Abstract

In her groundbreaking new book, According to Our Hearts: Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and the Law of the Multiracial Family, Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig argues that despite our nations progress in breaking down de jure and de facto discrimination, it is a mistake to believe that the fight for racial justice is over. Through her close examination of relationships between black and white individuals, she exposes how the remnants of our nation’s sordid history of racial bias continue to affect both law and culture today. She also introduces the concept of “interraciality” and argues that discrimination based on interraciality should be included as a protected category in current antidiscrimination law. In this Review, we argue that her concept of interraciality is not only an important intervention for a group currently left unprotected by antidiscrimination law but that it is also important within the broader context of civil rights. Her insights not only explain why adding protected categories to antidiscrimination law is necessary, but — when combined with lessons from the social psychology of contemporary bias — they show why the law should also account for the additional mechanisms through which racial bias manifests itself, whether conscious or unconscious, visible or invisible.

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