Critical Race Theory and The Political Uses of Legal History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Timothy Lovelace
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Legal Defense

In 1976, Derrick Bell, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote about the inability of modern civil rights litigation to advance real racial justice. His willingness to dissent from civil rights orthodoxy would radically reshape the study of race, law, and history. The result would lead to the creation of critical race theory. This chapter begins by examining the role of historical analysis in the development of critical race theory. It then explores how legal historians of the civil rights movement imported insights from critical race theory to develop three decades of movement scholarship. Next, it charts new scholarly directions for both critical race theorists and legal historians. The chapter concludes with reflections on how legal history and critical race theory have influenced contemporary struggles for racial justice.

scholarly journals Authentic Compliance with a Symbolic Legal Standard? How Critical Race Theory Can Change Institutionalist Studies on Diversity in the Workplace

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yael Plitmann
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Organizational Analysis ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Legal Concept ◽  
A Value ◽  
Legal Standard ◽  
Diversity In The Workplace

This review essay introduces critical race theory to the organizational analysis of diversity in the workplace. One central finding of the empirical institutionalist literature examining diversity in organizations is the apparent failure of diversity, as a value adopted by the organization, to transform practices of discrimination and exclusion in the workplace. Scholars in this field implicitly accept the narrative about diversity as a substantive civil rights value, associating its presence with racial justice ideals. A critical analysis of this legal concept inspired by the lessons of critical race theory highlights the problematic legal construction of diversity and its role in justifying and reinforcing racial hierarchies. Adding to existing neo-institutionalist literature, I suggest that, alongside an investigation into employers’ compliance practices with diversity precepts, attention should be paid to the limitations inherent in the legal standard of diversity itself.

scholarly journals What’s Your Street Race? The Urgency of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as Lenses for Revising the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Guidelines, Census and Administrative Data in Latinx Communities and Beyond

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Nancy López ◽  
Howard Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Structural Inequities ◽  
The U.S

What’s your street race? If you were walking down the street what race do you think strangers would automatically assume you are based on what you look like? What is the universe of data and conceptual gaps that complicate or prevent rigorous data collection and analysis for advancing racial justice? Using Latinx communities in the U.S. as an example, we argue that scholars, researchers, practitioners and communities across traditional academic, sectoral and disciplinary boundaries can advance liberation by engaging the ontologies, epistemologies and conceptual guideposts of critical race theory and intersectionality in knowledge production for equity-use. This means not flattening the difference between race (master social status and relational positionality in a racially stratified society based on the social meanings ascribed to a conglomeration of one’s physical characteristics, including skin color, facial features and hair texture) and origin (ethnicity, cultural background, nationality or ancestry). We discuss the urgency of revising the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards, as well as the Census and other administrative data to include separate questions on self-identified race (mark all that apply) and street race (mark only one). We imagine street race as a rigorous “gold standard” for identifying and rectifying racialized structural inequities.

Building Racial Justice Into a Master's Program

2022 ◽  
pp. 98-124
Author(s):  
Jenifer Crawford ◽  
Ebony C. Cain ◽  
Erica Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Academic Program ◽  
Master's Program ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Language Teacher Education ◽  
Curriculum Instruction ◽  
Institutional Challenges

This chapter describes a five-year equity initiative to transform a language teacher education professional master's program into one that cultivates racial justice and equity-minded practices in graduates. This chapter will review program work over the last five years on two critical efforts involved in the ongoing five-year equity-minded initiatives. The program activities include data review and planning from 2017 to 2018 and equity curricular re-design from 2018 to 2020, where faculty revised program goals, curriculum, and syllabi. Critical race theory and equity-mindedness frameworks guided this equity initiative's process, goals, and content. The authors argue that building racial justice into a professional master's program requires applying a critical race analysis to the normative assumptions about academic program redesign. Individual and institutional challenges are discussed, and recommendations for building racial justice into the curriculum, instruction, and program policies are provided.

scholarly journals Policy as Punishment and Distraction: The Double Helix of Racialized Sexual Harassment of Black Girls

2020 ◽  
pp. 089590482098446
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Wilmot ◽  
Valentina Migliarini ◽  
Subini Ancy Annamma
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Double Helix ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
School Policy ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Racialized Sexual Harassment

Black girls’ experiences with sexual harassment in schools remain critically understudied. To mediate this void, this study explored the role of educators and school policy as disrupting or perpetuating racialized sexual harassment toward them. Using a disability critical race theory (DisCrit) framework, we argue educator response and education policy create a nexus of subjugation that makes Black girls increasingly vulnerable to experience racialized sexual harassment at the hands of adults and peers, while largely failing to provide protection from or recourse for such harassment.

scholarly journals Curriculum Integration and the Forgotten Indigenous Students: Reflecting on Métis Teachers’ Experience

in education ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Carmen Leigh Gillies
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Curriculum Integration ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Curricular Integration ◽  
Indigenous Students ◽  
K 12

Curriculum integration, or in other words, changing what students are taught within racially desegregated Canadian schools, has served as a primary but incomplete pathway to racial justice. In this paper, I present evidence from a qualitative critical race theory (CRT) methodological study with 13 Métis teachers to demonstrate how curricular integration has been framed as a key solution to inequitable outcomes concerning Indigenous students. This strategy has been instilled within the Saskatchewan K–12 education system by a wide spectrum of authorities over several decades. Although absolutely essential for multiple reasons, I argue that teaching students about Indigenous knowledge systems and experiences, as well as anti-racist content, cannot resolve the systemic racial injustices encountered by Indigenous students who attend provincial schools. In particular, three CRT analytical tools—structural determinism, anti-essentialism, and interest convergence—are utilized to examine the limitations of curricular integration as a strategy of racial justice. Keywords: Métis teachers; Indigenous education; critical race theory; integrated schools

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