Most of these articles did not mention CRT specifically, but they are some of the key writings that formed the CRT movement. Sentences that come directly from the article are in quotation marks. CSUN students, faculty, and staff can access most articles through the University Library using CSUN credentials. Please use the library’s interlibrary loan services if an article of interest is not available.

 

Bell, D. (1992). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24(2), 363–380.

• According to Bell: “The Racial Realism that we must seek is simply a hard-eyed view of racism as it is and our subordinate role in it. We must realize, as our slave forebears, that the struggle for freedom is, at bottom, a manifestation of our humanity that survives and grows stronger through resistance to oppression, even if that oppression is never overcome.”

 

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039

• This article seeks to “advance the telling of that location by exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of color.” Focusing on two dimensions of male violence against women—battering and rape—Crenshaw considers “how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourses of either feminism or antiracism.”

 

Delgado, R. (1987). The ethereal scholar: Does critical legal studies have what minorities want. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 22(2), 301–322.

• This article suggests that the schism between Critical Legal Studies (CLS) and minorities “results from a fundamental difference between what CLS proposes and what minorities seek in a legal theory.” Delgado “describes what a radical political program must include to serve the interests of minorities, and outlines the social arrangements that could best provide the safe and decent conditions necessary for minorities to flourish.”

 

Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87(8), 2411–2441. https://doi.org/10.2307/1289308

• This essay examines the use of stories in the struggle for racial reform. Delgado shows how we “construct social reality by devising and passing on stories—interpretive structures by which we impose order on experience and it on us.” He then deals with counterstories, which are “competing versions that can be used to challenge a stock story and prepare the way for a new one.”

 

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (1993). Critical race theory: An annotated bibliography. Virginia Law Review, 79(2), 461–516. https://doi.org/10.2307/1073418

• This Bibliography lists and annotates the major entries within the CRT corpus. The authors supplied a brief summary for each entry.

 

Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791. https://doi.org/10.2307/1341787

• Harris examines “how whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law.” She argues that “distortions in affirmative action doctrine can only be addressed by confronting and exposing the property interest in whiteness and by acknowledging the distributive justification and function of affirmative action as central to that task.”

 

Matsuda, M. J. (1987). Looking to the bottom: Critical legal studies and reparations. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 22(2), 323–400.

• This article discusses “the similar perspectives and goals of people of color and critical legal scholars.” It suggests that the failure of the two groups to develop an alliance is tied to weaknesses of the Critical Legal Studies movement.

 

Roberts, D. E. (1991). Punishing drug addicts who have babies: Women of color, equality, and the right of privacy. Harvard Law Review, 104(7), 1419–1482. https://doi.org/10.2307/1341597

• Roberts seeks to “add the perspective of poor Black women to the current debate over protecting fetal rights at the expense of women's rights.” Based on the presumption that Black women experience several forms of oppression simultaneously, the author argues that “the punishment of drug addicts who choose to carry their pregnancies to term violates their constitutional rights to equal protection and privacy regarding their reproductive choices.”