This Is Not A Drill: The War Against Antiracist Teaching in America

By Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
In Print
June 6, 2022
1 Min read

ABSTRACT

On January 5, 2022, Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw received the 2021 Triennial Award for Lifetime Service to Legal Education and the Legal Profession from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). In this modified acceptance speech delivered at the 2022 AALS Awards Ceremony, she reflects on the path that brought her to this moment and the crisis over antiracist and social justice education that is unfolding today. Arguing that the legal academy bears a collective responsibility to fight back against the silencing of antiracist frameworks, she calls on legal educational institutions to confront their historical agnosticism toward racial subordination and to defend the freedom to teach and learn Critical Race Theory against the concerted efforts to undo its legacy.

About the Author

Distinguished Professor of Law and Promise Institute Chair in Human Rights, UCLA School of Law. Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. Co-founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum.

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