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Short thread on losing inspiration! I served as an expert witness to a constitutional challenge recently, the experience reinvigorated me, thought maybe useful to similar/curious others 1/few
A while back someone ( @profcikara ?) characterized research-policy link as: we pass our best work over a wall, assume others will take it, use it from there. But no one on the other side, just a big ol pile of untouched work
Been a regular sad showerthought since then
Been a regular sad showerthought since then
Then I got asked to serve as expert witness on a constitutional challenge. Quebec passed "Bill 21", which bans some public employees from wearing religious symbols. Crucifix, hijab, turban, kippah etc. Strong public support. 4 cases challenging the bill https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-21-quebec-secular-law-court-challenge-1.5784727
My mandate was to determine if this law might result in prejudice toward religious minorities, particularly Muslim women. They'd found our recent paper https://www.pnas.org/content/116/18/8846
This was my first expert testimony. Nerves. One half of what I did was a serious lit review and report, well beyond my small niche of prejudice/faces world. Norms, econ, hate crimes, suicide, stuff I’m loosely familiar with but not expert
I learned lawyers are SUPER, super, pedantic. Cannot stress enough. 10-20 papers supporting a broad theoretical idea weren't enough. More specific than (my) academic writing. Here, I needed SINGLE papers that exactly matched the sentences I was writing
For good reason: I was convincing a judge of ideas, and strong single papers exactly supporting your point do that more effectively than 20 papers that are similar-ish but vary in complex ways, vary in strength. “Write for tired eyes”
So the richness of various literatures was super valuable. I could dip in and find the paper that was perfect evidence for what I was trying to say. Here, I realized I was on the other side of the wall, and I really needed this giant pile of papers
Very incomplete list of people that helped a ton: @betsylevyp et al work on norms, @ChrisCrandall16 had a FORMER president Trump paper, @AndyLuttrell5 blogpost turning me on to some perfect norm work from the 70s, good witness advice from @jessicasalerno5. Many others
Ended up taking a norms perspective: laws, functioning as norms, shape attitudes and behavior. To the extent religious minorities associated with law, law could be expected to increase prejudice, hate crimes, suicide ideation (among other bad things) in religious minorities
In summary, I’d been feeling cynical about the value of research for impacting the world, and maybe needed this. Grateful to field in general. Broader unformed thoughts that law is best way for science to get into public outcomes. I will go on contributing to the pile /end
