Summary of the theoretical precursors and commonalities of CRT.

1. Critical Race Theory
Faculty Lecture Series
Columbus State Community College
Spring 2021

2. In September, 2020, Trump signed an executive order which prohibited all federal contractors and federal grant
recipients, including academic institutions, from providing employee training regarding, implicit bias, systemic
racism, white privilege, and Critical Race theory among other things.
In December 2020, a federal judge granted a preliminary nationwide injunction – saying defendants who had filed
suit were likely to prevail on their first Amendment challenges to the executive order.

3. And then, on January 20th, in one of Pres Biden’s first acts as president, he
reversed Trump’s diversity training ban rendering the federal lawsuit moot.

4. But, similar laws being considered
throughout the country (WV, OK,
AK, ND, SD).
• Several states have banned
schools from using material from
the 1619 project by the NYT that
focuses on race and slavery.
• And in Georgia, every public
college and university was asked
to prepare a list identifying
which courses are teaching
students about concepts like
privilege and oppression.

5. Social media algorithms are
leading people to pages and
groups decrying the evilness of
the theory.
• In Facebook, 4 of the top 5
search results for CRT return
groups opposed to CRT
• Twitter sentiment analysis
shows that about half the
tweets about CRT express
views that it’s bad or terrible

6. Precursors – Legal Theory
Legal Realism
• 1920s
• Attacked Formalism via
• Rule Skepticism
• Fact Skepticism
• Rules applied to facts
leading to decision is
not how the law works
Critical Legal
Studies
• 1970s
• Indeterminacy of the
law
• Anti-formalism
• The law is
Contradictory
• The law is marginal/not
so important
• The law is ideological
• Method – Trash legal
decisions
Critical Race
Theory
• 1990s-present
• Failure of CLS to take
race into account
• Failure to offer
solutions

7. Precursors - Policy
Civil Rights
Retrenchment
• Not a linear path
• More like a dialectic
• Things aren’t always getting better and
better – we sometimes experience two
steps forward and three steps back.
Reform
Retrenchment

8. Example – desegregation of schools -> busing -> white flight -> resegregation.
So, despite the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause, we still have
underfunded racially segregated neighborhoods and schools.

9. Example: Voting Rights – Gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the introduction of legislation aimed at making it
harder for people of color to vote across the country. Over 200 laws aimed at making voting harder that will
disproportionately impact communities of color have been proposed across the US since the 2020 election.

10. Precursors - Policy
Critique of liberal integrationism & the
focus on equality rather than equity)
Writers like Gary Peller started
critiquing liberal integrationism:
He argued that the focus on equality
only served reify the system of
subordination. The belief that
neutral standards will overcome
discrimination, and racists are the
problem underlies the continued
inequities

11. Precursors – Social Theory
Individual Racism
Structural Racism
Social
Perpetrator Perspective
Victim Perspective
1970s- present (see McClesky v. Kemp)
Racist bigots are the problem: in order to win a 14th
amendment Equal Protection claim, you must show that you
were individually discriminated against.
1950s-60s (see Brown v BOE, Civil Rights Act)
Violations of the Equal Protection Clause result from
institutional or structural inequities that must be dismantled
Legal
Along with the development of liberal integrationism, we saw the enactment of legal prohibitions preventing any
federal funding from going towards dismantling structural racism - During the 1980s, Legal Aid societies were
prohibited by Reagan from engaging in any litigation involving school desegregation, immigration, prisoners’
rights, class action lawsuits against the government, political organizing, voter registration, and any litigation
involving most other liberal policy goals. President Trump attempted to completely defund Legal Aid – Congress
agreed to maintain funding at levels lower than pre-Obama.

12. Precursors – Social Theory
Influenced by Antonio Gramsci’s notion of
hegemony - results in “buy in” from most all social
and economic classes.

13. Precursors – Social Theory
Law & Society
movement
This movement argued that we can use
the tools of science to study the law
Theorists like Donald Black argued that
the law is a measurable variable and
some people get more law and some
people get less law and there are
patterns that are discoverable.

14. Precursors - Philosophical
Postmodernism/Post-Structuralism
Language shapes the way we think
about the world. It is a product of
our culture and therefore can’t serve
as neutral ground to determine truth
and fact from ideology or opinion.
CLS scholars work to expose this via
“trashing” or uncovering the lack of
inner logic in legal decisions. CRT
scholars use this technique as well.

15. CRT’s Split with Critical Legal Studies
Critical Legal Studies
• Lack of focus on race
• Focus on deconstruction
• More Marxist
• Postmodernist
Critical Race Theory
• Race is central
• Focus on reconstruction
• More Liberal
• Modernist

16. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
1. Discontent with liberalism and
standard racial progress narrative
The history of race relations has not been a history of linear
uplift and improvement

17. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
2. Racism is endemic
to American life –
it’s “locked in”
To be anti-racist is seen
as being un-American.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-ND

18. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
3. Interest Convergence
Racism advances the interest of both white elites
(materially) and working-class whites (psychically)
so there is little incentive to eradicate it.

19. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
4. Race is socially constructed
Society invents, manipulates, or retires racial
categories when it’s convenient.

20. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
5. Skeptical of claims of neutrality,
objectivity, color blindness, and
meritocracy
This tells an ahistorical story of racial inequality as a series
of random occurrences involving individual acts of racism.

21. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets:
6. Racism is structural and explains
maldistributions
Differences are not the result of individual agency and
merit. We inherit advantages and disadvantages and
they structure our life chances.

22. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
7. Unique voice of color thesis
Minority status brings a presumed competence to
speak about race and racism

23. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
8. Interdisciplinary and eclectic
Borrows from several traditions and influences
other disciplines outside the law

24. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
9. Differential racialization
Dominant society will racialize different minority
groups at different times in response to shifting
needs such as the labor market

25. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
10. Intersectionality
Everyone has potentially conflicting, overlapping identities,
loyalties, and allegiances. Goal is to eliminate ALL forms of
oppression – gender, class, sexual orientation, disability etc

26. Critical Race Theory
Basic Tenets
11. Theory and praxis
Create change – put your theory into action

27. Critical Race Theory
Fundamental Goal –
liberate people of color
from racial subordination
Fundamental Belief -
Racism is something that
can someday cease to exist

28. Thank you!
Professor Mary Reiter
Social Sciences Department
mreiter@cscc.edu