SYMPOSIUM: Critical Race Theory and Practice
Thursday, April 19 / 3:00 PM
Friday, April 20 / 10:00 AM
MultiCultural Center Theater
Over the past twenty years or so, Critical Race Theory
has developed a radical reinterpretation of the dynamics
of race and racism in the United States. Focusing attention
chiefly on race and the law, critical race theorists
have challenged some of the key foundations of US constitutionalism
and jurisprudence, and gone beyond that to interrogate
the legitimacy of the racial state and the effectiveness
of democracy.
Work in this area raises the issue of critical race
PRACTICES: How does a radical analysis of race and
racism shape anti-racist identities and political activity?
How should we understand race-consciousness today,
in the age of "colorblind" racial ideology?
What is our conception of racial justice, both in the
legal and social senses of that term?
This symposium brings two national leaders of the
Critical Race Theory movement together to discuss Critical
Race Practice. Each will present a talk, and each will
comment on the other's presentation. Time will be available
for dialogue with student panelists, and with the broader
audience.
JOHN A. POWELL is the Gregory H.
Williams Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,
and the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute
for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Moritz College
of Law of the Ohio State University. Professor Powell
is a nationally recognized authority in the areas of
civil rights, civil liberties and issues relating to
race, poverty and the law. He is the organizer and
convener of the Structural Racism Caucus at the Leadership
Council on Civil Rights in Washington DC. Among his
many writings are the books The Rights Of Racial
Minorities: The Basic ACLU Guide To Racial Minority
Rights (1993) and In Pursuit Of A Dream Deferred:
Linking Housing And Education Policies (2001);
the Ford Foundation report "Racism and Metropolitan
Dynamics: The Civil Rights Challenge of the 21st Century" (2002);
and the articles "A Minority-Majority Nation:
Racing the Population in the Twenty-First Century" (Fordham
Urban Law Journal, 2002), "The Multiple Self:
Exploring Between and Beyond Modernity and Postmodernity" (University
of Minnesota Law Review, 1997), and "Dreaming
of a Self Beyond Whiteness And Isolation" (Washington
University Journal of Law and Policy, 2005).
DEVON CARBADO is Professor of Law
and Associate Dean at the UCLA School of Law. He was
elected Professor of the Year by the Class of 2000,
is the 2003 recipient of the Rutter Award for Excellence
in Teaching, and was recently awarded the Distinguished
Alumni Award from Harvard Law School's Black Law Students
Association. 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. Among many
other writings, he is the author of "The Law and
Economics of Critical Race Theory" (Yale Law Journal
2003), "Working Identity" (Cornell Law Review
2000) and "(E)Racing the Fourth Amendment" (Michigan
Law Review 2002); and the editor of Black Men On
Race, Gender And Sexuality: A Critical Reader (1999)
and Time On Two Crosses: The Collected Writings
Of Bayard Rustin (2003). He is the Director of
the Critical Race Studies Specialization at UCLA Law
and a faculty associate of the Center for African American
Studies.
Sponsored by the New Racial Studies Project; Dean
of Social Sciences Melvin Oliver; Citizenship and Democracy
Faculty Research Group, and the IHC
