Richard Sander is an American law professor and anti-transgender activist.
Sander is involved in anti-transgender organization Heterodox Academy.
Background
Richard Henry Sander was born on May 26, 1956 in Washington DC. Sander earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1978, then attended Northwestern University, earning a law degree in 1988 and a doctorate in 1990.
During graduate school, Sander was involved in Chicago public housing policy and mayoral politics.
Sander and E. Douglass Williams co-authored an analysis of a proposed Los Angeles living wage ordinance that recommended a “targeted” ordinance that was less broad in scope.
Sander is known for criticism of affirmative action. In 2004, Sander claimed there were 7.9% fewer black attorneys than there would have been if there had been no affirmative action. Sander claimed this was due to “mismatching,” where minorities are accepted into law schools that are too challenging for them. Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr. co-authored Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It. Sander’s conclusions have been criticized by peers and refuted by other studies.
Sander is married to astrophysicist Fiona Harrison (born 1963). They have an adult child Robert (born 1990).
2023 promotion of Jesse Singal
On October 30, 2023, Sander and UCLA’s Heterodox Academy chapter paid anti-transgender extremist Jesse Singal to speak at UCLA School of Law. Numerous student groups issued a statement:
Statement by UCLA OUTLaw, QTPOCC, Let’s Go! Liberation El Centro Clinic, ACS, and WOCC
Re: Event Featuring Jesse Singal at UCLA Law on October 30, 2023.
We are disappointed by the school’s decision to allow an event featuring Jesse Singal, entitled “Toward a Saner, More Humane Discussion Of The Youth, Gender Medicine Debate,” to be hosted at UCLA Law on Monday, October 30.
We are especially disappointed by Professor Richard Sander, the Jesse Dukeminier Professor of Law, in his decision to uplift Jesse Singal’s voice. By emailing the entire law school, a promotion for this event under the guise of valuing “both sides” and “freedom of speech,” Professor Sander gave credence to harmful misinformation about the transgender community.
Jesse Singal rose to prominence for his writing on detransition and transition regret, which has been highly criticized by transgender activists and parents of transgender youth. Singal purports to report in a balanced and nuanced way. But his 2018 article in The Atlantic emphasizes anecdotes of transition regret over the much more common stories of kids for whom gender-affirming care is essential, even life-saving. And in a 2016 article for The Cut, in which Singal profiles Dr. Kenneth Zucker (a psychologist whose now shuttered clinic provides “cautious” care to children with gender dysphoria), Singal minimizes concerns that the clinic engaged in conversion therapy and reports on five mothers satisfied with their children’s care at the clinic to the exclusion of a single patient interview.
The rate of detransition is significantly low, and the most cited reason for detransition is transgender discrimination and harassment. The largest study to look at detransition was the U.S. Transgender Survey from 2015, finding that 8% of respondents had to transitioned at some point in their life, and a majority of these did so only temporarily. The most common reasons cited were pressure from a parent (36%), that transitioning is too hard (33%), facing too much harassment or discrimination (31%), and having trouble getting a job (29%). Those, like Singal, who focus on detransition in their coverage of transgender Americans, are disingenuous.
Public debate is important, but we cannot debate people’s humanity. Transgender students at UCLA Law should be able to attend class without having to hear their very existence debated in an adjacent classroom. Professor Richard Sander holds the Dukeminier Professorship in Law, an appointment created in memory of an openly gay UCLA Law professor. Promoting this event while invoking the name of a beloved member of the LGBTQ+ community in his email signature is repugnant. Although Professor Sander’s email acknowledges transgender discrimination, this event perpetuates myths that further fuel this discrimination and renders that acknowledgment useless.
As attacks against the LGBTQ+ community rise, nationwide in our schools, state legislatures, and courtrooms, we must speak up about the harm that commentators like Jesse Singal have on our community. The ACLU reports that in 2023 alone, 505 anti-transgender bills have been introduced in state legislatures. These range from blocking transgender children and teachers from being visible in schools and denying state recognition through birth certificates to attacks on gender-affirming healthcare. For instance, an introduced state bill in Oklahoma (2023 OK SB129) proposed extending gender-affirming care bans well into adulthood–up to 26 years old. Physicians defying the ban would have lost their medical licenses and been charged with a felony. Another bill introduced this session in Wyoming (2023 WY SF0111) would define gender-affirming care as child abuse.
On June 12, 2023, the American Medical Association passed a resolution to protect access to evidence-based gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse youth, noting that “it is the responsibility of the medical community to speak out in support of evidence-based care. Medical decisions should be made by patients, their relatives and healthcare providers, not politicians.” At least 30 major professional medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have cosponsored the resolution. These experts agree that gender-affirming care is life-saving care.
UCLA Law is world-famous for the Williams Institute’s cutting-edge research on LGBTQ+ rights and wellbeing. To host this event here, where nearly 30% of this year‘s incoming class identifies as LGBTQ+, puts our community at risk. Giving this platform to Jesse Singal legitimizes dangerous ideas about our community at UCLA Law and beyond.
At a time of rising attacks on our community, we must stand firm in uplifting experts in the field of gender-affirming care and transgender people themselves. Jesse Singal is neither. We encourage urge UCLA Law to stand with its LGBTQ+ community and speak out against this event and this speaker.
References
Williams, E. Douglass; Sander, Richard H. (January 17, 1997). An Empirical Analysis of the Proposed Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=3e762cc3a7c73acb5bece5e89f365590f0ff9b63
American Constitution Society (October 30, 2023). Statement by UCLA OUTLaw, QTPOCC, Let’s Go! Liberation El Centro Clinic, ACS, and WOCC [archive]
Resources
UCLA Law (law.ucla.edu)
- Sander, Richard
- https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/richard-h-sander
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)