Foreword: The New Face of Racial Profiling

The New Face of Racial Profiling, a symposium sponsored by the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, the Minority Law Caucus, and the Utah Law Review. I want to begin by thanking all of you for attending today's event, bringing together a broad and diverse group of professions, backgrounds, and interests-scholars, students, law enforcement agents, attorneys, judges, probation officers, community activists, teachers, social workers, religious leaders, and many others. Although this audience obviously has come here to learn more about the subject of racial profiling, you may be asking yourself: Why now? What is the impetus for an entire symposium and a full day of speakers on this topic?

As a matter of academic programming, the Minority Law Caucus had been wanting to explore the issue of racial profiling for some time, with its members actively seeking to engage state and local officials in a candid dialogue that could be shared with the residents of Salt Lake City and Utah as a whole. In turn, the Utah Law Review saw this as an excellent opportunity to bring together leading scholars and practitioners in an open forum to discuss a problem of national dimensions but with very real repercussions for citizens of the Beehive State. These two student groups joined forces, and through their efforts, the end result is today's event.