Patricia J. Williams

Law professor Patricia J. Williams asserts in the following viewpoint that ethnic profiling—the practice of identifying suspects based on their physical appearance—violates civil liberties and will ultimately prove ineffective at fighting terrorism. She contends that innocent people have been killed and guilty ones allowed to go free because officials based their decisions on the suspects’ physical characteristics. Since a person’s appearance does not always convey his or her intention of committing a wrongful act, ethnic profiling will ultimately fail to identify terrorists, she claims. Moreover, Williams maintains, clever terrorists will always find ways to disguise themselves in order to circumvent ethnic profiling.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to Williams, which individuals are most often profiled as drug couriers?
2. Why was Richard...