The federal district court of Rhode Island is scheduled to host a panel on critical race theory as a “resource” to “transform” the judiciary, the latest sign that a once-obscure legal theory has become mainstream among judges and lawyers.
The panel, “Critical Race Theory: What It Is and What It Is Not,” will take place in October during the court’s 2022 conference, “Racial and Social Justice in the Federal Courts.” Featuring three law professors, the session will “help us understand and transform the relationship between race and power through our work as lawyers and judges,” according to the conference agenda.
There seem to be no dissenting voices on the panel. All three researchers—Devon W. Carbado of the UCLA School of Law, Osamudia James of the UNC School of Law, and Angela Onwuachi-Willig, dean of the Boston University School of Law—are outspoken proponents of critical race theory. , which claims, among other things, that supposedly neutral laws perpetuate white supremacy.
The panel demonstrates how a fringe critique of the American justice system has become conventional wisdom for many within it. Derrick Bell, widely regarded as the godfather of critical race theory, wrote in 1992 that “an extremely racist America” would never accept such a radical challenge to the status quo. In the three decades since, critical race theory has gone from baroque elective to required coursework at many law schools, which must now educate students “on prejudice, intercultural competence, and racism” according to American Bar Association rules.
While these ideas have flooded the legal academy, they are beginning to trickle down to courts at every level of the judiciary. “Municipal courts like ours,” the Salt Lake City Justice Court declared in May 2020, “have historically been at, or at least very close to, the tip of the spear of systemic racism.”
In June 2020, the Washington State Supreme Court issued a statement apologizing for “the role we have played in devaluing black lives.” That same month, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its statement condemning the “disproportionate impact” that “certain laws, regulations, policies and practices have had” on African Americans and the “Latino community.”
The district court in Rhode Island — five of whose judges are white — uses similar rhetoric in describing the conference. The session on critical race theory, he says, “explores how the political, legislative, economic, and cultural system that has historically given white people significantly more power and material resources has fundamentally shaped our courts and legal system.” Other sessions include “Diversity in the Workplace Including Law Firms” and “The (Court) Room Where It Happens: The Role of the Federal Judiciary as an Arena for Civil Rights and Racial Justice.”
Each scholar on the critical race theory panel has broadly defended the theory’s core tenets. Carbado participated in a 2011 symposium on Connecticut Law Review, “Critical Race Theory: A Remembrance,” and James gave a presentation in 2020 on “the relationship between racist, anti-Black policing and racist, anti-Black education.” Onwuachi-Willig, meanwhile, has written several academic articles on critical race theory, including “Celebrating Critical Race Theory at 20” in 2009 and “CRT Black Lives Matter” in 2022.
Asked about the lack of ideological diversity on the panel, Jennifer Wood, one of the conference’s organizers, said the court asked “learned scholars” to “describe” critical race theory so that attendees could “judge its own merits.” . .”
The district court in Rhode Island has close ties to Democratic power brokers. John McConnell, the court’s chief justice, donated nearly $30,000 to Jack Reed (D.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D.), two Rhode Island senators who recommended him for the post.
