Uploaded June 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
7th Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium
Whiteness As Property: A 20-Year Appraisal
Whiteness as Property: Racializing Childhood and Parenthood (October 4, Saturday)
Bela August Walker argues that the rhetoric of rights is doing the work of property law. Today, these property rights determine who becomes a (legal) parent, the scope of that parenthood, and the extent to which the state comes to interfere with parenting. Those who once held greater property entitlements—because of whiteness, wealth or gender—continue to have greater protections of their “fundamental rights.” Isy India Geronimo (Thusi) argues that the over-criminalization of students of color highlights the power “nonracial” policies have in maintaining white superiority and maintaining the property interests whites have in their whiteness. Existing policies that are facially race-neutral exacerbate pre-existing advantages that promote white superiority. Juliet Williams focuses on K-12 public education reform debates and presents an analysis of the way claims about gender-based disadvantage have been deployed to retrench white privilege in U.S. public schools. With attention to the role that antidiscrimination law plays, Williams shows how white boys have come to achieve the status of a disadvantaged class in education reform circles.
Moderator: Juliet Williams, Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA
Panelists:
Bela August Walker, Associate Professor, Roger Williams University School of Law; Whiteness and Parenthood: Parental Status from Property Rights to Fundamental Rights
Isy India Geronimo Thusi, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Witwatersrand; Whiteness as Property and the Criminalization of Minority Schoolchildren
Juliet Williams, Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA; White Privilege and ‘Boy Crisis’ Discourse
7th Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium
Whiteness As Property: A 20-Year Appraisal
Whiteness as Property: Racializing Childhood and Parenthood (October 4, Saturday)
Bela August Walker argues that the rhetoric of rights is doing the work of property law. Today, these property rights determine who becomes a (legal) parent, the scope of that parenthood, and the extent to which the state comes to interfere with parenting. Those who once held greater property entitlements—because of whiteness, wealth or gender—continue to have greater protections of their “fundamental rights.” Isy India Geronimo (Thusi) argues that the over-criminalization of students of color highlights the power “nonracial” policies have in maintaining white superiority and maintaining the property interests whites have in their whiteness. Existing policies that are facially race-neutral exacerbate pre-existing advantages that promote white superiority. Juliet Williams focuses on K-12 public education reform debates and presents an analysis of the way claims about gender-based disadvantage have been deployed to retrench white privilege in U.S. public schools. With attention to the role that antidiscrimination law plays, Williams shows how white boys have come to achieve the status of a disadvantaged class in education reform circles.
Moderator: Juliet Williams, Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA
Panelists:
Bela August Walker, Associate Professor, Roger Williams University School of Law; Whiteness and Parenthood: Parental Status from Property Rights to Fundamental Rights
Isy India Geronimo Thusi, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Witwatersrand; Whiteness as Property and the Criminalization of Minority Schoolchildren
Juliet Williams, Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA; White Privilege and ‘Boy Crisis’ Discourse
