ABSTRACT In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Whren v. United States—a unanimous opinion in which the Court effectively constitutionalized racial profiling. Despite its enduring consequences, Whren remains good law today. This Article rewrites the opinion. We do so, in part, to demonstrate how one might incorporate racial justice concerns into Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, a body of law that...
Deploying Death
ABSTRACT This Article observes that if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, people of color—specifically black people—disproportionately will be impacted by the abortion restrictions that will proliferate in the wake of the decision. In many cases, those forced to terminate unwanted pregnancies under unsafe conditions will be black; some of these people will die. This Article asks about...
Reforms for Radicals? An Abolitionist Framework
ABSTRACT This Article draws on prison abolitionist organizing, campaigns, and intellectual work around the country to offer a framework for thinking about radical reforms rooted in an abolitionist framework. A radical reform (1) shrinks the system doing harm; (2) relies on modes of political, economic, and social organization that contradict prevailing arrangements and gesture at new...
Critical Race Theory: Inside and Beyond the Ivory Tower
Abstract The history of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is inextricably intertwined with the history of student activism on law school campuses. This activism was sparked in resistance to the dominant legal education system and done with the goal of cultivating alternative spaces where law students could learn how to tackle and dismantle the seemingly permanent structures of subordination in the...
Connecting Race and Empire: What Critical Race Theory Offers Outside the U.S. Legal Context
Abstract The renewed solidarity across movements and borders in recent years underscores the importance of transnational understandings of racial justice. This is particularly true in the current moment, in which global crises such as migration and climate change are laying bare the persistent impacts of structural racism and colonial subordination around the world. In this Essay, I argue that...
Yes, Critical Race Theory Should Be Taught in Your School: Undoing Racism in K–12 Schooling and Classrooms Through CRT
Abstract Despite panicked calls from the right to keep Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of the K–12 classroom, the authors assert that CRT, one of many theoretical frameworks used in ethnic studies, is needed to address the entrenched status quo of well-documented inequity through racism in schooling. Rather than deny CRT is being taught in schools, the authors embrace CRT as a tool to disrupt the...
Protect Black Girls
Abstract At its core, Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides us with a panoply of necessary tools and a lens through which to analyze the multilayered relationship between Black girls, their education, and the criminal legal system. Florida’s history, especially the historical landscape of Central Florida, distinctly highlights the grave importance of CRT when attempting to understand how society...
Critical Race Theory: Another Casualty in the Attack on Facts
Abstract The attack on Critical Race Theory is the latest attempt to undermine the interracial coalition that has been building over the last twenty years. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, a global movement for Black lives ensued, which in turn motivated a calculated resistance that mobilized around education. Not unlike the attempts of the past to stall racial...