Justice Isn't Blind

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University has been hosting a really interesting series of talks. Video is available on the internet, too.

Here's one: Leslie Zebrowitz, a professor at Brandeis, has been doing research on how people's appearance governs how they are treated in court. The results are a little scary: if you have a "baby face", you are more likely to win your case in Small Claims Court when you are denying intentional wrongdoing. If the defendant is "maturefaced", and the plaintiff is "babyfaced", the plaintiff is more likely to get larger monetary damages.

This is just one in a series of results showing that people's unconscious biases strongly color their decision-making.