From Fergusonn Streets to Washingtonns Marble Arches: Experiences with Legal Authorities, Group Identities, and African American Perceptions of Legal Legitimacy

Abstract

Having been victimized by the abuses of individual peace-officers as well as discriminatory public policies such as “stop and frisk,” it is no surprise to find that considerable alienation seems to characterize the contemporary relationship between African Americans and the legal institutions that govern them. But have those attitudes poisoned more general views of legal institutions such as the U.S. Supreme Court? Using a nationally representative sample of African Americans, we assess whether blacks generalize from their experiences with local authorities to legal system fairness to institutional support for the high bench. While we find that perceptions of legal system fairness have not undermined Supreme Court legitimacy, all of the relationships we consider are hypothesized to be – and are found to be – conditional upon group attachments and senses of “linked fate.” Having a sense of linked fate, in particular, seems to provide a “glue” for connecting local and national legal attitudes.