History of Critical race theory in Timeline

Critical Race Theory (CRT) examines the relationship between race, law, politics, and media, positing that racism is systemic rather than merely individual prejudice. Rooted in critical theory, CRT analyzes how laws and social structures perpetuate racial inequality. It explores the social construction of race and ethnicity and their impact on power dynamics within society. CRT doesn't aim to blame individuals, but rather to understand and address systemic biases embedded in institutions and policies.

1930: Birth of Derrick Bell

In 1930, Derrick Albert Bell Jr., an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist, was born.

1953: Warren Court civil rights legislation oversight begins

From 1953 to 1969, the Warren Court oversaw civil rights legislation, a period later critiqued by Alan Freeman for its narrow interpretation of the law.

1954: Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education

After the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education—declaring school segregation unconstitutional—the focus on desegregation left "civil-rights lawyers compromised between their clients' interests and the law".

1954: Brown v. Board of Education

In 1954, the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision weakened the "separate but equal" doctrine by holding it unconstitutional in public schools, contributing to the foundation upon which Bell's civil rights work was built.

1956: Supreme Court ruling following Browder v. Gayle

In 1956, following Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama and Montgomery bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. Shortly after, Bell began to work for the NAACP LDF.

1960: Bell litigated civil rights cases in Mississippi

From 1960 to 1966, Bell successfully litigated 300 civil rights cases in Mississippi. This was part of the legal branch of the civil rights movement launching thousands of civil rights cases.

1960: Bell Wins NAACP de-segregation cases

From 1960 to 1966, Derrick Bell won hundreds of NAACP LDF de-segregation cases.

1962: Publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published, contributing to the roots of social constructivism, which is linked to the CRT perspective on race as a social construct.

1964: Hudson v. Leake County School Board case

In 1964, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (NAACP LDF) won the Hudson v. Leake County School Board case, mandating the all-white school board comply with desegregation. Bell, then a young lawyer working for the LDF, convinced Winson Hudson to fight for desegregation. At the time, Bell and the NAACP believed desegregation would improve resources and educational quality for Black children.

1966: Bell Litigated Civil Rights Cases in Mississippi

From 1960 to 1966, Bell successfully litigated 300 civil rights cases in Mississippi, contributing to the broader legal efforts of the civil rights movement.

1966: Bell Wins NAACP de-segregation cases

From 1960 to 1966, Derrick Bell won hundreds of NAACP LDF de-segregation cases.

1969: Warren Court civil rights legislation oversight ends

From 1953 to 1969, the Warren Court oversaw civil rights legislation, a period later critiqued by Alan Freeman for its narrow interpretation of the law.

1970: Publication of Race, Racism, and American Law

In 1970, Bell's course materials were published under the title Race, Racism, and American Law, which he compiled while at Harvard, marking an important contribution to the study of American law through a racial lens.

1970: Bell Critiques Civil Rights Cases

In the 1970s, Derrick Bell, as a professor at Harvard Law School, began to critique, question, and re-assess the civil rights cases he had litigated in the 1960s to desegregate schools following the passage of Brown v. Board of Education.

1971: Bell Became Harvard Law School's First Black Tenured Professor

In 1971, Bell became Harvard Law School's first Black tenured professor, a significant milestone in his career and a step toward greater diversity in legal academia.

1973: Bell Introduced Concept of Interest Convergence

In 1973, Bell introduced his concept of "interest convergence", which later became a key concept within Critical Race Theory.

1976: Bell Publishes "Serving Two Masters"

In 1976, Derrick Bell Jr. published "Serving Two Masters" in the Yale Law Journal, a key work in the origins of CRT.

1978: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

In 1978, the Supreme Court decided Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, where Bakke won using the argument of reverse racism. This case increased Bell's skepticism about the end of racism.

1978: Supreme Court Ruling on Bakke

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruling on Bakke influenced Crenshaw's claims that formal color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.

1978: Freeman's article on civil rights legislation

In his 1978 Minnesota Law Review article, Alan Freeman reinterpreted how the Supreme Court oversaw civil rights legislation from 1953 to 1969, criticizing the narrow interpretation of the law which denied relief for victims of racial discrimination.

1979: Bell's article questioning white population's willingness to rectify harms to Black people

In a 1979 article, Bell questioned whether any groups of the White population would be willing to accept any disadvantage resulting from policies designed to rectify harms to Black people from slavery, segregation, or discrimination.

1980: Bell Resigned from Harvard

In 1980, Bell resigned from Harvard due to what he perceived as the university's discriminatory practices. Following this, he became the dean at the University of Oregon School of Law and later returned to Harvard as a visiting professor.

1980: Bell Introduces Interest Convergence

In 1980, Derrick Bell introduced the concept of interest convergence in his Harvard Law Review article, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma".

1981: Student-led alternative course on race and law

In 1981, Kimberlé Crenshaw organized a student-led initiative at Harvard to offer an alternative course on race and law, based on Bell's course and textbook, Race, Racism, and American Law. Visiting professors were invited to teach chapter-by-chapter from the book.

1981: Reynolds Appointed Assistant Attorney General

In 1981, William Bradford Reynolds was appointed as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, advocating for "strictly color-blind policies".

1984: Delgado Challenges Meritocracy

In 1984, Delgado challenged the liberal concept of meritocracy in civil rights scholarship in his influential article. He questioned the homogeneity of authorship in top journals, dominated by white men.

1986: Strickland Challenges Enlightenment Values

In 1986, Rennard Strickland challenged foundational liberal conceptions of Enlightenment values in his "Genocide-at-Law" article in the Kansas Law Review. He introduced Native American traditions and world-views into law school curriculum.

1988: Crenshaw Traces Color-Blindness

In 1988, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw traced the origins of the New Right's use of the concept of color-blindness from 1970s neoconservative think tanks to the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s. She described how prominent figures such as neoconservative scholars called for strictly color-blind policies.

1989: Publication of The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology

In 1989, Dorothy Smith published The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology, which contributed to the development of feminist standpoint theory and was later adopted by some CRT scholars.

1989: Critical Race Theory term Coined

In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, and Stephanie Phillips organized a workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison entitled "New Developments in Critical Race Theory". During this event, the organizers coined the term "Critical Race Theory" to signify an "intersection of critical theory and race, racism and the law."

1990: Publication of articles on affirmative action

In 1990, Duncan Kennedy published his article on affirmative action in legal academia in the Duke Law Journal, and Anthony E. Cook published his article "Beyond Critical Legal Studies" in the Harvard Law Review, contributing to the growing body of work employing critical race theory.

1990: Kennedy calls for race consciousness approach

In 1990, legal scholar Duncan Kennedy described the dominant approach to affirmative action in legal academia as "colorblind meritocratic fundamentalism". He called for a postmodern "race consciousness" approach that included "political and cultural relations" while avoiding "racialism" and "essentialism".

1991: Publication of The Alchemy of Race and Rights

In 1991, Patricia Williams published The Alchemy of Race and Rights, adding to the growing body of literature utilizing critical race theory.

1992: Bell Developed the Concept of Racial Realism

In 1992, Bell developed the concept of racial realism in a series of essays and a book, Faces at the bottom of the well: the permanence of racism, stating that anti-Black racism in the US was a "permanent fixture" and that equality was "impossible and illusory" in the US.

1992: Publication of Faces at the Bottom of the Well

In 1992, Derrick Bell published Faces at the Bottom of the Well, further contributing to the development and dissemination of critical race theory.

1992: R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul

In 1992, in response to the US Supreme Court opinion in the hate speech case of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, Mari Matsuda and Charles Lawrence argued that the Court had paid insufficient attention to the history of racist speech and the actual injury produced by such speech.

1993: Publication of Whiteness as Property

In 1993, Cheryl I. Harris published her Harvard Law Review article "Whiteness as Property", in which she described how passing led to benefits akin to owning property, enriching critical race theory discourse.

1993: Goldberg on Structural Racism

In 1993, David Theo Goldberg described how countries that adopt classical liberalism's concepts of individualism, equality, and freedom conceal structural racism in their cultures and languages.

1993: Delgado and Stefancic Publish CRT Bibliography

In 1993, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic published an annotated bibliography of CRT references, listing legal scholarship addressing themes such as "critique of liberalism," "storytelling," and "revisionist interpretations of American civil rights law."

1993: Conservative campaign against Lani Guinier

In 1993, conservatives launched a campaign led by Clint Bolick to portray Lani Guinier as a radical due to her connection to CRT, leading to the withdrawal of her nomination for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights by President Bill Clinton.

1993: CRT Scholars Critique Liberalism

In 1993, legal scholars in CRT voiced their discontent with how liberalism addressed race issues in the U.S. They critiqued "liberal jurisprudence", claiming that the liberal concept of value-neutral law contributed to the maintenance of the US's racially unjust social order.

1994: Roy L. Brooks Defines CRT

In 1994, law professor Roy L. Brooks defined critical race theory as "a collection of critical stances against the existing legal order from a race-based point of view".

1995: West on Bell as "Lone Dissenter"

In 1995, Cornel West said that Bell was "virtually the lone dissenter" writing in leading law reviews who challenged basic assumptions about how the law treated people of color.

1995: Cornel West Describes CRT

In 1995, Cornel West, in his introduction to a comprehensive publication of critical race theory's key writings, described CRT as "an intellectual movement that is both particular to our postmodern (and conservative) times and part of a long tradition of human resistance and liberation."

1995: CRT Introduced to Education

In 1995, Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate introduced Critical Race Theory (CRT) to the field of education.

1995: Application of Critical Race Theory to Education

In 1995, pedagogical theorists Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate began applying the critical race theory framework in the field of education, particularly focusing on the role of social construction of white norms and interests in education.

1995: Publication of major compilation of key writings on CRT

In 1995, two dozen legal scholars contributed to a major compilation of key writings on CRT, solidifying and promoting the theoretical framework of Critical Race Theory.

1995: Ladson-Billings Cautions on CRT Application

In 1995, when Gloria Ladson-Billings introduced CRT into education, she cautioned that its application required a "thorough analysis of the legal literature upon which it is based".

1997: Criticism of CRT by Farber and Sherry

In a 1997 book, law professors Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry criticized CRT for relying on personal narrative and lacking testable hypotheses and measurable data. This sparked a response from CRT scholars such as Crenshaw, Delgado, and Stefancic.

1998: Delgado and Stefancic Trace CRT Origins

In 1998, Delgado and Stefancic trace the origins of CRT to the early writings of Derrick Albert Bell Jr., including his 1976 Yale Law Journal article, "Serving Two Masters" and his 1980 Harvard Law Review article entitled "Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma".

1998: Ladson-Billings on CRT's Emergence

In 1998, Gloria Ladson-Billings wrote that CRT "first emerged as a counterlegal scholarship to the positivist and liberal legal discourse of civil rights."

2000: Dudziak Publishes 'Cold War Civil Rights'

In 2000, Mary L. Dudziak published "Cold War Civil Rights," based on newly released documents. This book provided evidence that the passage of civil rights legislation was in the interest of the United States to quell negative international press about treatment of African-Americans.

2001: Delgado and Stefancic on Interest Convergence

In 2001, Delgado and Stefancic, who together wrote Critical Race Theory: a Introduction, described Bell's "interest convergence" as a "means of understanding Western racial history".

2002: CRT courses offered in Law Schools

As of 2002, over 20 American law schools and at least three non-American law schools offered critical race theory courses or classes. Critical race theory is also applied in fields beyond law, such as education, political science, and women's studies.

2009: CRT perspective on race as a social construct

By 2009, University of Edinburgh philosophy professor Tommy J. Curry noted that the CRT perspective on race as a social construct was widely accepted by many race scholars, considering race as not biologically grounded and natural.

2009: Curry Distinguishes Original CRT

In 2009, Curry wrote the article "Will the Real CRT Please Stand Up: The Dangers of Philosophical Contributions to CRT", distinguishing between the original CRT key writings and what is being done in the name of CRT by a "growing number of white feminists".

2010: Mexican-American studies program halted in Tucson, Arizona

In 2010, a Mexican-American studies program in Tucson, Arizona, was halted due to a state law that prohibited race-conscious education in public schools. Certain books, including a primer on CRT and Matt de la Peña's young-adult novel Mexican WhiteBoy, were banned from the curriculum. The ban was later deemed unconstitutional.

2011: Death of Derrick Bell

In 2011, Derrick Albert Bell Jr., an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist, passed away.

2015: Ladson-Billings Describes CRT

In 2015, Gloria Ladson-Billings described CRT as an "interdisciplinary approach that seeks to understand and combat race inequity in society."

2020: Conservative Lawmakers Seek to Restrict CRT

In 2020, conservative US lawmakers began efforts to ban or restrict the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in primary and secondary schools. They also aimed to limit relevant training within federal agencies. Proponents of these bans argued that CRT is false, anti-American, promotes radical leftism, and indoctrinates children.

2020: Challenges to CRT in schools increase

In 2020, following the protests related to the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, there were increased efforts to challenge the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools in the United States. School districts began introducing additional curricula and creating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) positions. These measures faced criticism from conservatives.

2021: Khiara Bridges Defines CRT

In 2021, Khiara Bridges, a law professor and author of the textbook Critical Race Theory: A Primer, defined critical race theory as an "intellectual movement", a "body of scholarship", and an "analytical toolset for interrogating the relationship between law and racial inequality."

2021: Encyclopaedia Britannica's Description of CRT

In 2021, the Encyclopaedia Britannica described CRT as an "intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour."