Implicit Bias

For years, the Minnesota Supreme Court has supported its Committee for Justice and Equality, as well as the Supreme Court Task Force on Racial Bias in the Judicial System.  For over 25 years, the courts of Minnesota have formally studied and debated its mission to ensure equal justice to all who appear before them. 

The Courts have, more or less successfully,[1] addressed overt racism and bias.  It has now turned its attention on implied bias.  At our 2016 Fall Judges Conference, we were presented with a session on Implied Bias. 

The session asked us all to recognize that each one of us has biases, explicit and implicit.  We need to understand the cultural and biological influences on our decision-making:  How might our implied, perhaps unrecognized, bias impact our decision making?  Finally, we were asked to identify strategies that could reduce the impact of bias on our decision making.

Explicit bias is a conscious preference (which may be positive or negative) for a social category.  Implicit bias is such a preference that operates outside of our awareness – like stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. 

We were told about the Implicit Attitude Test, which is available to anyone to test their implied biases.[2]

The Mission of the Minnesota Judicial Brand is ““To provide justice through a system that assures
equal access for the fair and timely resolution of cases and controversies.”   To that end, a Judicial Council Policy provides, “In support of the fundamental principle of fair and equitable treatment
under law, the Minnesota Judicial Branch strives to eliminate from court operations bias that is based on race, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation and any other status protected by law.”

Which all sounds good, but each judge knows that how that policy is implemented in his or her courtroom is his or her responsibility.

We judges were given a Bench Card to keep with us as we preside in Court, to remind us of the lessons learned in our session on implicit bias.  We were given specific ideas on how to guard against implicit bias in our work in three general areas:  Act Consciously and Deliberately; Be Self-Aware; and Create Processes to Serve as a Check on Unintended Bias.

Presiding in Court or participating in society, these are good lessons for each of us to keep in mind. 

For more information on implicit bias, check out the website at The Ohio State University:  http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/

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[1] For a really good and interesting discussion of the power and the pitfalls of implicit bias and snap judgments, see Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking

[2][2] To learn more about this test, and participate yourself, go to https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/