The Power of Race Neutrality to Create a Just Society
April 11, 2025
Overview
Race-neutral strategies can be a powerful tool in the struggle to dismantle structural racism. The current political, social, and legal environment is increasingly attacking racial justice efforts and milestones at the federal, and in some cases, state and local levels. This is not a call to abandon race-based strategies for creating a racially just society. It is a call to take a new look at the ability of race-neutral strategies to do the same.
Race-neutral strategies can be a powerful tool in the struggle to dismantle structural racism. The current political, social, and legal environment is increasingly attacking racial justice efforts and milestones at the federal, and in some cases, state and local levels. This leaves little question that it is of the utmost necessity that anti-racist efforts adopt new methods and, in some cases, change course.
This is not a call to abandon race-based strategies for creating a racially just society. It is a call to take a new look at the ability of race-neutral strategies to do the same. A new look is crucial given that historically speaking, race-neutral methods have been unsuccessful because neither the criteria nor their application have been constructed in ways that generated reforms equal to that of race-based strategies.
Public health leaned into the race-based movement to declare racism a public health crisis. Public health can now help shift course by providing the expertise on what has been missing from prior race-neutral strategies—a nuanced understanding of the social determinants of health (SDOH) that captures the drivers of racism that shape health outcomes.
Before turning to some important definitional terms that will help ground why creating better race-neutral strategies is necessary, it is important to understand why doing so matters at this time, in this place. Oppression is fluid. This means it’s impossible to hide from it or keep using the same strategies to overcome it. A New York Times article “These Words are Disappearing from the Trump Administration” underscores this fact.
The disappearances listed in the article identify the attempt by the federal government to undertake a vast erasure of:
- Peoples (“Black,” “Tribal,” “LGBT,” “LGBTQ,” “Native American,” “transgender,” “women,” “immigrants,” and “Hispanic minority,” to name a few)
- The existence of structural inequities or injustices—even those that have been long-standing and non-controversial (“at risk,” “bias,” “socioeconomic,” “health disparity,” “trauma,” and “segregation,” to name a few more)
- The social good that comes from being active in a democratic society (“advocacy,” “advocate,” and “culturally responsive,” to name even more)
The scope of this erasure is not only broad, but it is fast and furious; driven by federal actions that not only erase, but display an open contempt for certain advocates who have been working in service of the public good.
As a form of oppression, racism is also fluid. It always has been. Which means the tools we use to bring about its demise must adapt to that fluidity. Right now, that means using race-based methods where possible but also being ready to utilize race-neutral alternatives. For those living under a multitude of laws targeting anti-racist efforts, using race-neutral methods is the only option. But what do these distinctions mean? “Race-neutral” and “race-based” are legal terms of art that have concrete impacts on what the law permits.
This can be demonstrated by how courts assess legal challenges alleging the government has violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. A race-based classification occurs when a racial classification is used in the text of a law, such as race-based affirmative action. Here, courts apply strict scrutiny review meaning the government must show it had a compelling reason to use race classifications, and the means used are narrowly tailored.
In contrast, race-neutral laws do not use race-based classifications, and generally trigger rational basis review. Rational basis review is an easier standard to meet because the government need only show it had a legitimate reason for the challenged action and there is a rational connection between the action and its goal. However, if a court finds a race-neutral law is driven by a racially discriminatory intent it applies strict scrutiny.
In practice discriminatory intent is difficult to prove, which is why the Equal Protection Clause has done a poor job of rooting out racism given that it is often driven by facially race-neutral laws. Moreover, despite what the current environment might imply, it is not unconstitutional to use race to benefit underrepresented people of color. If a challenged entity can satisfy strict scrutiny, it has satisfied the Constitution.
Nonetheless the reality is it is time to pivot and develop better race-neutral approaches to dismantling racism because race-based approaches are quickly becoming less accessible by law and by politics. This is where the public health field, broadly construed, can help.
Public health, especially when working in partnership with communities, is well-versed in the SDOH, which, as the still-active CDC webpage explains, are the non-medical factors that have significant health impacts.Examples include exposure to extreme heat, access to healthy foods, police violence, residing in a former (and current) redlined neighborhood, and neighborhood designs that limit access to healthy activities such as walking, biking, or playing outdoors.Racism is a SDOH. However, the majority of SDOHs are overtly race-neutral— and yet they nonetheless contribute to structural conditions that produce worse health outcomes for people of color.
If race-neutral methods can be used to uphold racist systems, then race-neutral methods can be used to dismantle those systems. For public health, developing nuanced SDOH frameworks that can serve as the backbone of laws, policies, and programs is the key to developing race-neutral methods to achieve, rather than undermine, racial health equity.
What might this look like in practice? The prior administration’s federal Justice 40 Initiative (J40) is one promising model on how to use race-neutral methods to advance racial justice and equity. J40 sought to ensure that 40 percent of the federal governments’ investments in things like climate and clean energy would be directed to “disadvantaged communities.”
Per a now rescinded executive order, J40 developed the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (“CEJST”), which adopted an intersectional and race-neutral approach to identifying these communities. CEJST utilized an income threshold and eight categories of burdens relating to: (1) climate change, (2) energy, (3) health, (4) housing, (5) legacy pollution, (6) transportation, (7) water and wastewater, and (8) workforce development. The categories included sub-factors, such as whether the census tract area had historic underinvestment due to redlining (housing) or low life-expectancy (health). This is what a carefully crafted SDOH framework can look like.
One analysis found that J40 did a better job at identifying census tract areas with frontline communities of color, compared to a similar state analysis that used race as a criterion. Therefore, it is possible to use race-neutral methods to address the harms of structural racism in ways that are more effective than approaches that explicitly use race.
There are other frameworks already in use that can be further refined to adopt more nuanced race-neutral SDOH criteria that identify the drivers of structural racism. This includes community-benefits agreements and community benefits ordinances, both of which use the law to bring benefits to communities in areas where development occurs, and which have had varying success. Public health practitioners have a role to play, here, and elsewhere, by providing expertise in developing race-neutral laws and policies based on intersectional, refined, and community-driven SDOH frameworks that truly capture the drivers of structural racism.
As racial justice advocates, we must face the political and legal reality that we are living in and use all tools at our disposal. The goal of achieving racial justice, a necessary element of healthy communities, is not illegal. It’s just how we get there that matters. It’s time to use race-neutrality in service of ending, rather than perpetuating, racism.
This post was written by April Shaw, Ph.D., J.D., Deputy Director, Health Equity, Network for Public Health Law. The Network promotes public health and health equity through non-partisan educational resources and technical assistance. These materials provided are provided solely for educational purposes and do not constitute legal advice. The Network’s provision of these materials does not create an attorney-client relationship with you or any other person and is subject to the Network’s Disclaimer.
Support for the Network is provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The views expressed in this post do not represent the views of (and should not be attributed to) RWJF.