In recent decades, the American political and legal landscape has undergone a radical, though not necessarily unprecedented, transformation. Hard-fought progress in the area of civil rights has been eviscerated through sophisticated efforts to legitimize a political, economic, social, and legal system that devalues and exploits non-whites, women, the poor, and those who do not comport with heteronormative, gender-conforming standards. The corrosion of the rights of historically disenfranchised communities has been effectuated by courts and political leaders to sanction the dilution of constitutional protections through formal legal structures. Policy violence, a response by legal and political elites to the advancement of historically oppressed groups, has been the primary vehicle utilized to strip marginalized groups of civil rights, including fundamental constitutional protections.
Erin M. Carr, The “History And Tradition” of the Sanctification of Structural Violence: A Review of the Cyclical Corrosion of Constitutional Protections, 27 J. Gender, Race & Just. 1 (2024).