Blinding judges to race fails because correlated proxies still leak bias.

Evidence

Another commonly cited solution is to blind criminal justice actors to defendants’ race (see Sah, Robertson, & Baughman, 2015). This practice is currently being implemented by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office (Gecker, 2019). But there are limitations to such an approach: even if a defendant’s skin color is hidden, cues and correlated variables, such as defendants’ zip codes, names, or colleges attended, may still be present (Sah et al., 2016). In addition, prosecutors must see defendants at some point, so blinding can only impact initial case decision-making. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1170

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the classic ‘blind audition’ finding in orchestras (Goldin & Rouse) — but here shows the limit: blinding only works while visible proxies are also removed and contact can be avoided.