Imagine how you must feel if you are (a) not of the south, (b) married to a white spouse, and (c) a passionate intellectual and you are hired by the faculty to bring in a "black voice." Talk about an identity crisis!

Once upon a time, black law professors made a difference in the life of Black America. John Mercer Langston, the Dean of Howard Law School, competed with Frederick Douglass for influence at the national level. Charles Hamilton Houston, a later Dean at Howard Law School, conceived and implemented the litigation strategy leading up to the Brown decision, a decision that made a difference in the real lives of real people. William Henry Hastie, a cousin of Dean Houston, would show his Howard students the power of strategic career planning. Spottswood William Robinson, III, another dean of Howard Law School, achieved the highest grade point average in the history of Howard Law. He brought to his deanship years of experience as partner in the prominent law firm Hill, Martin and Robinson. Years later, I would work as a paralegal in Robinson’s firm, one of the few second-generation black law firms in the country. Professor Robert Ming, a brilliant legal mind, would become the first African-American law professor at a predominantly white law school. Ming would lend his mighty talents to oral argument in Brown.

Those days are gone.

There are five reasons why black law professors are a non-factor in black life. These reasons are rarely, if ever, brought to the surface. But walk into any predominantly white law school in the country and have lunch (at an integrated table) with a black law professor. After a few days, you will see patterns emerge.

First, few black law professors were born and raised in the American South. Consider that Black Americans are a southern people. 55.3 percent of African-Americans live in the South. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Demographic Supplement to the March 2002 Current Population Survey.)  I was born in Richmond and raised in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

As a former law professor, I can think of one black law professor born and raised in the South. He came out and announced at a law school event that he had been born and raised in North Carolina. At that moment, I realized how rare a Southern upbringing was among black professors in law schools. Are there other black law professors born and raised in the former Confederacy? There must be someone.

I can name many black law professors who were born and raised outside the South. For example (and in no particular order), Professor Roy Brooks at the University of San Diego Law School hails from Connecticut. Professor Mary Jo Wiggins at the University of San Diego Law School is from Los Angeles. Professor Andrea Johnson of California Western School of Law is from Cleveland, Ohio. Professor Gloria Sandrino of California Western School of Law was born in Cuba and raised in New Jersey. Professor Kevin Green of Thomas Jefferson School of Law is likely from the New York area. Professor Odeana Neal of the Baltimore Law School is from suburban Maryland. Professor Michael Higginbotham of the Baltimore Law School is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Professor Paul Butler of George Washington Law School is from Chicago, Illinois. Former professor Eleanor Holmes Norton of Georgetown Law School was born and raised in Washington, D.C. Professor Anthony Farley of Boston College Law School was born in Jamaica and raised in upstate New York. Professor Janet Steverson of Lewis & Clark Law School grew up in upstate New York. Professor Leonard Baynes of St. John’s Law School has a New York upbringing, Professor Derrick Bell of New York University Law School hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The late professor C. Clyde Ferguson of Harvard Law School was raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Professor Stephen Carter of Yale Law School was raised in upstate New York and Washington, D.C. Professor William B. Gould, IV of Stanford Law School was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised (I believe) in Newport, Rhode Island. Professor Gregory Williams, former Dean of Ohio State University School of Law, came of age in Muncie, Indiana. Professor Patricia Williams of Columbia Law School was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Professor Randall Kennedy from Harvard Law School was raised in Washington, D.C.  Professor David Wilkins at Harvard Law School has Chicago, Illinois roots. Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School was raised in Sacramento, California. Professor Roberta Harding of Kentucky Law School was raised in San Francisco. Professor Jay Cook has Detroit, Michigan roots. And, last, but not least, former University of Chicago Law School professor Barack Obama was born and raised in Hawaii.

The disconnect between the elite and the Southern lives of black people is clear. Critical Race Theorists will not expose this disconnect because it weakens the argument that black law professors bring a “unique voice” to teaching. However, the average Black law professor is not of the South and so has little connection to the southern black constituency, the southern black experience.

One might even argue that Southern blacks are less radicalized because of effective desegregation in rural and suburban school districts. But I digress.

Second, a disproportionate percentage of black law professors are interracially married. On a personal level, these choices do not matter to me. And for the curious reader, yes, my wife is African-American. (Indeed, I was the only black law professor married to another black in San Diego for several years)  But, for some reason, a lot of folks care about marriage choices of others. Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig writes in "Undercover Other," 94 California Law Review 873, 892 (2006) that, "Blacks often view other Blacks who intermarry with deep suspicion. These prejudices are very real, often resulting in in-group passing when those, such as myself, temporarily 'game' the system to remain on the inside of an outsider group."

It stands to reason that the interracially married will try extra hard to gain acceptance by the black community. And thus we see the equivalent of nouveau riche behavior; the non-Southern, interracially married black law professor becoming as radical as possible to earn his or her bona fides. Race insecurity results in radical thought.

The more radical the ideology, the more insecure the proponent.

Third, high levels of education separate black law professors from Black America. I applaud the ranks of Ivy Leaguers. More and more education is part of the solution. Indeed, African-American law professors may be the best-educated class in Black America. Every black law professor at my old law school was a Harvard Law School graduate. I remember reading (and I wish I could find the citation) that 40 percent of black law professors had some connection or tie to Yale. That’s an amazing good story.

Here’s the unhappy ending.

Black America is rife with anti-intellectualism. John H. McWhorter has written that black students too often face the slur of “acting white.” And so intellectual pursuits are de-emphasized. Now imagine how you must feel if you are (a) not of the south, (b) married to a white spouse, and (c) a passionate intellectual and you are hired by the faculty to bring in a black voice. Yikes! Talk about an identity crisis!

Radical thought becomes a way to show your loyalty to the black community, to show that you are “down” with the struggle. Inside, you know something is wrong with this picture. But you carry on because others before you have cranked out liberation dogma with success. 

Life would be easier if you would just be yourself. But you cannot because you have signed on board the Malcolm X train. You have made your choice. At least real lives are not at stake.

Fourth, black law professors face unique pressures. These pressures are born out of a public, false mask one presents to the Black Law Students Association, to other colleagues at the Black Table and People of Color conferences, and to leftist professors who want to do the right thing. Most Black Americans can be themselves after work. But for a law professor, you really are an intellectual twenty-four hours a day. Your words are eagerly written down by stressed out first–year law students. You serve on the Minority Affairs Committee and your musings are given gracious deference. Your intellectual life becomes uncoupled from the values and attitudes of your parents. And these pressures distance you from the real needs of every day black people.

I understand the dilemma.

And then there is the divide of social class.

African-Americans are a working class people. Between the extremes of Oprah Winfrey and the single unwed mother in the inner city lies a wide swath of black life.  The middle-class has swelled but the working class remains the anchor of black work.  "Most African-American students select occupations in which African-Americans traditionally have been well represented, such as military personnel, teacher, postal employee, hair stylist, or cafeteria worker." (Terrell, Terrell & Miller, 1993.)  Source: Race and the Workforce: Occupational Status, Aspirations, and Stereotyping Among African American Children, 39 Developmental Psychology 572, 573 (2003). 

“Low-paying jobs at the bottom of the American occupational ladder . . . accounted for 4,163,000 Black workers or 28.2% of all employed African-Americans,” according to Harvard Professor Martin Kilson. And don’t kid yourself. These are salt of the earth jobs like janitor, maid, fast food worker, and garbage collector.

Do black law professors come from the ranks of those for whom they would speak?

Much research needs to be done in this area. From personal experience, I know of two law professors from working class backgrounds. One is the son of a coal miner. The other is the son of a steel worker. As for other current law professors, many of whom I hold in the warmest regard, their backgrounds are as follows: Daughter of a lawyer, Daughter of a lawyer, Daughter of a corporate executive, Daughter of a high-ranking public official, Son of a federal district judge, Son of a federal appellate judge, Son of a lawyer, Son of a minister, Son of an economics professor, Son of a non-profit CEO/lawyer, Son of an elite law firm partner, Daughter of an Afro-Studies Department Chairman. My listing is an impartial one because it’s based on casual conversations over the years.

Let’s assume that my imperfect survey bears some relation to the truth — that the rare African-American law professor comes from the underclass poor or even the working class. What are the implications of this social divide between Black America and Black law professors? Might it render any insights into “black liberation” suspect?  As Professor Kilson warns, the most striking difference between the lives of the black upper-class (and black law professors are members of the black upper-class) and the lives of the black working class poor and underclass households would be family formation. 75% of black households in the underclass are headed by a stressed single parent. 96% of black upper-class households have a married husband and wife. I contend that the “overarching disability” of poor, single-parent households is abstract ideology for critical race theorists, not lived experience.

All of these differences — regional upbringing, interracial marriage, intellectualism, the public mask of radical thought, and social class background — pull black law professors away from the pulse of Black America. And so black law professors become less and less relevant to civic life. Like an Old Family whose money is gone, black law professors have the pedigree to lead but no one cares anymore.

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After this article was posted, we received the following correction from Professor Mary Jo Wiggins:

I came across your essay on black law professors on the website "www.intellectualconservative.com." While I actually agree with a lot of the points you make, I must correct a factual error in the piece.  Your essay states, "Professor Mary Jo Wiggins at the University of San Diego School of Law is from Los Angeles."  For the record, I am not from Los Angeles.   I was born in Canton, Ohio and spent most of my childhood in Missouri and Indiana.  The first time I became a West Coast resident was when I moved to San Diego in 1990.  While this factual error does not detract from the cogency of your argument, you might want to be more careful about fact-checking in the future. 
– Professor Mary Jo Wiggins