Trial Magazine

Reimagining Equality: A New Deal for Children of Color
Nancy E. Dowd
NYU Press
nyupress.org
256 pp., $39

“The American Dream is one of equality and opportunity; the ability to succeed and be whoever and whatever one wants to be, limited only by one’s own drive and talent. But for Black boys, this is not the reality.” With these lines, Nancy Dowd, a University of Florida Levin College of Law professor, opens a research-driven inquiry into how biases embedded in our society negatively affect African-American boys and young men and lead to developmental inequality. Applying sociological studies, the book explores policies and litigation strategies that might help address this problem and level the playing field for all children, including leveraging a “theory of children’s rights” based on the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection and substantive due process clauses.