Civil Rights Enforcement and the Racial Wage Gap

摘要

President Barack Obama appointed over 250 judges to US district courts during his tenure, while President Donald Trump appointed over 160 in four years. To the extent that the party composition of active federal judges across courts is largely the result of the amount and location of vacant seats during each president's tenure, understanding the effects of these lifelong appointments on observed differences in civil rights enforcement and labor market outcomes for minorities remains of first-order importance for those interested in systemic racial inequality in the United States. Our results show that party affiliation matters, but, moreover, enforcement matters. The racial wage gap shrinks when courts are more likely to rule in favor of plaintiffs in civil rights cases. Although a vast number of discrimination cases are settled out of court, a relationship exists between court rulings and labor market outcomes. Future work should explore causal mechanisms in which civil rights enforcement, via the courts, influences racial inequality.