On Justitia, Race, Gender, and Blindness

This Essay focuses on Justitia's more problematic attributes. Like Justitia's blindfold, which has been described as "the most enigmatic" of her traits. Is the blindfold merely emblematic of Justitia's purported impartiality, her claim to algorithmic justice? As law professor Costas Douzinas and art historian Lynda Nead have asked, does the blindfold enable Justitia "to avoid the temptation to see the face that comes to the law and put the unique characteristics of the concrete person before the abstract logic of the institution"?

Or does the blindfold signify something more, a second sight of sorts? Maybe that Justitia, unable to see, becomes, like Sophocles' Teiresias, a seer? That Justitia, lacking sight, obtains insight? The French scholar M. Petitjean gives us yet a third possibility: that the blindfold functions as a limiting principle, reminding Justitia that she should tread cautiously, slowly, always cognizant of the step that came before.