attorney’s fees. (21) However, the Supreme Court incorrectly held that the catalyst theory is not a permissible basis for the award of attorney's fees in Buckhannon v. West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources. In doing so, the Court deprived plaintiffs who effectively win a lawsuit through a settlement, from receiving pre-trial attorney’s fees. Congress enacted fee-shifting provisions in civil rights laws to encourage private enforcement of those laws, and fees must be awarded when a lawsuit vindicates the rights Congress sought to secure. In disapproving of the “catalyst theory” the Court incentivized potential defendants to draw out the pre-trial process and settle at the last second, making the lawsuit too expensive for the average victim to undertake and too risky for the average attorney to accept a civil rights case. (22) The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other civil rights laws that followed it, were written, in part, to banish rampant disparate treatment on the basis of race from American society. Congress sought to overcome the pervasive, racist ideology that Black traits were inferior by prohibiting discrimination, and intended the Act to be interpreted broadly—encompassing race and all its attributes, especially those traits historically associated with race. (23) “Blackness” and its associated physical traits, such as dark skin and kinky and curly hair, have too often been equated with inferiority and “unprofessionalism.” Professionalism was, and still is, closely linked to European features and mannerisms, which entails that those who do not naturally fall into Eurocentric norms must alter their appearances, sometimes drastically and permanently, in order to be deemed professional. Such norms are, on their face, proxies for race. (24) Federal courts have correctly interpreted, e.g. that title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, and thus protect individuals from discrimination against afros. However, the courts have yet to accept that the Act