Dorothy E. Roberts (born March 8, 1956, in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

) is an American sociologist, law professor, and social justice advocate. She is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, George A. Weiss University Professor, and inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. She writes and lectures on gender, race, and class in legal issues. Her concerns include changing thinking and policy on reproductive health,

child welfare Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. One of the ways to e ...

, and

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...

Background

Roberts is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, George A. Weiss University Professor, and inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at

. She holds appointments there in the Law School and Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology. Her books include '' Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty'' (Random House/Pantheon, 1997) where she describes the use of

Norplant Levonorgestrel-releasing implant, sold under the brand name Jadelle among others, are devices that release levonorgestrel for birth control. It is one of the most effective forms of birth control with a one-year failure rate around 0.05%. The de ...

and other contraceptives in population control
''Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare''
(Basic Books/Civitas, 2002), and
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century
' (New Press, 2011), as well as six co-edited works on constitutional law and gender. In 2022 she published ''Torn Apart'' (Basic Books) in which she details a case for abolishing the child welfare system, which she calls the family-policing system, as part of the prison abolition movement. She also has published over 80 articles and essays in books and scholarly journals, including ''Harvard Law Review'', ''Yale Law Journal'', and ''Stanford Law Review''. Roberts received her

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and her

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

. She has been a professor at Rutgers and

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, a visiting professor at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

and Fordham, and a fellow at Harvard University's Program in Ethics and the Professions, Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and the

Fulbright Program The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. She serves as chair of the board of directors of the

Black Women's Health Imperative Black Women's Health Imperative, previously the National Black Women's Health Project, was formed in 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia out of a need to address the health and reproductive rights of African American women. NBWHP was principally founded by B ...

, on the board of directors of th
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
and on the advisory boards of the Center for Genetics and Society and Family Defense Center. She also serves on a national panel that is overseeing foster care reform in Washington State and on the Standards Working Group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (stem cell research). She received awards from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

, the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, ...

, and the 2010 Dorothy Ann and Clarence L. Ver Steeg Distinguished Research Fellowship. Roberts credits her decision to become a lawyer and to go into law teaching about

reproductive justice Reproductive justice is a critical feminist framework that was invented as a response to United States reproductive politics. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the righ ...

based on her assumption that women deserve the absolute right to not only obtain reproductive health services, but also to make decisions about their reproductive lives. However, she did not begin her career only intending to protect the right to abortion. She partially contributes her interest in the field of reproductive justice due to the intense regulation of Black women's bodies when it comes to motherhood, the long history of their denial of the right to have or raise their children, and the systemic lack of control that Black women have over decisions made about reproductive matters.

Author/lawyer

Roberts has published more than 50 articles and essays in books, scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines, including ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

Yale Law Journal The ''Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ), known also as the ''Yale Law Review'', is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students ...

University of Chicago Law Review The ''University of Chicago Law Review'' ( Maroonbook abbreviation: ''U Chi L Rev'') is the flagship law journal published by the University of Chicago Law School. It is among the top five most cited law reviews in the world. Up until 2020, it util ...

Social Text ''Social Text'' is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception by an independent editorial collective in 1979, ''Social Text'' has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gende ...

,'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. She has written
Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare
' ( Basic Civitas Books, 2002) and
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
' (

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...

, 1997), in which she purports to give "a powerful and authoritative account of the on-going assault—both figurative and literal—waged by the American government and our society on the reproductive rights of Black women." and was the co-author of casebooks on

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...

and women and the law. ''Killing the Black Body'' received a 1998 Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America. Her article,
Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies: Women of Color, Equality, and the Right of Privacy
(''

'', 1991), has been widely cited.
Fatal Invention
' (

The New Press The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André Schiffrin

Lecturer/professor

Roberts has delivered several endowed lectures, including the James Thomas Lecture at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

. She was elected twice by the

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

School of Law graduating class to be faculty graduation speaker, and was voted outstanding first-year course professor by the

Northwestern University School of Law Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a private research university. It is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law has been ranked among the top 14, or "T14" law scho ...

class of 2000. She received the Radcliffe University Graduate Society Medal in June 1998. Her current projects concern race and child welfare policy. Roberts has been a visiting professor at the

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. In 2002–03, she was a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

at the centre for

Gender and Development Gender and development is an interdisciplinary field of research and applied study that implements a feminist approach to understanding and addressing the disparate impact that economic development and globalization have on people based upon their ...

Studies,

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in th ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, where she conducted research on family planning policy and on gender, sexuality, and

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

in the Caribbean. She is currently conducting research on the significance of the spatial concentration of state supervision of children in

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

communities and on the use of race in biomedical research and

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

. Roberts is featured in the documentary film,
Silent Choices
', about abortion and reproductive rights from the perspective of African Americans. Roberts also served as an advisor to the film. In 2019, Roberts gave the Betsy Wood Knapp '64 Lecture at Wellesley College. Her topic for this lecture was "The Problem with Race-Based Medicine." In the lecture, Roberts asserts that race, in medicine, is used as a proxy for the more complex aspects of health and disease that should require further investigation. Roberts notes that this topic is especially relevant in the age of genomic science where the desire is to reduce all aspects of disease and infection to a genetic origin. According to Roberts, this is an inaccurate assumption and can powerfully impact the medical treatment of women, children, and African-Americans.

Views

Roberts has drawn parallels between what she sees as current U.S. imperialism and

white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...

. She has asserted that U.S. torture of terrorist suspects is a tool to maintain supremacy just as violence has been used to maintain white supremacy, and has compared the treatment of prisoners at

Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib (; ar, أبو غريب, ''Abū Ghurayb'') is a city in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq, located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000 (2003). The old road t ...

prison to racist

lynchings Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

of blacks. Roberts has asserted that women should be able to choose if they bear a child and how they raise it. However, she notes that these decisions are often dependent on the social conditions in which women live, any discrimination they face, and whether they value the idea of childbearing. Roberts also concludes that this choice, along with the choice to have a relationship with the child, must be respected by the state and by society, which does not happen to Black women who are often subject to government interference during their parenthood. In her views on reproductive justice, Roberts includes issues of social justice as well in order to ensure that women and men are able to make independent, informed reproductive decisions when it comes to whether or not to have children and their relationships with their children.

Scholarly contributions

Throughout the years, Roberts has explored topics such as race, reproduction, and motherhood in her scholarship. Additionally, through her writings she has taken her analysis a step further to examine the interconnectivity of these issues, specifically in regards to the experiences of black women.

''Fatal Invention''

Roberts explores the dangers of the continued research of race in the science and medical fields in her book ''Fatal Invention''. In this book Roberts asserts that genomic science and biotechnology is reinforcing the concept of race as a biological category. She cautions the continued research of race at a molecular level which is being used to hide current racism in the country and continues a racial division by justifying racial differences. Roberts mentions that even after the Human Genome Project proved that race could not be identified in our genes, there is still an interest in race-based genetic variation in medicine. Roberts points out the paradoxical nature of this continued interest as Americans continue to ignore the crushing effects of health disparities and racial inequalities in society. Roberts suggests that when doing research on individuals instead of framing the question as how does it affect different racial groups the question should be framed as how does it affect human beings. At the beginning of the book, Roberts reviews the history of the invention of race. She argues that race is not just a social construct, it is also politically charged and has been disguised as a biological category to justify racial injustice. Roberts writes, “the problem with this interpretation of race as a social construction is that it ignores its political – and not biological – origin. The very step of creating race, dividing human beings into these categories is a political practice”. She wants to move beyond race just being a social construction and begins her analysis by explaining the political origins of race and how it was utilized for economic means. The purpose of recounting the history is to emphasize that racial categories are not natural, but that they were created.

''Sex Power & Taboo: Gender and HIV in the Caribbean and Beyond''

Roberts along with

Rhoda Reddock Rhoda Reddock (born 7 June 1953) is a Trinidadian educator and social activist. She has served as founder, chair, adviser, or member of several organizations, such as the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), the Global F ...

, Sandra Reid and Dianna Douglass study the outbreak of HIV in the Caribbean in ''Sex, Power, And Taboo: Gender and HIV in the Caribbean and Beyond''. Using an interdisciplinary view, the authors research how different factors like gender, norms, and power affect HIV. Gender is emphasized in order to better understand the outbreak of HIV because the authors believe gender impacts sexuality. Roberts, Reddock, Reid and Douglass argue that by looking at HIV through these different lens people will be able to create programs to end the spread of HIV. Sexuality and gender is also explored in order to be used to end HIV and AIDS epidemic through academics, public health and policy professions. ''Sex, Power and Taboo'' incorporates the research presented at a conference at the University of the West Indies with the theme of gender, sexuality and HIV. The authors for this book come from different parts of the world and from different types of academic fields. The authors in this book attempts to shape gender and sexuality in the Caribbean in a different view from the perspective of the Global North.

"The Problem with Race Based Testing" TedX talk

Roberts gives a

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

talk titled "The Problem with Race Based Medicine" which was posted online in February 2016. In this TEDx talk Roberts addresses the practice of race based medicine and finds it hurtful to patients. Roberts uses her own observations and talks with medical professionals to conclude that race is used to prescribe, treat, and diagnose patients. The use of race in the medical field is used as a shortcut and as a result can become a distraction by relying on a social construction in order to make biological determinant. Roberts gives an example of a medical test, GFR ( glomerular filtration rate), that takes race into account when testing patients. Another problem that Roberts brings up with race medicine is that it relies on bias and stereotypes that can negatively affect patients and cites the example of the stereotype that people of color can handle more pain. This negative stereotype that people of color can handle more pain can lead to patients not receiving the medication they need. Roberts says that race medicine can contribute to

social inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...

by continuing the racial discrimination. Race- based medicine is” a system by which research is done by primarily using race as an essential, biological variable, translates into clinical practice, and leads to inequitable care.�
According to Robert's TED Talk about the "Importance Race Based Medicine", she talks about how race “runs deep in throughout all of medical practices. It plays a part of diagnosis, treatment, prescriptions etc.
Doctors are supposed to treat patients with evidence based African Americans are said to have more muscle mass than other race. Doctors are using race to determine a general trait or diagnosis. She says race is a bad proxy because race cannot determine the health issues based on race.It blinds doctors to illnesses Race can't substitute as a good way to distinguish Black and Latino people are twice as likely to receive the pain medicine that Whites because of idea of that they can handle more pain. Roberts talks about Samuel Daniel Cartwright a physician during civil, who believe that slavery was a beneficial thing for the black people. He created

drapetomania Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity. This hypothesis centered around the belief that slavery was such an improvement up ...

. Race specific medicines is the practice of medicine and treatment specifically to their race. Dorothy Roberts talks about how this is not a fair way to treat people because everybody has different medical needs regardless of their race. She addresses that there is a history of Black people being perceived to be able to handle more pain than other race. There was a notion that white a black people have lung differences. Slave owners wanted to prove that slaves had weaker lungs that their white save owners. Therefore, the physicians on the plantation used the spirometer. It has been used to examine lung functions. To operate the device the race among other information has to be entered which makes this a race specific treatment in medicine. According to Dorothy Roberts, “race is not a good proxy” for medicine. She said that they should focus on resources and the actual disease itself. There are still so many racial issues and all people do not get fair treatment. She also talks about lack of access to medical care for minorities and not having access to treatment. Roberts also discusses the stress of discrimination for Black and Latino people.

''Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare''

This book, published by Roberts in 2001, outlines the American foster care system by highlighting the system's many failures, especially in aiding poor, Black parents attempting to raise their children. Roberts discusses the current state of the child-welfare system in America by using her intimate knowledge of the system. Using firsthand accounts, Roberts details how thousands of children annually are removed from their parents' homes, often due to the endemic effects of poverty that impact women and children more than any other group in the United States. Roberts not only describes the racial differences in foster care, but she also highlights the discrimination that comes with high concentration of state intervention in certain neighborhoods, the struggle of poor families in meeting state standards for regaining custody of their children, and the relationship between state supervision and systemic racial inequality.

"Racism and the Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood"

In her piece "Racism and the Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood," Roberts offers insight into the intersecting roles of racism and patriarchy and their deep effects on motherhood for black women in society. Roberts opens the article, broadly discussing an explanation of how women differ in their gendered experiences based on their race, as the intersectional oppression that black women face varies than their white counterparts. She then delves into the impact of racism and the

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

, their complex relationship to each other, and argues that racism and patriarchy cannot be separated in their impact on the lives of black women, specifically in regards to how they feel about motherhood and how society perceives black mothers. She explains that there are shared experiences amongst all mothers, but that raising black children in a racist, patriarchal society poses its own pain and struggle. Roberts argues that the social construction of motherhood, which was made by those in power, leads to the stigmatization of mothers who do not fit this mold. Roberts article goes on to outline a brief history of black mothers experience dating back to slavery, through the 19th-century " Cult of Domesticity", and into modern-day discourse surrounding poverty. Roberts concludes with a call to understand the interplay of racism, sexism, patriarchy, and how ending racism is a necessary step in the feminist fight to end sexism.

"Race and the New Reproduction"

In her piece "Race and the New Reproduction," Dorothy E. Roberts outlines scientific developments regarding reproduction, more specifically focusing on

in vitro fertilization In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) ...

or IVF as well as surrogate/contract pregnancies. Roberts notes that many feel that advancements in the field of reproduction work to provide new technologies that are beneficial to those desiring to become parents. Roberts argues that while these new advancements in

reproductive technologies Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others. It is also termed Assisted Reproductive Technology, where it ...

offer individuals who are shut out of reproducing without the aid of reproductive technology the opportunity to have children, they still ultimately conform to societal norms that are annexed onto family. Her evidence outlines that the majority of individuals who use and benefit from IVF or other forms of reproductive technologies tend to be heterosexual couples due to social, racial, cultural, economic, as well as legal implications. She argues then that the idea of the

nuclear family A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger ...

consisting of a mother, father, and children remains intact due to who is accessing these resources. Roberts uses a feminist perspective to argue that patriarchal norms are invoked with new forms of reproductive technology, as married men strongly benefit from these practices, and that they continue to play into a hierarchy system in the United States that is categorized by race. Roberts finds that IVF is predominately used by white individuals and that legal cases and stories surrounding the mistaken use of sperm or eggs from black donors in IVF treatments are often highly sensationalized in the media. She notes that black individual's lack of access to reproductive technologies is a reflection of issue of their lack of access to healthcare more generally. She additionally notes that sometimes black individual's cultural norms, which stress the importance and significance of familial blood ties, which she argues is linked to a history of slavery and patriarchy, become barriers to accessing these types of technologies. Roberts concludes by noting the serious racial disparities that exist between black and white individuals in their efforts to use these reproductive technologies. Dorothy Roberts: Killing the Black Body Killing the Black Body was written by Dorothy Roberts after she read about the articles that came out in the 1980s about black women being arrested for using drugs during their pregnancy. Roberts saw this as “the prosecutions punishing black women for having babies”. This led Roberts to doing research on the history of punitive policies directed towards African American women. She became interested in writing about the regulations of childbearing for black women. Dorothy says,” I want this book to convince readers that reproduction is an important topic and that it is especially important to Black people.” Dorothy discusses the issues of reproduction when it comes to the Black woman. She talks about slavery and how it has affected Black women mentally and physically over time. Dorothy addresses the experience of motherhood for Black women. She addresses the struggles that these women have faced since the beginning of slavery. Black women were used during slavery to produce babies that would be the property of the slave masters at conception. The worth of these women were determined by fertility. The more children they could produce for their masters, determined how high their auction prices would be. She talks about the treatment of slaves by their slave owners. She talks about the ways that the White slave owners would treat their slaves that were Black women. Not only were they enslaved, but their bodies were enslaved. They had no control over their reproductive systems even though it was their body. Infertile slaves were not valuable to their slaveholders Women who were not fertile were sold off or even worse things were done to them. The slave were very angry that the slaves could not produce, so they would inflict “cruel physical and psychological” punishment on those female slaves. They felt that infertile female slaves was a “loss on their investment”. On the other hand, fertile slaves were very valuable to her master. They were often sold to another owner. The only way a woman could avoid being separated from her family was if she started having children early on and very often. In “Killing the Black Body, there is a report presented to the General Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. The report stated, “Where fruitfulness is the greatest of virtues, barreness will be regarded as worse than a misfortune, as a crime and the subjects of it will be exposed form of privation and affliction. Thus deficiency wholly beyond the slave's power becomes the occasion of inconceivable suffering.” In one of Dorothy's lectures, she talks about Black women's wombs being seen as a threat to society. This is why she believes that people try to do things to prevent them from producing offspring such as sterilization and

contraceptives Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...

. Female slaves were raped by their slave masters. The female slaves could legal be “stripped, beaten, mutilated, bred, and compelled to toil alongside men.” There were laws in states like Louisiana and Virginia, but they did not protect the Black women from being raped by their white slave owners. “The crime of rape does not apply to African slaves.” Raping Black women did not exist as crime. Even when they were rape it was not seen as a crime because somehow it ended being something that they “deserved” and has been viewed as acceptable, when it would be terrible crime if it was done to a White woman. Dorothy also addresses the narratives that were given to Black women by their slave owners such as the names “Jezebel” and “Mammy”. Dorothy talks about the views of Black women and how they have never been viewed as the ideal women “From the moment they set foot in this country as slaves, Black women have fallen outside the American ideal of womanhood.” and viewed differently than women of other races. As a result of Black women being subjected to sexual abuse, they were given either of the two names to put a label on them. According to “

Killing the Black Body In ''Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty'', Dorothy Roberts analyzes the reproductive rights of black women in the United States throughout history. Published in 1997 by Pantheon Books, this book details a histor ...

”, the meaning behind the name “Jezebel” was the Black woman that seemed “willing” to engage in sexual intercourse. Jezebel originated from the character of the biblical wife of King Ahab. According to “Killing the Black Body”, Jezebel was a “purely lascivious creature: not only was she governed by her erotic desires, but her sexual led men to wanton passion.” The type of woman that would be called this was one who was “easy” and never had to be forced into sexual acts because she was “always ready”. On the contrast, there was the women they would consider “ Mammy”. She was the Black female house servant who cared for her master's children. She was seen as the type of woman that would nurture and take care of the children. This name became popular during the Jim Crow Era. This character was a part of the cult during this era. She was a symbol of the “good Black woman” According to the narrative given to this type of woman, she was viewed as the perfect slave and woman. Dorothy addresses the degradation of Black women and the origination of all of the negative stigmas associated with them. In Killing the Black Body”, Roberts says that “Racist thinking dictates that Black bodies, intellect, character, and culture are all inherently vulgar.”

"The Child Welfare System's Racial Harm"

In her piece "The Child Welfare System's Racial Harm," Roberts deconstructs why the child welfare system is overpopulated with black youth, and how the fatal flaw of the child welfare system continues to create, facilitate, and perpetuate the material welfare gap between black and white Americans. She begins by arguing that poverty and racial bias are the two main structural pillars contributing to the insufficient

equality of opportunity Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. The intent is that the important ...

between the blacks and whites. Roberts makes the case that parental income is a higher correlated indicator for forced child removal by child protection services than the actual alleged severity of the abuse toward the child by the parent(s). Adding further that since blacks are disproportionately poorer than their white counterparts due to systemic inequities, there is a carryover effect that perpetuates institutional racism in the child welfare system by reinforcing explicit and implicit stereotypes. Roberts argues that the cultural conflict between the white nuclear family structure and the black shared parenting cooperative structure results in blacks being falsely accused of child neglect when in fact, black parent(s) are simply attempting save money on child care costs while strengthening their network of kin. She then delves into the impact of how removing black children from this extended family, albeit under the guise of child protection from parental neglect, ultimately only serves to fracture the black community by stunting the

social development Social development can refer to: * Psychosocial development * Social change * Social development theory * Social Development (journal) * Social emotional development * Social progress or social regress The word decadence, which at first meant ...

and stability of their youth. This disconnect between white and black familial structures she argues, is the source of the child welfare system's fundamental flaw. In essence, while the black community believes that "it takes a village to raise a child", America's white hegemonic

individualistic culture Individualistic cultures are characterized by individualism, which is the prioritization or emphasis of the individual over the entire group. In individualistic cultures people are motivated by their own preference and viewpoints. Individualistic cu ...

assumes from the start that children's basic needs for sustenance and development can and must be met solely by the parents; any failure to comply with this cultural assumption is socially perceived as culpable deviance and implies that such parents are unfit for parenthood. Roberts contends that this fatal flaw is the impetus for a myriad of governmental shortcomings in the child welfare system. Among them, the government's failure to recognize the external economic, political, and social constraints that can prevent black parents from adequately providing for their children; the state only coming in to retroactively save children who are experiencing difficulty as opposed to proactively increasing their welfare benefits in order to preempt such negative results; and the government's refusal to address systemic inequities, such as the affordability of childcare, in favor of saddling the blame for parental failure on the parents' predetermined inadequacy alone. Roberts concludes with the argument that all of these factors culminate in the disintegration of black family life due to the increasing number of black children who never achieve a stable and loving home life during their most formative years of childhood. As such, these youth are prone to deep-seeded senses of insecurity, lack of identity, and low

self-worth Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth or abilities. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie (2007) d ...

which deteriorates the black community over time. Case and point, the so-called " school-to-prison pipeline".

"The Social and Moral Cost of Mass Incarceration in African American Communities"

In her piece "The Social and Moral Cost of Mass Incarceration in African American Communities," Roberts details how and why the skyrocketing growth of prison population, particularly of black inmates, is morally unjustifiable, empirically detrimental in the long-term, evidentially misguided at best and politically predatory through its use of identity politics at worst. She argues this from an intersectional perspective on 3 fronts; the damaging of social networks, distorting of social norms, and the destructing of social citizenship. Roberts begins by dissecting the what she deems the 3 distinctive features of American Incarceration. First, the shear scale in number, and disproportionality in percentage of the black prison inmate population relative to their white and Hispanic counterparts. Especially considering the fact that African Americans are an outright statistical minority in the national population of Americans which, she notes, subsequently makes them overrepresented in the prison population. Second, the rate of incarceration and, third, the spatial concentration of the disadvantaged communities that produce these inmates. Roberts argues that the fracturing of these localized social networks, specifically by

mass incarceration Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceratio ...

, is what reverberates into decreased

social mobility Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society ...

for the entire black community. She emphasizes that a large part of the problem in properly conducting prison research resides in seeking to punish the individual causes of crime as opposed to alleviating the communal consequences of mass incarceration. In utilizing her communal consequences approach, she uncovers how mass incarceration damages social networks by over-relying on extended family members for financial assistance, childcare,

emotional support Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. E ...

, and transportation to and from visiting appointments with the incarcerated family member. Furthermore, Roberts connects this process to the distorting of social norms by reducing the number of

role models ''Role Models'' is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Wain, who co-wrote it with Timothy Dowling, Paul Rudd and Ken Marino. The film follows two energy drink salesmen who are ordered to perform 150 hours of community service as punis ...

and father-figures youth have to look up to as they come of age. She also establishes the link that less black male and female presence in a disadvantaged community puts it at greater risk of crime because the adults that remain are too preoccupied with compensating socioeconomically for their household to partake in the social groups such as, churches, clubs, and neighborhood associations which would normally enforce the social controls that preserve community safety. Lastly, she articulates how social citizenship is destroyed post-incarceration via

felon disenfranchisement Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...

, labor market exclusion, and social isolation. She laments that mass incarceration of African Americans is shortsighted in that it fails to account for the long-term

socioeconomic status Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family's economic access to resources and social position in relation to others. When analyzing a family's ...

costs of reducing the pool of potentially skilled laborers by discouraging potential employers, eroding job skills, and undermining social connections to stable job opportunities, particularly for convicts of petty offenses.

Awards and honors

* 1998 recipient of the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America * 2015 recipient of the Solomon Carter Fuller Award * Northwestern University School of Law's Kirkland & Ellis Professor * Faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research * Fellow at Harvard University's Program in Ethics * Fellow at Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity * Chair of the board of directors of the Black Women's Health Imperative * Member of the board of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform * 2022 elected member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

References

External links

*
"Dorothy Roberts"
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
"Dorothy Roberts Exposes How Science, Politics and Big Business Are Re-Creating Race Issues From Her Book ''Fatal Invention''"
Brainstormin' with Bill Frank

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Dorothy Roberts: Race, Class, and Care
Boston Review

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Dorothy 1956 births Living people Writers from Evanston, Illinois Northwestern University faculty American legal scholars Yale University alumni Harvard Law School alumni African-American lawyers American lawyers University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people Members of the National Academy of Medicine Prison abolitionists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences African-American women lawyers