Just Citation

Paper by Amanda Levendowski: “Contemporary citation practices are often unjust. Data cartels, like Google, Westlaw, and Lexis, prioritize profits and efficiency in ways that threaten people’s autonomy, particularly that of pregnant people and immigrants. Women and people of color have been legal scholars for more than a century, yet colleagues consistently under-cite and under-acknowledge their work. Other citations frequently lead to materials that cannot be accessed by disabled people, poor people or the public due to design, paywalls or link rot. Yet scholars and students often understand citation practices as “just” citation and perpetuate these practices unknowingly. This Article is an intervention. Using an intersectional feminist framework for understanding how cyberlaws oppress and liberate oppressed, an emerging movement known as feminist cyberlaw, this Article investigates problems posed by prevailing citation practices and introduces practical methods that bring citation into closer alignment with the feminist values of safety, equity, and accessibility. Escaping data cartels, engaging marginalized scholars, embracing free and public resources, and ensuring that those resources remain easily available represent small, radical shifts that promote just citation. This Article provides powerful, practical tools for pursuing all of them…(More)”.