Challenging Precedent Blog

Press Coverage

Steamboat Institute

Debate: Should the government ban all DEI programs?

Rick Banks debates the Wall Street Journal's Jason Riley on whether the government should ban all DEI programs.

The Atlantic

Trump Is Right About Affirmative Action

Prof. Banks on some of affirmative action’s limitations as a “Band-Aid” that lets society postpone “dealing with the big issues.”

The Federalist Society

The Future of DEI: The Case of the Fearless Fund

Rick Banks on future of DEI initiatives in a short film examining American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Fearless Fund, a case challenging a race-based grant program under Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Voice of America

Americans confront racial past in debate over critical race theory

Prof. Banks on the public debate about how to discuss race in America and how it has reached children and classrooms.

Stanford Legal Podcast

Trump's Executive Orders, Culture Wars, and Civil Rights

Prof. Banks joins host Professor Pamela Karlan for a deep dive into how the disparate impact doctrine really works, why it matters, and what’s at stake when it’s attacked in the name of “meritocracy.”

CHALLENGING PRECEDENT    RACE, LAW & REGULATION IN THE TRUMP ERA.


CHALLENGING PRECEDENT is a blog of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice that examines the intersection of race, law, and regulation during the Trump administration. From executive orders and agency rulings to federal litigation and negotiations with universities, businesses, and foreign governments, the administration is repeatedly challenging established legal frameworks while implementing sweeping new policies. Race stands at the center of many of these developments, alongside competing visions of fairness, justice, and opportunity—tensions that the blog will analyze and interpret.

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