SCA Speaker Series & the
African American Policy Forum Presents:

Two Decades & Counting: Critical Reflections on "Intersectionality"

This forum commemorates the 20th anniversary of the enunciation and analysis of "intersectionality" by legal theorist Kimberlé W. Crenshaw in her path-breaking essays, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" (1989) and "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color" (1991). Panelists explore the ongoing analytic purchase of "intersectionality" for anti-racist social critique and legal activism and also ask how the term has been transformed as it travels across different historical and disciplinary contexts.This forum commemorates the 20th anniversary of the enunciation and analysis of "intersectionality" by legal theorist Kimberlé W. Crenshaw in her path-breaking essays, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" (1989) and "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color" (1991). Panelists explore the ongoing analytic purchase of "intersectionality" for anti-racist social critique and legal activism and also ask how the term has been transformed as it travels across different historical and disciplinary contexts.

NOVEMBER 30, 2009
4:15 – 7:15 pm
Columbia Law School, 435 116th Street, Room 940

 A Panel Discussion
Intersectionality in Theory and Practice: Trajectories, Imaginaries and Mysteries

With:

Devon Carbado,  Vice Dean and Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
Suzanne Goldberg, Clinical Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Chandan Reddy, Assistant Professor of English, University of Washington
Nikhil Singh, Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU

DECEMBER 1, 2009
4:00 – 6:00 pm
20 Cooper Square, 4th Fl

A Roundtable Discussion
Intersectionality as Pedagogy and Method across Disciplines

With:

Kimberlé Crenshaw, Prof. of Law, Columbia University & UCLA Law School
Lisa Duggan, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU
Chandan Reddy, Assistant Professor of English, University of Washington
Karen Shimakawa, Associate Professor of Performance Studies, NYU

Bios

Devon Carbado, who serves as the Vice Dean of Faculty,  teaches Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, Critical Race Theory, and Criminal Adjudication at the UCLA School of Law. He was elected Professor of the Year by the UCLA School of Law Class of 2000 and was recently awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from Harvard Law School’s Black Law Students Association. At Harvard, Professor Carbado was editor-in-chief of The Harvard Black Letter Law Journal, a member of the Board of Student Advisors, and winner of the Northeast Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition. After receiving his law degree, he joined Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles as an associate before his appointment as a Faculty Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law. Professor Carbado writes in the areas of critical race theory, employment discrimination, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and identity, and is currently studying African-American responses to the internment of Japanese Americans. He is the Director of the Critical Race Studies Concentration at the Law School and a faculty associate of the Center for African American Studies.

Kimberlé Crenshaw teaches Civil Rights and other courses in critical race studies and constitutional law. Her primary scholarly interests center around race and the law, and she was a founder and has been a leader in the intellectual movement called Critical Race Theory. She now splits her time each year between UCLA and the Columbia School of Law. Professor Crenshaw’s publications include Critical Race Theory (edited by Crenshaw, et al., 1995) and Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech and the First Amendment (with Matsuda, et al., 1993). In 2007, she was nominated the Fulbright Chair for Latin America in Brazil. In 2008, she was a fellow at the Center of Advanced Behavioral Studies at Stanford. Professor Crenshaw is the co-founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, a think tank that works to bridge the gap between scholarly research, public discourse and public policy related to inequality, discrimination and injustice.

Lisa Duggan is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU. She is the author of Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy and Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence and American Modernity, co-author with Nan Hunter of Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture, and co-editor with Lauren Berlant of Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and National Interest.

 Suzanne Goldberg joined the Columbia University faculty in Fall 2006. She currently directs Columbia’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic and teaches Civil Procedure, Lawyering, Social Change, and the Movement for Women’s and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights.

She formerly served as Law clerk to Justice Marie Garibaldi, New Jersey Supreme Court from 1990-91. Suzanne was a Skadden Foundation Fellow with Lambda Legal Defense from 1991-93; Senior Staff Attorney with Lambda Legal Defense, 1993-2000; Adjunct Professor of Law, Fordham Law School, 1996-2000; On faculty of Rutgers Law School-Newark, 2000-2006 and was a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School, 2004-05.

Additionally, Goldberg is a Member of the New Jersey Civil Practice Committee of the New Jersey Supreme Court (2002-present); Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law Annual Review Board of Advisors (1999-present); founder and past president of the Board of Directors of Immigration Equality (formerly the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force)

 Chandan Reddy is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of a number of articles on the topic of race, sexuality and late capitalism. He is currently at work on a forthcoming book entitled: A Freedom with Violence: Trajectories of US Modernity as a Politics of Race.

Karen Shimakawa is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at NYU. She is the author of National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage and co-editor (with Kandice Chuh) of Orientations: Mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora. Her current project, titled Somatic Citizenship, focuses on the construction and maintenance of bodily regimes of cultural identification and her research and teaching interests include critical race theory, law and performance, and Asian American Jurisprudence.

 Nikhil Singh is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University. He is the author of Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Harvard, 2004) and the editor of Climin’ Jacob’s Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O’Dell (University of California, forthcoming).

 Thanks to our co-sponsors:
African American Policy Forum
American Studies Program
Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, and
the Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality

DOWNLOAD POSTER

For Immediate Release

CONTACT:     Jamelia N. Morgan, African American Policy Forum 
OFFICE:          310-825-1503 
CELL:              310-795- 1736 
EMAIL:           jmorgan@aapf.org 
                         

The faculty of the Critical Race Studies Program at UCLA School of Law encourage you to save the date for the 4th Annual CRS Symposium:  

We are pleased to solicit proposals for individual papers or whole sessions, engaging one or more of our embedded themes, a) intersectionality across disciplines; b) intersectional praxis; c) intersectionality and post-racialism; d) intersectionality and transnationalism; and e) intersectionality embodied.  For an extended description of the themes, please visit the web link provided below. 
 
All proposals should include the session or paper title, a 300-500 word abstract, the names, affiliations, and CVs or resumes of all participants, and any audio-visual requests. Session proposals should specify panel, roundtable, or workshop format. Panels integrating practitioners or advocates, including both junior and senior scholars and/or including graduate or law students, are strongly encouraged. 
 
The deadline to submit proposals is December 15, 2009.

Please submit questions about the event and proposals to: crssymposium@law.ucla.edu 

Confirmed Participants 

Eudine Barriteau
Sumi Cho
Cathy Cohen
Sarah Deer
Phillip Atiba Goff
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Angela Harris
Luke Harris
Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Tanya Hernandez
Nagwa Ibrahim
Gail Lewis
George Lipsitz
Catharine MacKinnon
Leslie McCall
Mari Matsuda
Charles Mills
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Beth Richie
Dorothy Roberts
Tricia Rose
Nikhil Singh
Sandra Smith
Dean Spade
Alvin Starks
Miguel Unzueta
Francisco Valdes
Mieke Verloo
Jurema Werneck
Patricia Williams

Co-Sponsorships 

Principal Co-Sponsor: 
The Women and the Law Project at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law 
 
Presenting Co-sponsor: 
African American Policy Forum
Columbia Law School
LatCrit, Inc.
The Williams Institute 
 
Contributing Co-Sponsors: 
V-Day
Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College

Co-Sponsors:
ACLU Women’s Rights Project
Center for Global Justice, Seattle University School of Law
The Center for New Racial Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara
UCLA Center for the Study of Women

For information about submitting papers, registration fees, sponsorship opportunities, and conference logistics, visit:

http://crsonline.law.ucla.edu/CRS_Program/Annual_Symposium/03.11.10
 

Press Release

For Immediate Release

CONTACT:      Camila Morsch, UCLA School of Law
OFFICE:          310-825-1503
CELL:               310-795-1736
EMAIL:           morsch12@gmail.com
                           cmorsch@aapf.org

Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project (GAAPP) Transnational Seminar:
Critical Race Theory and the Struggle for Equality in Brazil, India, and the United States

General public cordially invited on June 12th and 13th to participate in Transnational Seminar –
Contribute to in depth discussions and dialogue

UCLA:  “Look at racial segregation like an onion . . . layer after layer to take off . . .,” describes Professor Kimberle Crenshaw, Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, “rather than looking at it like an egg that once you crack it, racial problems are gone.”  Professor Crenshaw opened Monday’s discussion on equal citizenship and the competing conceptions in the dominant narrative. 

Pealing away at understanding the race problem in the U.S., Brazil, and India is into its third day and will be open to the public Friday and Saturday, June 12th and 13th at UCLA School of Law, Room 2448.

“Whoever has control of law has control of the trajectory of a social movement,” states Professor Crenshaw on how after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, laws were introduced to make boycotts illegal and compensate those in power for losses.  These laws are a strategy by those in power to respond to a social movement’s use of boycotts against discrimination.  According to Prof. Crenshaw, when social conditions are not the same between the races, “…there’s no equality. We’re not the same.”  She questions, “What is equality? Is it to have what everyone else has?”

Historically, in the United States, the church became a tool for the anti-segregation movement. “Segregated church became an incubator to create a social movement,” states Prof. Crenshaw – providing the Black community a space to gather and discuss issues.

However, in India, Dalits, considered the lowest caste, are not even allowed to enter certain temples.  Questions and comparisons to the caste system in India arose on the role of religion in keeping masses oppressed.  Martin Macwan, seminar participant, who writes children’s stories, explains that for the Dalits an empowerment strategy is to “…demystify religion and expose how it is used to keep us back.”  With over 100 television channels, many of which are religious, children are targeted with cartoons emphasizing and perpetuating the unequal social hierarchies of the caste system.

In Brazil, Black people in the Catholic church re-interpreted the Bible in the African traditions.  These traditions were protected to some extent.  Yet, the bible, like the constitution, are interpreted by the dominant white power structure to punish people who are against their laws.  Brazilian participant, Daniel Texeira, from the Center for Work Relations and Inequalities, states that Black people who raise the race problem issue are told by White Brazilians, “You’re watching too much Spike Lee…,” and they refer to Black Brazilians as “our” Blacks as opposed to Black people in the United States who have a history of social movements.

The African American Policy Forum, a think tank housed by Columbia University and Vassar College, in partnership with the UCLA School of Law Critical Race Studies Program and the Navsarjan Trust of India, will be organizing the transnational seminar through their Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project (or “GAAPP”) initiative.

Attending delegates include Afro-Brazilians and Indian Dalits as junior and senior activists, students and scholars; in addition to top critical race theorists from the United States.  Martin Macwan from Gujarat and Jurema Werneck from Rio de Janeiro, two prominent human rights activists, are moderating and instructing various panels and workshops.

Professor Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, professor at both Columbia and UCLA Law Schools and founder of the African American Policy Forum, is facilitating and commenting throughout the seminar. Other top participating theorists include Devon Carbado, Luke Harris, Cheryl Harris, Jerry Kang, Russell Robinson, and George Lipsitz.

The transnational conversation is built around a series of panel discussions focused on racial and caste inequality and their social, economic, and political consequences in Brazil, the U.S., and India. During the seminar, the participant delegates from Brazil, India, and the U.S. exchange ideas and create new possibilities for anti-discrimination and inclusion policies.

The Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project (GAAPP) invites applications for its transnational seminar "Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the Struggle for Equality: Brazil, India and the United States." This intensive 8-day summer program is offered by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) in partnership with the Critical Race Studies Program at the UCLA School of Law (CRS) and the Navsarjan Trust (India).

From June 8-16th 2009, the GAAPP Transnational Seminar will bring a select group of professors, students and senior activists to the U.S. together with GAAPP alums, American law school professors, and social justice advocates to explore remedies designed to address societal stratification and to consider ways to globalize the imperitive of social justice.

The seminar will address the origins and key insights of Critical Race Theory, the comparative patterns of stratification in the U.S., Brazil and India, and the differences and similarities of anti-discrimination strategies in those countries. Likewise, participants will explore interdisciplinary research projects at the university level and on-the-ground practices of key social justice organizations. The discussions will focus on current challenges and on the potential of  human rights discourses to frame and advance racial justice advocacy around the world.

15 Afro-Brazilians and Dalit participants will attend. The teaching faculty will consist of leading critical race theorists including Cheryl Harris, Devon Carbado, George Lipsitz, Jerry Kang, Kimberle Crenshaw, Luke Harris, Russell Robinson and Saul Sarabia. They will be joined by Dalit senior activists, including Martin Macwan, the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy award for his groundbreaking work organizing Dalits in rural India and Dr. Jurema Werneck, an Afro-Brazilian feminist, physician and leading voice at the World Conference on Racism and post-Durban.

The central goal of the seminar is to facilitate the growth of a transnational network of students, researchers and advocates committed to realizing greater levels of social inclusion and institutional access for traditionally excluded populations. The seminar builds on the recommendations of an internationl newtork of scholars who gathered in Bellagio, Italy in 2007 to advance greater cooperation in efforts to understand and intervene against race and caste stratification around the world. This networking, initially facilitated by the Rockefeller Foundation, now draws the  support from Brazilian non-profit institutions such as Educafo and PUC-RJ in Brazil, Brazil and US Joint Action Plan (JASPER), and the Cordaid Group, in The Netherlands.

To advance the networking and global literacy of objectives of GAAPP, AAPF will make a limited number of slots available to American participants who wish to enroll. GAAPP invites applications from advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and academics, and lawyers and human rights practitioners from any related field. Applicants should fill in the registration form at http://aapf.org/member_tools/gaapp-transnational/us-application-form/. If you have any difficulties registering, please email cmorsch@aapf.org. There is no cost to apply.

Registration is $400.00 for students or $600.oo for professionals. The fee covers tuition, materials, facilities fee, welcome-dinner, lunch and snacks. Participants will be registered in the GAAPP network and will receive a certificate of attendance.

Lodging and local transportation must be arranged separately. A list of conveniently-located and well-priced hotels is available. Applicants are encouraged to seek funding from their home institutions.  GAAPP will provide an official letter of invitation in support of those seeking summer grants from colleges, universities, or other organizations.

Click to view a promotional brochure. Please, distribute and share it widely within the Race Justice Community. For additional information, please contact us at cmorsch@aapf.org

To read more about her accomplishments and the Fellow’s program, please read the article published in the Canton Rep here.  You can also learn more about her fellowship through the press release below:

  **FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Law Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw Wins Two Distinguished Fellowships to Study Race in Contemporary America

Obama Victory cited as “no panacea”

Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw , a 2008 recipient of the distinguished Fletcher Fellowship , is slated to accept the award in San Francisco this week at a reception hosted by Alphonse Fletcher , Jr. , Chairman and CEO of Fletcher Asset Management , Inc.  Fletcher created and endowed the Fellowship in 2004 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education , the Supreme Court’s landmark decision that desegregated public schools in the United States.   Crenshaw was also awarded a  fellowship at the distinguished Center for Advanced Behavioral Studies in the Social Sciences at Stanford University and will use both fellowships to address the continuing challenge of racial equity in American society.

Crenshaw is a nationally recognized professor at both the UCLA and Columbia University Schools of Law and is also the cofounder of the African American Policy Forum , a think tank that works to promote effective social inclusion policies in a variety of institutional settings.  As one of the principle architects of the Critical Race Theory Movement in the legal academy , Crenshaw teaches courses on Civil Rights , Advanced Constitutional Law and “Intersectionality” — a term she coined to draw attention to the multiple and sometimes overlapping causes of discrimination.  Her signature concept has been adapted by advocates in the international human rights arena , and by scholars in many countries around the world.  

Beyond the academy , Crenshaw also moderates the highly-acclaimed Aspen Institute Racial Equity and Society Seminars.   Targeted to senior social policy leaders from philanthropy , government , non-profit organizations , the business community , media , and academia , the five-day seminars seek to reframe the challenge of racial inequality and to provide decisionmakers with tools for promoting racial equity in their arenas of influence.

As a Fletcher Fellow , Crenshaw is joined by three other distinguished scholars this year: Claybourne Carson , history professor at Stanford University and founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute; Kellie Jones , associate professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University; and Stacy L. Leeds , a University of Kansas law professor and director of its Tribal Law and Government Center.   Each of this year’s four Fletcher Fellows will receive a stipend for work that contributes to improving racial equality in American society.

Professor Henry Louis Gates , the Director of Harvard’s Dubois Institute and Chairman of the Fletcher Selection Committee , described Crenshaw as  “one of our most powerful thinkers on race and its deployment on issues of law , public life , and social justice. “  As a 2008 Fletcher Fellow , Crenshaw will use the Fellowship to challenge popular attitudes about race through a project entitled “Shattering the Colorblind Ruse: Recapturing the Legacy of Brown.” Says Gates , “Her Fletcher project on what she calls "the colorblind ruse" — in which nominally colorblind public policies have the actual effect of prohibiting critical analysis of ongoing patterns of racial inequality — contributes to the legacy of Brown v. Board.  Her work insists that we address persistent inequalities rather than hide behind a distorted ideology that serves only to maintain the racial status quo.”

Crenshaw has also been awarded a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University. The CASBS fellowship , one of the oldest and most prestigious in the academy , is awarded to approximately 45 top scholars each year.  At Stanford , Crenshaw will be working with colleagues from various disciplines to build “common sense” understandings of the way that race still matters in the United States.

 Anne Kubisch , director of the program that convenes the Aspen Institute’s Racial Equity and Society Seminars , lauded Crenshaw’s  “brilliance as an educator , communicator , and public spokesperson for racial equity” and predicted the results of her work will reach a wide range of audiences.   “She combines a keen intellect with social , psychological , and communicative skills to create a learning experience that many have said has changed the way they look at the world.”

Anticipating critics who point to Obama’s election as proof that race is yesterday’s news , Crenshaw countered , “I’m delighted that there is a new occupant in the Oval Office , but Obama’s election is no panacea or end game to our country’s racial drama.  His groundbreaking accomplishment doesn’t represent the end of race as we know it any more than did the Emancipation Proclamation , the hiring of Jackie Robinson , or the Supreme Court’s decision to end segregation.  All these were milestones along the journey , but they weren’t the destination.” 

Crenshaw acknowledged that many people are defensive in discussions about racial inequality because they assume that the dialogue centers on allegations of personal prejudice and moral blame. The key to effective dialogue , Crenshaw says , “is to move beyond rigid and old-fashioned understandings of race and racism to newer ideas that focus on how racial inequality is often the result of built-in advantages and unconscious preferences that many well-meaning people know nothing about.”  

Crenshaw is optimistic that the public engagement she champions will take root and that academics and leaders of all stripes will continue to seek effective solutions to racial inequality.  “Once we understand how race is structured into our society , we can better understand that the need to dismantle it remains. That is the bold spirit of Brown that I hope to capture in my work and I am immensely grateful to both the Fletcher and the CASBS Fellowships for providing me with this timely opportunity to think creatively about these issues.”

Since its founding in 1954 , CASBS has provided fellowships to more than 3 ,000 distinguished scholars in the social and behavioral sciences. Following their residences at the center , 17 fellows have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize , eight received Pulitzer Prizes , 23 were selected as MacArthur Fellows , three received the John Bates Clark Medal , 11 received the Bancroft Prize , 10 received National Book Awards and 18 received the National Medal of Science.  

Past Fletcher recipients have included cultural critic Stanley Crouch ,  law professor Anita Hill , and artist Anna Deveare Smith.  Regarding the newest group of Fellows , Mr. Fletcher said ,  “As in former years , our selection committee has assembled a class of scholars , each preeminent in their individual field. Whether working from the discipline of art and cultural studies , history or law , each of this year’s Fellows approaches the historical and contemporary challenge of race relations through a project of current relevance.”