A. Implicit Bias: First Assignment

Students do the first assignment in four parts. First, students are asked to discuss in at least 150 words whether they believe they have an implicit racial bias, including why they think they do or do not have implicit bias. Second, students complete three of the Harvard implicit bias tests: one on race or color, one in an area where they think they have no bias, and one in an area where they know they have explicit biases. As of the writing of this article, Project Implicit Association has Implicit Association Tests (IAT) on the following areas:

• Age

• Arab-Muslim

• Asian American

• Disability

• Gender-Career

• Gender-Science

• Native American

• Presidents

• Race

• Sexuality

• Skin-tone

• Weapons

• Weight

We do not grade this assignment on the content, only on whether the students made a good faith effort to complete it. We do not share this assignment with other students. Students are asked to talk about their reaction to the results and what that means for them as a person and professional. Further, students are asked to assume that implicit biases exist and to discuss what that means for the legal system and the health care system.

Step 1:

Complete this Assignment in One Sitting

Please Note: While there is no right/wrong effort, I do expect a good faith effort.

BEFORE DOING the IAT write a short paragraph (no more than 150 words) on whether you think you have biases based on race? How do you know whether you do or do not have biases? Why do you think you do or do not have any implicit bias?

Step 2:

Right-click on the link and open in a new tab.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html [http://perma.cc/PHM2-LCWV]

The IAT presents several different tests based on race, religion, and sexual orientation. From the selection offered do three tests. In addition to Black-white/race, select a test in an area where you believe that you have little or no biases and select a test in the area where you believe you have biases.

Step 3:

AFTER COMPLETING the IAT write a short paragraph. Answer the following questions: did you have any implicit bias? What do you think about the results? Assume that there is a fair degree of accuracy in the IAT, what do the general results mean for legal justice? I am not asking what your results mean. The question is what does the presence of implicit bias in people mean for the administration of justice and the practice of law.

Responses from the students are as diverse as the students themselves. Most students find the results surprising. For students whose test result reveals an implicit racial bias, many are very resistant to the idea (students often equate the lack of explicit bias with the lack of bias). Many argue, “I am colorblind. I do not use color in my decision-making,” and will argue against the validity of the tests. Others find the results disheartening or disturbing. It can be especially hard for students when the test reveals an intra-group bias.

Students' statements that they are colorblind represent an opportunity to introduce the idea that a person can have no explicit biases in a particular area and still have implicit biases in that area; a person can work on not having explicit biases and still have implicit biases that are affecting their behavior. In fact, the person without any implicit biases is a lot like “the reasonable person,” a convenient standard to measure behavior against, but rarely found in the wild.

The second group of students represent those who do not demonstrate an implicit bias against the marginalized group; of course, these students feel validated. We use these results as an opportunity to reinforce that validation. However, these results also represent an opportunity to start a discussion about the fluidity of implicit biases. Implicit biases are not static. They are subject to constant modification as a person develops new stereotypes and new prejudices about a particular group or works to abandon old negative thoughts and beliefs. Furthermore, without constant vigilance, old biases can resurface based on current events in a person's life and in the world at large.

Finally, the third group of students consists of members of a racially oppressed group who have an intra-group, negative, implicit bias. For instance, black students who have an implicit bias against black people. These students often face their results with shock, disbelief, and even depression. However, this kind of intra-group negative implicit bias is not uncommon. In fact, research tends to show that many members of a group will have an implicit bias against members of their group, the same implicit bias that the majority holds.

The fact that people can hold negative stereotypes and biases about their own group should not be surprising because implicit biases are learned reactions to environmental stimuli. That environment includes not just the communities we live in but the media we consume. All aspects of our culture contribute to the forming and maintaining of implicit biases. Consequently, it is not surprising that anti-black animosity persists across all groups, including black people. Being oppressed is not enough to eliminate biases against someone who is similarly oppressed, even someone from the same oppressed group.

The fourth part of the assignment is assigned readings and videos. Here is a list of suggested assignments you can choose from:

• View: Brain Tricks: This is How Your Brain Works

• View: Immaculate Perception and Implicit Bias

• View: Thinking - Fast and Slow

• Read: Implicit Racial Bias: A Social Science Overview

• Read: Racial Disparities, Social Science, and the Legal System

• View: The Neuroscience and Psychology of Decision-making

• Part 1: A New Way of Learning

• Part 2: The Media, the Brain, and the Courtroom

• Part 3: Dismantling and Overriding Bias

• Overcoming Implicit Bias: Guidance for Court Personnel

• Cultural Competency and the Law in the 21st Century

• Seeing through Colorblindness: Implicit Bias and the Law

• Read: An Introduction to Structural Racism for Lawyers

• Read: Implicit Bias in the Courtroom

This first assignment sets the stage for the rest of the semester. After providing comments to each student individually and privately, we aggregate the comments and weave them into a general post for the entire class that discusses the variety of responses received, the class's aggregated results on the IAT and our own comments on how those results can be interpreted.