Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses California’s ongoing practice of forced prison labor, examining its legal foundations, recent failed efforts to abolish it through ballot measure and legislation, and the low wages and lack of workplace protections afforded to incarcerated workers. Professor Sarat argues that Governor Gavin Newsom should use his executive authority to direct the Department of Corrections to stop punishing inmates who refuse to work, as a meaningful step toward ending what is best characterized as a constitutionally sanctioned form of slavery incompatible with California’s self-described progressive values.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf criticizes Florida’s new middle school social studies education standards, which suggest that enslaved people benefited from slavery in some instances by learning skills such as carpentry or blacksmithing that they could later use for personal benefit. Professor Dorf argues that this perspective dangerously minimizes the horrors of slavery, and could be a calculated move by political figures like Governor Ron DeSantis to leverage culture war issues, distort historical truths, and consolidate power.
Illinois Law professor Lesley M. Wexler comments on a case in which a Massachusetts court affirmed Harvard’s ownership over several slave daguerreotypes despite the horrific and now criminal conditions under which the pictures were taken. Professor Wexler argues that the double injustice of mistreating enslaved people and using them to prove a theory of their lesser-than status calls for application of transitional justice principles, not ordinary law.
