"Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity."
Critical Race Theory emerged from legal scholarship and continues to be heavily influenced by legal theory. This includes exploring the ways in which law and the legal system perpetuate systems of oppression and inequality.
Intersectionality: The study of how different forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, intersect and interact with each other.
White Supremacy: A social system that grants significant privileges to white people and works to maintain their dominance over people of color.
Structural Racism: The way in which social and economic institutions have historically created and maintained racial inequality.
Whiteness: The cultural and societal norms associated with being white that are often taken for granted and invisible to white people.
Implicit Bias: Unconscious attitudes and stereotypes that affect how people perceive and interact with others.
Power: The ability to act and influence decision-making, often linked to social, economic, or political status.
Social Justice: The idea of creating fairness and equity in society, particularly for marginalized and oppressed groups.
Marginalization: The exclusion or social disadvantage that individuals or groups experience due to their identity or status.
Oppression: The systematic and institutionalized mistreatment of individuals or groups based on their identity or status.
Solidarity: The practice of seeking common ground and unity among diverse groups in the pursuit of a shared goal or value.
Natural Law Theory: This theory posits that there are certain fundamental moral principles that underlie all laws.
Legal Positivism: This theory emphasizes the importance of written laws and the formal legal system, as opposed to natural law or morality.
Legal Realism: This theory emphasizes the role of judges and other legal actors in shaping the law and responding to social and political pressures.
Originalism: This theory holds that the meaning and intent of the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original understanding of its authors.
Critical Legal Studies: This theory critiques the dominant legal system and argues that it perpetuates social inequalities and injustices.
Feminist Legal Theory: This theory focuses on the ways in which the law has historically oppressed and marginalized women and seeks to promote gender equality and justice.
Law and Economics: This theory applies economic principles and analysis to legal issues and argues that legal rules should be designed to promote efficient outcomes.
Critical Race Theory: This theory examines the ways in which race intersects with power, politics, and the legal system, and seeks to promote racial equity and justice.
"CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, and not only based on individuals' prejudices."
"The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming individuals."
"CRT is also used in sociology to explain social, political, and legal structures and power distribution as through a 'lens' focusing on the concept of race, and experiences of racism."
"A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender, and disability."
"For example, the CRT conceptual framework examines racial bias in laws and legal institutions, such as highly disparate rates of incarceration among racial groups in the United States."
"Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis."
"One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals."
"CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as 'neutral' plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order."
"CRT began in the United States in the post–civil rights era, as 1960s landmark civil rights laws were being eroded and schools were being re-segregated."
"CRT, a framework of analysis grounded in critical theory, originated in the mid-1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams."
"CRT draws from the work of thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. Du Bois, as well as the Black Power, Chicano, and radical feminist movements from the 1960s and 1970s."
"Academic critics of CRT argue it is based on storytelling instead of evidence and reason, rejects truth and merit, and undervalues liberalism."
"Since 2020, conservative U.S. lawmakers have sought to ban or restrict the instruction of CRT education in primary and secondary schools, as well as relevant training inside federal agencies."
"Advocates of such bans argue that CRT is false, anti-American, villainizes white people, promotes radical leftism, and indoctrinates children."
"Advocates of bans on CRT have been accused of misrepresenting its tenets."
"Advocates of bans on CRT have been accused of... having the goal to broadly silence discussions of racism, equality, social justice, and the history of race." Note: Due to the length and complexity of the passage, not every question may have an explicit quote matching it exactly. However, the selected quotes provide relevant information related to the study questions.