Only Some Are Dead Men Walking: Teaching About Race Discrimination and the Death Penalty

Abstract

This paper describes an experiential learning exercise I have used to teach race discrimination in my introductory and criminology courses. The exercise is designed to introduce students to the concept of non-conscious forms of racial bias, a form of race discrimination often difficult for students to grasp. Using a hypothetical criminal case, students imagine themselves as jurors in a capital murder trial and decide whether the defendant should receive the death penalty or life imprisonment. The results of the exercise are used as a basis for class discussion. Specifically, I consider why the students' findings either support or challenge previous research and consider social-psychological arguments about how racism manifests itself on a non-conscious level. After outlining the specifics of the exercise and describing the class discussion in detail, I offer an evaluation of the assignment based on student feedback and my own reflection.

Examining the Impact of a Domestic Violence Simulation on the Development of Empathy in Sociology Classes

“…Fostering empathy seems particularly important when teaching about sensitive subject matters, such as abuse. Sociologists have long documented the challenges associated with teaching about difficult topics, generally (Bordt 2004; Davis 2005; Fisher 2008; Khanna and Harris 2014; Leisenring 2012; Moloney and Pelehach 2014), and domestic violence, in particular (Hertzog and Williams 2007; Hollander 2000; Murphy-Geiss 2008; Phillips 1988; Purvin and Kain 2005). Leading lessons on subject matters like rape and sexual assault, discrimination, gender deviance, sexuality, and abuse presents instructors with a series of hurdles.…”

Beyond Bigotry

“…Other published exercises, such as Stratification Monopoly (Coghlan and Huggins 2004) and the Privilege Walk (Ipas n.d.), propose powerful methods of teaching about privilege and institutional discrimination, which parallel unconscious prejudice as dimensions of inequality that are not reducible to individual bigotry. Most closely related to the method proposed here, Bordt (2004) presented a simulation exercise in which students act as jurors deciding the punishment in a murder case but are not told that there are multiple versions of the scenario that vary the characters' races. The exercise is used to show students that they may harbor prejudices.…”

“…Simultaneously, many articles on pedagogy have addressed different aspects of teaching about racism and prejudice. However, we know of only one academic article that addresses how to teach about unconscious prejudice (Bordt 2004). Because students often do not recognize that “good people” can unintentionally produce social harm and frequently understand “isms” such as racism and sexism to describe only overt and deliberate actions (Kleinman and Copp 2009), it is important for educators to continue to develop ways to show students that unconscious prejudices may shape thoughts and behaviors even of people who consider themselves unbigoted.…”

Using a Research Article to Facilitate a Deep Structure Understanding of Discrimination

“…Goldsmid and Wilson (1985) use a number of classroom scenarios to demonstrate how central benign disruption is to learning. While not using the exact term, those teaching discrimination, in particular, have found benign disruption to be an effective teaching tool (Bordt 2004;Chesler and Zuniga 1991;Zeller 1988). We suggest the following application of the Pager and Quillian (2005) article to elicit benign disruption.…”