The Arc of the Moral Universe Bends when Ethical Public Managers Act

One of the few benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the amount of time that has been freed for people to spend remodeling and fixing up their homes. In 1990, Thurmaier and his wife bought their first home in Lawrence KS. They spent several weeks each year remodeling their 1,700-square-foot 1960's Cape Cod room by room. They updated wiring and plumbing, added insulation to walls, and replaced windows, among other things. It was a lot of work that took them more than 10 years to complete. Isabel Wilkerson compares inheriting an old house in need of repairs to inheriting 400-plus years of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and systemic racism. Borrowing Wilkerson's metaphor, current local government managers inherit houses built on a flawed legal foundation of systemic racism where the long-term consequences leak through the gaping cracks and where implicit bias wafts through the ill-fitted windows.