Resource: Race-Based Suspect Selection and Colorblind Equal Protection Doctrine and Discourse

Racial profiling by law enforcement officers has been the subject of sustained criticism by scholars, activists, politicians and other commentators. The emerging consensus is that racial profiling is illegitimate because it constitutes the intentional use of race by state actors in a manner that disparately impacts innocent members of certain racial minority groups. A related and pervasive use of race by law enforcement officers has been the subject of virtually no scholarly criticism or political debate: reliance on race as a component of a physical description of a suspect. While racial profiling is widely condemned, law enforcement reliance on race-based suspect descriptions is accepted as so obviously legitimate as to scarcely require justification.