Law Professor Kimberle Crenshaw compared serving as a black judge in the 1970s to a pink cow appearing in the center of campus.
Speaking on behalf of legal scholar, civil rights activist and Honorable Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Crenshaw delivered a speech about the challenges faced when "Judging While Black" as part of the Center for Africana Studies' memorial to Higginbotham.
Although the task was to deliver a memorial -- a discussion about the deceased Higginbotham -- Crenshaw refused to allow him to play such a passive role. Instead, she evoked some of his writings to enable the audience of nearly 100 people to converse with Higginbotham through his works.
Crenshaw discussed two of his texts in particular -- a response he offered to an accusation that his role as a civil rights advocate made him unable to judge impartially, and his response and wariness as to the appointment of the conservative black Justice Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court.
Crenshaw pressed the issue that the mere existence of "judging while black" or doing anything "while black" is evidence that "race profiling on the bench is alive and well."
Despite progress made through civil rights jurisdictions, there continues to be an asymmetry in American society, Crenshaw said.
Americans claim that race no longer matters, but Crenshaw claimed that in fact there is a "social value [assigned to race] that is not symmetric. In order to prove that you are not biased... you have to disparage your history and prove a distance from it."
And that, maintains Crenshaw, is exactly the challenge that Higginbotham encountered.
There remains a certain apathy towards the fact that blacks cannot just "click their heels" and rid themselves of the constraints of de facto racism, she said.
To this end, event organizer and Center for Africana Studies Director Tukufu Zuberi added that "right now, part of [America's] problem is that [it is] not recognizing the problem."
Crenshaw said that the "separate but equal" outcome of the 1895 Plessy v. Ferguson case continues to be much like the character of Michael Myers in the movie Halloween --"it just keeps coming' back," she said.
Separate, Crenshaw asserted, is inherently unequal.
"It is different to be a white American than to be an African American," she said.
Graduate student Vinay Harpalani said he credits Crenshaw with bringing issues of race and ethnicity to the forefront of discussion.
She is "extending the idea of how race shapes how people see the world," Harpalani said.
In the second text Crenshaw pulled from Higginbotham, she said that not only does he challenge the ideals of Clarence Thomas, but he also pleads with Americans to "stay vigilant and politically literate."
Crenshaw concluded by offering another challenge -- to acquire the interest and means to face the "challenge of change in the 21st century."
College senior Juana Gatson said she was particularly struck by Crenshaw's "stress on literacy and dialogue and the importance of constantly engaging other people."
Crenshaw refers to the present state of affairs as being in a "crisis" because of the ambiguity of the future of the Federal courts.
Crenshaw said she was saddened to be delivering a memorial speech for him and, because of the current "crisis," believes that his presence would be particularly helpful.
"I cannot think of someone that I miss more or need more," she said. Especially in light of the outcome of last week's national elections, she said she is "extremely concerned about the future of civil rights... and the effect of normalizing the status quo and making it impenetrable is very troubling."
Higginbotham's laundry list of achievements also includes a significant relationship with the University of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Board of Trustees up until his retirement and at one point was considered for the position of University President.
Crenshaw worked as a research assistant for Higginbotham at Harvard University and said she credits him with her current career choice.
"He influenced me more to be a scholar than anything," she said.
