Kimberle W. Crenshaw is a pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism, and the law.[i] She is a professor at Columbia Law School, along with being a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, and specializes and gender rights and social inequalities. Crenshaw writes regularly for The New Republic, The Nation, and Ms. and provides commentary for media outlets, including MSNBC and NPR.[ii] In addition to frequent speaking engagements, training sessions, and town halls, Crenshaw has facilitated workshops for human rights activists in Brazil and in India and for constitutional court judges in South Africa. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice of the National Academies of Science.[iii] Black Girls Matter, Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected are some other works, she co-authored. She also served as the rapporteur for the expert group on gender and race discrimination at the World Conference on Racism in 2001, wrote the background paper on the subject, and led NGO efforts to ensure that gender was mentioned in the conference declaration.[iv] Her research, writing, and activism have played a crucial role in identifying key issues in the prolongation of inequalities existing in various parts of society even today.
Crenshaw Coins Intersectionality
Kimberle W. Crenshaw is known for the introduction and making of the intersectional theory in her 1989 paper “Demarginalizing The Intersection Of Race And Sex: A Black Feminist Critique Of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, And Antiracist Politics.”[v] Intersectionality is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. In other words, the intersectional theory asserts that people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and other identity markers.[vi] Crenshaw often refers to the case DeGraffenreid v. General Motors in writing, interviews, and lectures. In DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, a group of African-American women argued they were receiving compound discrimination excluding them from employment opportunities. She often took this case as an example of a breach of gender and human rights while explaining the theory of intersectionality to the public. This term has gained importance over the years in academics and other discussions about gender and human rights. In 2011, she founded the Center for Intersectionality & Social Policy Studies at Columbia, drawing upon her research and her theories of intersectionality that were advanced in her germinal essay, “Mapping the Margins.”[vii]She is also the host of the podcast called ‘Intersectionality Matters’ with the AAPF. Crenshaw also discussed the theory of intersectionality in a TED Talk in October 2016.
Her role in developing the ‘Critical Race Theory’
The “Critical Race Theory Workshop,” which was founded by Kimberlé and other academics while she was a student at Harvard Law School, served as an incubator for the discipline of critical race theory. Critical race theory offers a framework for comprehending how racism in US institutions—including, among others, the nation’s healthcare, criminal justice, legal, and educational systems—can result in unequal treatment and outcomes for racial groups.[viii]
Crenshaw and the African Policy Forum
Through the Columbia Law School African American Policy Forum (AAPF) – a social-justice think tank, which Crenshaw co-authored (with Andrea Ritchie). Its mission was to create awareness, change public policy, and foster activism.[ix] In addition to this, Crenshaw along with AAPF also launched the #SayHerName, a social media campaign to call attention to the violence against Black women and girls by the police and also based on the challenges they face in the educational system.
Crenshaw’s notable works
Crenshaw’s work has been markedly influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the Constitution of South Africa. She also helped in coining the terms “critical race theory” and “intersectionality”, as mentioned above, both of which are now the most crucial fields in the study of human and gender rights in the USA and worldwide.
Crenshaw has published a series of papers, journals, and books over the course of her entire legal and academic career. These include:
- “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics,” The University of Chicago Legal Forum(1989)
- Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, And The First Amendment(1993)
- Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement(1996):
- Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected(2015)
- On Intersectionality: The Essential Writings of Kimberlé Crenshaw(2019)
- Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines(2019)
- Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines(2019)
- Under the Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that the Twin Pandemics Lay Bare(2022)
Apart from these, there also exists a lot of other articles and papers published by her popularly known for Civil Rights, Black feminist theory, race, racism, gender, and law.
In addition to being an academic and legal expert, Crenshaw has helped shape policy both domestically and internationally. She served as a member of Anita Hill’s legal team in the 1990s after the Black lawyer and academic accused Clarence Thomas, a candidate for the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment. Crenshaw’s work on the case drew on her writing on the subject of the interactions between race and gender as well as how antiracist activism can occasionally ignore gender or exacerbate issues experienced by women of color.[x]
Hence, Kimberle Crenshaw makes it to be one of the most influential and important personalities in the field of academics who has also researched and worked a ton while trying to make a difference in society and its perspectives, for the good. She was also designated one of the top ten global thinkers by Prospect Magazine in 2019 and holds the record for being the most-cited female legal academic in history.
Also read: The Contemporary Canon: A New Course For Poetry
Citations:
[i] https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw
[ii] https://www.aclu.org/bio/kimberle-crenshaw
[iii] https://www.aclu.org/bio/kimberle-crenshaw
[iv]https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw
[v] https://www.ywboston.org/2017/03/what-is-intersectionality-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-me
[vi]https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/fys101/intersectionality
[vii] https://www.gradesaver.com/author/kimberle-crenshaw
[viii] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/kimberle-crenshaw
About the Author …..
I am Ishita Goel, a first year student pursuing law from O.P. Jindal Global University. My keen interest lies around the topics concerning gender and human rights with utmost fascination towards feminism.
