Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory appeared in the mid-1970s and stemmed from an earlier legal movement called critical legal studies (CLS). CLS is a leftist legal movement that challenges legal scholarship and promotes the idea that the civil rights struggle is a long process. Critical legal scholars analyze legal ideology and decipher legal doctrine to expose both its internal and external inconsistencies, revealing how legal ideology has created and sustained class structure. CLS has been critiqued by critical race theorists for failing to address the role of racism. Frustrated with CLS scholars' approach, CRT scholars instead called for centralizing racism in analyzing legal ideology and major policy reform. Leading the CRT movement, Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman challenged CLS scholars' belief in incremental change in civil rights and instead argued that traditional approaches of filing amicus briefs and conducting protests produced smaller gains than before. Soon thereafter, other legal scholars joined in the critique of traditional civil rights strategies.

CRT begins with the premise that racism is a normal part of society and is a permanent part of American life. Critical race theorists expose different forms of racism and critique legal, educational, and other social institutions that perpetuate inequality. It seeks to de-cloak the seemingly race-neutral and color-blind ways in which the law and policy are conceptualized and constructed, with respect to their impact on poor people and persons of color. CRT deconstructs oppressive structures and theorizes how to reconstruct human agency and resistance, with the goal of achieving equity and social justice. Moreover, CRT scholars have critiqued and reinterpreted civil rights law and dominant legal claims of equality, color blindness, and meritocracy.

CRT critiques liberalism for its flawed understanding of the current legal paradigms to be the impetus for social change. The argument is that liberal legal practices support the slow process of arguing legal precedence to gain citizen rights for people of color. Additionally, CRT scholars argue that whites have been the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation. An [Page 410]example of this is affirmative action policies. While the intention of this policy was to benefit people of color, white women have been the primary beneficiaries. Even after years of a policy that was intended to benefit people of color, few have benefited. Social scientists have documented the low numbers of students of color in doctoral degrees awarded, as well as faculty positions. Critical race theorists cite this empirical evidence to support the argument that civil rights legislation continues to serve the interests of whites.

Critical race theorists also use social construction theory to reexamine the concept of race as a fluid term, with various social meanings that are socially constructed by the social, political, and historical structures of our society. Social construction theory identifies the process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction. The social construction of race suggests that human actions have been, and continue to be, subject to historical forces and thus to change. The social construction of reality is the process by which definitions of reality are socially created, objectified, internalized, and then taken for granted. Critical race theorists deconstruct and reconstruct race, informed by the lived experience and the continuous struggle for social justice.

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