On Solutions: Public or Private

Beverly I. Moran, Voss-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin-Madison

I once overheard a law school trained sociologist try to explain law professors to her peers. “What you don’t understand,” she said, “is that law professors think that there are three types of research: Quantitative research, qualitative research and ‘what I think.’ Of the three, ‘what I think’ is always the most important.”

I am afraid that we face the consequences of this mind set in today’s exploration of wealth. On the one hand, we began this morning with two sociologists who produced important works on Segregation and racial disparities in wealth. Between their talks and the books that we were asked to read I feel that all of us now have a better understanding of the issues surrounding wealth disparities in this country. On the other hand, I am left to wonder if we will ever, in fact can ever, absorb what we have learned in ways that will improve our teaching and scholarship.

The quantitative research that we received tells us at least two significant things:

• The first is that race matters.
• It matters more than income or education or aspiration.
• It matters more than anything but wealth and wealth is so tied to race that they might as well be the same thing.
• Race matters so much that blacks in the top 20 per cent of income have fewer liquid financial assets than whites in the lowest 20 per cent.
• It means that blacks in the highest 20 per cent of income are more segregated than Asians and non black Hispanics in the lowest 20 percent of income.

It means that race is something that we have to factor into any discussion of wealth and yet, we don’t. At least not in most law school classes even those that are directly concerned with wealth such as property, business law or tax.

• The second significant fact that comes out of what we were asked to read and what our opening speakers discussed today is how much government policy, actions and laws are responsible for the link between race and income, race and housing and race and wealth in the United States.
• In very real ways the government, first our colonial governments and then the United States government, created the category black and then made sure that this category was linked first with slavery and then with economic oppression.
• It was government that made sure that blacks could not participate in government welfare programs whether they were land grants or social security or federal housing subsidies.
• It was government that invented red lining of black neighborhoods so that properties could not be bought or sold and so that black owned houses fell into disrepair.
• It was government that made sure that federal housing would be segregated to the point that it is the most segregated housing in the country today.
• It was government that segregated schools, made sure that blacks were not allowed to work for themselves, and kept blacks from a wide variety of professions and opportunities.

Given the role that government has played in creating the disparities in wealth between blacks and whites that we see today, an argument that government should be kept as far away from this area is plausible. Let the private sector take care of disparities in wealth and see how well the invisible hand works for once. Government has certainly shown itself not only incapable of helping lessen the gap but actively engaged in promoting and creating gaps between blacks and whites.

Unfortunately, even if we believe that government has never done anything positive to reduce the gaps between black and white I don’t think that we have the luxury of asking government to absent itself from this dilemma. I think that government took that option away when it helped create the image of black as dangerous, as undeserving, as inferior.

If government never did another thing to keep blacks behind whites, I doubt that we would see a change in the wealth gap because government has already changed the hearts and minds of Americans to the extent that it is no wonder that blacks are underemployed and undervalued in our Society.

Let’s return to some of the writings we were given today.

Professor Denton tells us that there are neighborhoods where the presence of 3 per cent black homeowners will cause a tipping effect which will change the entire neighborhood to black in a matter of years.

Professor Jackson tells us that government manuals on mortgage lending invented redlining with the statement that any black neighborhood, no matter what the education or income of its residents or the value of its housing stock was automatically inferior and should not receive loans.

Professor Oliver shows us that black housing costs more and appreciates less because blacks are forced into limited markets.

Professor Conley reviews a number of studies that have gained popularity and credence by trying to explain black/white differences as always the fault of blacks themselves whether by claiming lower IQs or less willingness to save or lower educational attainment, all of which have proved untrue.

Will the gap in wealth between blacks and whites ever change if the white attitude toward blacks does not change? And how do attitudes change in this country? Primarily through education which remains a significant government function.

By this I am not limiting myself to elementary school education although that it an important place to start. It has become an American cliche to say that our race problems must be solved by the new generation and I am as prone to cliches as the next person.

Nevertheless, it seems clear that we can’t place the entire burden of solving our race problem on the yet to be born. After all, almost one hundred years ago Dr. DuBois warned us that the problems of the 20th century would be the problems of race. Do we want those who will stand in front of law school classes a hundred years from now to have to hear the same thing? No, we need more education on all levels - particularly, for our purposes, research and graduate level education.

For example, I have limited my comments to the gap between blacks and whites. I have done this because the four books that we were asked to read are essentially limited in this way. Not because the authors are only interested in blacks and whites but because the research is not readily available to study other races in the way that differences between blacks and whites are studied.

Clearly the role of government in impoverishing Indians needs further study as does the effect of race on Asians and Hispanics. Although Professor Denton, for example, does a wonderful job of showing that Puerto Ricans suffer more than other Hispanics because they are more likely to have African features, there remains a great deal left to study as our country acknowledges that everything is not black or white.

But how are we going to get more information when there are movements in this country to restrict access to information about race and movements among our peers to punish race scholarship?

In California there is a movement developing to prohibit the State from collecting information on race. Every ten years there are those who want to either eliminate race questions from the census or create a biracial category. When I wrote a piece on the effects of race and taxation one critic responded that it is never legitimate to study race and tax. Tax rules were either right or wrong and how they effected people by race was not a legitimate concern.

As citizens we have an obligation to let our legislators know that information on race is important. That we cannot know the effects of race in this country if we don’t have the data. As scholars we need to do race studies or encourage our colleagues who do those studies. As teachers we need to bring race into the classroom rather than have it as the elephant in the living room, the thing that explains so much but that we never talk about.

Thus, there is enough work to go around for both the public and the private sector. I believe that we can leave this meeting and begin much of that work today.