HIGH ANXIETY: RACISM, THE LAW, AND LEGAL EDUCATION. “Conspicuously absent from the United States’ ongoing discourse about its racist history is a more honest discussion about the individual and personal stressors that are evoked in people when they talk about racism. What if they got it wrong? The fear of being cancelled — the public shaming for remarks that are deemed racist — has had a chilling effect on having meaningful conversations about racism. What lost opportunities! This paper moves this discussion into the law school context. How might law schools rethink their law school curricula to more accurately represent the role systemic racism has played in shaping the law while still respecting community members’ different perspectives about racism pedagogy? As in our broader society, law school community members’ fear of ‘getting it wrong’ and possibly being cancelled has had a chilling effect on having candid conversations about racism within legal education and the law.”

The chilling effect is entirely intentional, and much talk about race today is bad-faith power-seeking.