Kimberlé Crenshaw: The Architect of Intersectionality and Critical Race Theory

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is a highly influential American civil rights advocate and scholar, renowned for her groundbreaking work in critical race theory and for introducing and developing the concept of intersectionality. Her scholarship has profoundly impacted legal theory, social justice movements, and our understanding of how various forms of inequality intersect.

Early Life and Education

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw was born on May 5, 1959, in Canton, Ohio, to parents Marian and Walter Clarence Crenshaw Jr. From a young age, Crenshaw's parents encouraged her to discuss "interesting things" that she "observed in the world that day." She attended Canton McKinley High School. Her academic journey began with a bachelor's degree in government and Africana studies from Cornell University in 1981, where she was a member of the Quill and Dagger senior Honors Society. She then pursued law, earning a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1984, followed by an LL.M. from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1985, where she was a William H. Hastie Fellow.

Academic Career

After completing her LLM, Crenshaw joined the faculty of the UCLA School of Law in 1986. She quickly established herself as a leading voice in legal scholarship. In 1991, Crenshaw assisted the legal team representing Anita Hill at the US Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In both 1991 and 1994, she was elected professor of the year by matriculating students. In 1995, Crenshaw was appointed full professor at Columbia Law School, where she founded and directs the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, established in 2011. At Columbia Law School, Kimberlé W. and internationally." Its mission is to build bridges between scholarly research and public discourse in addressing inequality and discrimination. Crenshaw is also a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Genesis of Intersectionality

In 1989, Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" in her essay "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics" as a way to help explain the oppression of African-American women. The idea of intersectionality existed long before Crenshaw coined the term but was not widely recognized until Crenshaw's work. Crenshaw's work on intersectionality focuses on how the law responds to issues that include gender and race discrimination. One particular challenge is that anti-discrimination laws consider gender and race separately. Consequently, African-American women and other women of color who experience overlapping forms of discrimination are left with no justice as well as immense ignorance. Anti-discrimination laws and the justice system's attempt to remedy discrimination are limited and operate on a singular axis, only accounting for one identity at a time. Crenshaw has referred to DeGraffenreid v. General Motors in writing, interviews, and lectures.

DeGraffenreid v. General Motors

In DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, a group of African-American women argued they received intersectional discrimination, excluding them from employment opportunities. They contended that although women were eligible for office and secretarial jobs, such positions were only offered to white women, barring African-American women from seeking employment in the company. The courts weighed the allegations of race and gender discrimination separately, finding that the employment of African-American male factory workers disproved racial discrimination, and the employment of white female office workers disproved gender discrimination.

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Anita Hill and the Clarence Thomas Hearings

Crenshaw has also discussed intersectionality in connection to her experience as part of the 1991 legal team for Anita Hill, the woman who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. The case drew two crowds expressing contrasting views: white feminists in support of Hill and the opposing members of the African-American community that supported Clarence Thomas. Crenshaw argued that with these two groups rising against one another during this case, Anita Hill lost her voice as a black woman. She had been unintentionally chosen to support the women's side, unintentionally silencing her racial identity in the process. "It was like one of these moments where you literally feel that you have been kicked out of your community, all because you are trying to introduce and talk about the way that African American women have experienced sexual harassment and violence. It was a defining moment." "Many women who talk about the Anita Hill thing," Crenshaw adds, "celebrate what's happened with women in general…. Sexual harassment is now recognized.

Intersectionality: A Framework for Understanding Inequality

Crenshaw is known for establishing the concept of intersectionality, which examines how race, class, gender, and other characteristics overlap and compound to explain systemic discrimination and inequality in society. Crenshaw’s work has been foundational in critical race theory and in “intersectionality,” a term she coined to describe the double bind of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice. Crenshaw characterizes intersectionality as, a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigration status. "Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.

Activism and Advocacy

Crenshaw has served as a leader and activist on civil rights, race, intersectionality, and the law throughout United States and globally. Crenshaw is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, and the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School. She is the Promise Institute Professor at UCLA Law School and the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor at Columbia Law School. She is popularly known for her development of “intersectionality,” “Critical Race Theory,” and the #SayHerName Campaign, and is the host of the podcast Intersectionality Matters!. She also is a columnist for The New Republic, and the moderator of the widely impactful webinar series Under The Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that the Twin Pandemics Lay Bare. She is one of the most cited scholars in legal history and has been recognized as Ms. magazine’s “No. 1 Most Inspiring Feminist;” one of Prospect Magazine’s ten most important thinkers in the world; and even listed in Ebony’s “Power 100" issue.

Global Impact

Crenshaw's groundbreaking work on intersectionality was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution. In 2001, Crenshaw wrote a paper on Race and Gender discrimination for the United Nation's World Conference on Racism which was leading in creating policy that benefiting minority groups globally. 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.

#SayHerName Movement

Since the 2010s, Crenshaw has advocated for the #SayHerName movement. She co-authored (with Andrea Ritchie) Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, documenting and drawing attention to black women victims of police brutality and anti-black violence in the United States. Crenshaw and AAPF subsequently launched the #SayHerName campaign to call attention to police violence against Black women and girls. Additionally, Crenshaw attended the Women of the World festival, which took place from 8-13 March 2016 at the Southbank Centre in London, where she delivered a keynote speech on the unique challenges facing women of color, a key challenge being police brutality against black women.

Black Women's Stories of State Violence and Public Silence

Black women, girls, and femmes as young as 7 and as old as 93 have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names or learn their stories. Breonna Taylor, Alberta Spruill, Rekia Boyd, Shantel Davis, Shelly Frey, Kayla Moore, Kyam Livingston, Miriam Carey, Michelle Cusseaux, and Tanisha Anderson are among the many lives that should have been. #SayHerName provides an analytical framework for understanding Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence, and it explains how-through black feminist storytelling and ritual-we can effectively mobilize various communities and empower them to advocate for racial justice. Centering Black women’s experiences in police violence and gender violence discourses sends the powerful message that, in fact, all Black lives matter and that the police cannot kill without consequence.

My Brother's Keeper Initiative

A nationwide initiative to open up a ladder of opportunities to youth males and males of color. Crenshaw and the other participants of the African American Forum have demonstrated through multiple means of the media to express that the initiative has good intentions but perpetrates for the uplifting of youth but excludes girls and youth girls of color. She wrote an op-ed article in The New York Times emphasizing the problems with the initiative. The AAPF has started a campaign #WHYWECANTWAIT to address the realignment of the "My Brothers Keeper" initiative to include all youth boys, girls, and those girls and boys of color. In an interview on the Laura Flanders Show, Crenshaw expressed that the program was introduced as response to the widespread grief from the African-American community after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the case of his shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenage boy. She describes the program as a "feel-good" and fatherly initiative but does not believe that it is a significant or structural program that will help fight the rollback of civil rights; the initiative will not provide the kinds of things that will really make a difference. The letter is signed by women of all ages and a variety of backgrounds, including high-school teens, professional actors, civil rights activists, and university professors commending President Obama and the efforts of the White House, private philanthropy, and social justice organizations, while also urging the inclusion of young women and girls. The letter is signed by a multitude of diverse men with different lifestyles, including scholars, recently incarcerated, taxi drivers, pastors, college students, fathers of sons, fathers of daughters and more.

Selected Works

Crenshaw is a prolific writer and scholar. Her writing has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the National Black Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, and the Southern California Law Review. She is a founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory workshop and co-editor of Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement. Crenshaw writes regularly for The New Republic, The Nation, and Ms. and provides commentary for media outlets, including MSNBC and NPR, and hosts the podcast Intersectionality Matters!

Books

Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines (University of California Press, March 2019) co-edited with Luke Charles Harris, Daniel HoSang and George Lipsitz.
Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (New York: New Press, 1995), co-edited with Neil Gotanda, Kendall Thomas, and Gary Peller
Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993) co-authored with Richard Delgado, Charles Lawrence and Mari Matsuda

Theater Productions

Playwright, “Harriet’s Daughters.” (National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2018)

Journals

Lead Editor, “Intersectionality: Theorizing Power, Empowering Theory,” Signs Journal, (Summer 2013; vol. 38 no.4).
Lead Editor, “Intersectionality: Challenging Theory, Reframing Politics, and Transforming Movements, The DuBois Review, (2013; vol. 10 issue 2).
Co-Editor, “Why We Can’t Wait: (Re)Examining the Opportunities and Challenges for Black Women and Girls in Education (Guest Editorial),” (2016; vol. 85 issue 3).

Articles and Book Chapters

“Reconstituting the Future: An Equality Amendment,” with Catharine MacKinnon, Yale Law Journal Vol. 129, 2019.
“An Intersectional Critique of Tiers of Scrutiny: Beyond Either/Or Approaches to Equal Protection,” with Devon Carbado, Yale Law Journal Vol. 129, 2019.
“We Still Have Not Learned from Anita Hill's Testimony,” UCLA Women's Law Journal 17, 2019.
“The Marginalization of Harriet’s Daughters: Perpetual Crisis, Misdirected Blame, and the Enduring Urgency of Intersectionality,” Kalfou, Vol. 6, No. 1, May 2019.
“Race Liberalism and the Deradicalization of Racial Reform,” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 130, October 2017.
“Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,” Co-Author of Brief, May 20, 2015.
“Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected,” Report Lead Author, February 4, 2015.
“Intersectionality,” DuBois Review, (2014; vol. 10 issue 2). Co-authored introduction with Devon Carbado and Barbara Tomlinson.
“Martin Luther King Encounters Post Racialism,” Kalfou (Spring 2014; volume 1 issue 1).
“Toward a Theory of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications and Practice,” Signs, Vol. 38, No. 4. (Summer 2013). Co-authored introduction with Sumi Cho and Leslie McCall.
“Keeping Up With Jim Jones: Pioneer, Taskmaster, Architect, Trailblazer,” 2013 Wisconsin Law Review Vol. 2013, Issue 703 (2013).
“From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control,” 59 UCLA Law Review 1418 (2012).
“Close Encounters of Three Kinds: Reflections on Dominance Feminism and Intersectionality” 46 Tulsa Law Review 151-189 (Fall 2011).
“Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory: Looking Back to Move Forward,” Connecticut Law Review. Vol. 43, Issue 5. (July 2011).
“The Curious Resurrection of First Wave Feminism in the US Presidential Elections: An Intersectional Critique of the Rhetoric of Solidarity and Betrayal” in Sexuality, Gender and Power: Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives (edited by Anna G. Jónasdóttir, Valerie Bryson, and Kathleen B. Jones, Routledge, 2011).
“Post Script: Intersectionality Travels,” in Framing Intersectionality (edited by Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar, and Linda Supik, Ashgate Publishing, 2011).
“Directions For New Scholarship in Black Studies,” International Journal Of Africana Studies Vol. 14, Issue 1, 70-74, (Spring/Summer 2008)
“Framing Affirmative Action,” Mich. L. Rev. First Impressions Vol. (Paris: Harmattan, 2005), contributed to, author by Dominique Fougeyrollas-Schwebel, Elénore Lépinard, and Eleni Varikas Women of Color at the Center: Selections from the Third National Conference on Women of Color and the Law; Reprinted in Classic Papers on Violence Against Women (edited by Raquel Kennedy Bergen, et al, Allyn & Bacon, 2004).
A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Law, in Philosophical Problems in the Law, 4th ed., 339-343 (edited by David M. Adams, Wadsworth, 2005).
Book Chapter, “Traffic at the Crossroads: Multiple Oppressions,” Sisterhood is Forever: The Women’s Anthology for a New Millennium (edited by Robin Morgan, Washington Square Press, 2003).
Background Paper, “Documento para o encontro de especialistas em aspectos da discriminacao racial relativos ao genero” Revistas Estudos Feministats. Scielo, Brazil (2002)
Book Chapter, “The First Decade: Critical Reflections, or ‘A Foot in the Closing Door,’" Crossroads, Directions and a New Critical Race Theory (edited by Francisco Valdes, et. al., Temple University Press, 2002).]
“The First Decade: Critical Reflections, or ‘A Foot in the Closing Door,’" Critical Race Studies, 49 UCLA Law Review, Vol. 49 Issue 5, 1343-72 (2002)
“A Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Gender and Racial Discrimination: note / by the Secretary-General” A Geneva: UN, (A/CONF.189/PC.2/2, 11 May 2001).
“Gender-Related Aspects of Race Discrimination,” Background paper for Expert Meeting on Gender and Racial Discrimination, Zagreb, Croatia (EM/GRD/2000/WP.1, 21-24 November 2000).
Book Chapter, “Were the Critics Right about Rights? Reassessing the American Debate about Rights in the Post-Reform Era,” Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative Essays on the Politics of Rights and Culture (edited by Mahmood Mamdani, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000).
“Opening Remarks: Reclaiming Yesterday’s Future,” UCLA Law Review Vol. 47, Issue 6, 1459-65 (2000).
Foreword, in Black Men on Race, Gender and Sexuality: A Critical Reader (edited by Devon W. Carbado, New York: NYU Press, 1999).
“Playing Race Cards: Constructing a Pro-active Defense of Affirmative Action,” National Black Law Journal Vol. 16, Issue 2,196-214 (1998).
“The Contradictions of Mainstream Constitutional Theory,” (with Gary Peller) UCLA Law Review Vol. 45, Issue 6, 1683-1715 (1998). Symposium: Voices of the People: Essays on Constitutional Democracy In Memory of Professor Julian N. Eule.
Book Chapter, “Color-blind Dreams and Racial Nightmares: Reconfiguring Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” Birth of A Nation's Hood: Gaze, Script and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Trial (edited by Toni Morrison and Claudia Brosky LaCour, New York: Pantheon Books, 1997).
“The Scope and Content of Equality” co-authored with Elizabeth M. Schneider. Center for Applied Legal Studies, Seminar on Crucial Issues Relating to Chapter 111 the Constitution, January, 1995.
"Panel Presentation on Cultural Battery," University of Toledo Law Review, Vol. 25, Issue 4, 891-901 (1994)
“Reel Time/Real Justice,” (with Gary Peller) Denver University Law Review Vol. 70, 283-96 (1993) Colloquy: Racism in the Wake of the Los Angeles Riots.
“Race, Gender and Sexual Harassment,” Southern California Law Review Vol. 65, Issue 1467-76 (March 1992)
“Whose Story is it Anyway? Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill,” Race(ing) Justice, (En)gender(ing) Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas and the Construction of Social Reality 402-440,( edited by Toni Morrison, New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).
“Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, Issue 6, 1241-99 (1991).
“Beyond Racism and Misogyny: The First Amendment and 2 Live Crew,” Boston Review (December 1991).
“Toward a Race Conscious Pedagogy in Legal Education (Foreword: Voting Rights: Strategies for Legal and Community Action” National Black Law Journal Vol. 11, Issue 1, 1-14 (1989).
“Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” Chicago Law Forum Vol. 1989, Issue 1, 139-67 (1989); reprinted in The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique 195-217 (2nd ed., edited by David Kairys, New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), Feminist Legal Theory (Bartlett & Kennedy, ed., 1992), Critical Race Feminism, (edited by Adrien Wing, NYU Press, 2003), and Framing Intersectionality (edited by Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar, and Linda Supik, Ashgate Publishing, 2011).
“Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law,” Harvard Law Review Vol. 101, Issue 7, 1331-87 (May 1988); reprinted in Critical Legal Thought: An American-German Debate (edited by Christian Joerges and David M. Trubek, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1989); reprinted in Anti-Discrimination Law (M. W.E.B.

Recognition and Awards

Crenshaw is a widely cited scholar. Crenshaw received AALS Triennial Award for Lifetime Service to Legal Education from the Association of American Law Schools, the 2021 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award by the Women’s Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and Lifetime Achievement Aways from Planned Parenthood, the ERA Coalition, and was voted one of the ten most important thinkers in the world by Prospect Magazine. She also received the 2023 Winslow Medal from the Yale School of Public Health, has been named the 2023 W.E.B Du Bois Medalist at Harvard University, and was the recipient of the New Press Social Justice Award. Crenshaw’s Intersectionality Matters! ranks among the top 5 percent of podcasts, and her internet series “Under the Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that Covid Laid Bare,” received a WEBBIE recognition. She is a frequent contributor on MSNBC and NPR.

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