >>
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12 October 2024

Uber knows. Do you?

Law shapes and is shaped by the contemporary, dominant economic system. This contribution illustrates this finding by the case of Uber. Continue reading >>
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06 August 2024

Making the Unacceptable Acceptable

Over the last days, England and Northern Ireland have witnessed a wave of racist violence and destruction. These riots, which have thrown the country into chaos, included attacks on mosques, burning of cars, and confrontations with the police. The racist nature of the events is made clear by the racist chants that are sung amid them, by posters shown by participants, and by the selective targeting of minorities. Given how shocking these scenes are, one naturally wonders what is causing them. Research suggests that elite rhetoric in recent months can have made these events more likely, by making far-right individuals feel that acting on their views is more acceptable. Continue reading >>
09 July 2023

Harvard’s Diversity Chicken Comes Home to Roost

The US Supreme Court's decision in Students for Fair Admission is a potential blessing. Diversity was always a problematic justification for race-based admissions programs. Diversity's origins are anti-Semitic. More likely, however, the decision will be a curse. The United States Supreme Court has made the pathway for disadvantaged minorities more difficult. Continue reading >>
13 April 2021

The United Kingdom on Race

The United Kingdom’s Commission on Ethnic and Racial Disparities, has recently published a report, which has been widely discredited since its launch by charities, education unions, academics and politicians. Using the UK’s progressive track record of legal provisions on racial discrimination, the report moves to obscure racism’s systemic aspects. There is a profound disconnect between the theory of the UK’s legal protections against racism and the lived reality of race in Britain, which reveals race as an important and persistent determinant of social experience.   Continue reading >>
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24 July 2020
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In Brief

On what was, what is, and what could be. Continue reading >>
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23 July 2020

Black Lives and German Exceptionalism

Racism is not limited to anti-blackness nor restricted to the context of policing; however, I use policing and blackness as touchstones for this commentary precisely because this constellation of race and law is consistently thought to present a problem exceptional to the United States. It is not. This article examines the case of police brutality. The nature of policing, not only in the United States but in many places in the world, and certainly in Europe, is such that holding police to account for the deaths of innocent people is not only statistically improbable, but it is designed to be legally impractical. Continue reading >>
18 July 2020

One day (Vandaag) …

Yes I do ... have a migration background. Yet, due to mere genetic randomness, my “Germanness” has hardly ever been challenged – at least until the moment when it comes to the correct spelling of my family name: “KHan” not “KaHn” – Dschinghis, not Oliver – please! Occasionally, I still get carried away with coquetting in my lectures: “I would be inclined to say – I am a case of successful integration.” Some students may then be slightly embarrassed, in particular after a controversial discussion about immigration policy. But that’s it basically, my personal home story about “racism”! But to be very clear and unambiguous: my father’s story is a much longer and a much more painful one! But that’s another story. Continue reading >>
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26 June 2020

“Race” and the Constitution: A South African perspective

For a South African constitutional lawyer, watching from afar, the current debate in Germany on the removal of the word “race” from section 3 of article 3 of the German Basic Law, is perplexing. In the South African context, a similar call would widely be viewed as a regressive step aimed at protecting white privilege and reinforcing the social and economic dominance of the white minority. The South African and German contexts and histories differ, and the word “race” might have different connotations in German than it has in English, but it may nevertheless be of interest to consider why the words “race”, “racial” and “non-racialism” are mentioned in several provisions of the South African Constitution. Continue reading >>
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