Spring 2021
Help the CRS Program Raise Over $100,000

As we look at the wonderful and changing diversity of my city, L.A., it’s important not to lose sight of those who have great potential to develop as leaders who will continue to invest their time and expertise on behalf of their communities.” – Erika J. Glazer

Did you know you can double the impact of your next donation to the Critical Race Studies Program at no additional cost to you?

Thanks to the generosity of community leader and CRS supporter, Erika J. Glazer, all contributions made before June 30th will be matched! With Glazer’s match grant of $50,000, together we can raise over $100,000 to help fund the CRS Program!

You can help us reach our goal here: https://law.ucla.edu/DonateCRS 

  • As thanks to our sponsors, monthly donors of $10 or more or one-time donors of $100 or more, will be listed as Sponsors in our upcoming Spring 2022 Symposium honoring Gerald P. López and the 30th anniversary of Rebellious Lawyering!

  • Additionally, monthly donors of $40 or more or one-time donors of $500 or more, will also receive access to an exclusive CRS Roundtable Discussion featuring core CRS faculty and advocates.

Your continued support ensures the excellence and continuation of the Critical Race Studies Program, a premier learning center for racial justice advocates, scholars, and leaders!
President Biden's Executive Order Defends Critical Race Theory Against Trumps Attack Last Fall
Last September, Trump directly threatened the ongoing efforts to address racial disparities in the workplace. The equity gag order targeted the teachings of critical race theory and had a chilling effect on free speech and the dissemination of truthful information about systemic and structural inequalities. Read more about the reversal here. You can also find our previous story on the Trump executive order here.
Alanna Kane, UCLA Law '22, is passionate about intersectional social justice as well as deconstructing power asymmetries. As an undergraduate student at Dartmouth, she came across CRS founding faculty member Kimberlé Crenshaw's piece, Mapping the Margins, and felt as if “all the lightbulbs went off.” Her interest in the teachings of Critical Race Theory led her to intern at the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), co-founded by Crenshaw and Luke Harris. Now having spent the last five years working with AAPF, Kane considers her colleagues like family. She has felt AAPF is “a home that works so tirelessly to reshape our frameworks,” and a place where she can “bring intersectionality into action.”

Kane was elected as Editor-In-Chief of the UCLA Law Review this past winter. She is the third Black student, and second Black woman, to hold this role in the Law Review's 69-year history. Through her new role, Kane is committed to publishing articles that touch on today’s critical issues including abolition, racial violence, crimmigration, reparations, and gender justice, among others. Kane recognizes that Law Review is a space that holds power and privilege in creating the landscape of legal academia, so it is important to reckon with its history and use it as a site to disrupt imposed hierarchies. Kane aims to “look at Law Review through the lens of liberation and as a mechanism to tell those stories that have been silenced." 
Professor Victor D. Quintanilla, of Indiana University Maurer School of Law, presented his latest research concerning California’s bar exam’s passing score (or “cut score”). He found that lowering California’s cut score to the national median cut score would substantially reduce the racial and ethnic disparities perpetuated by the bar exam. Quintanilla’s work highlights how the choice of a bar exam cut score is also a choice about the legal profession’s racial and ethnic makeup. In October 2020, Quintanilla joined us for a conversation with Critical Race Studies faculty members Devon W. Carbado, Cheryl I. Harris, and Laura E. Gómez. You can find the full webinar here.

In January 2021, California decided to make the July 2020 bar exam cut score the new permanent metric. In June 2020, California had reduced the bar exam cut score from 1439 to 1390 following years of requests and reports pushing for this shift. People who previously fell below the cut score, but would have otherwise passed under the new metric, can now obtain law licenses if they complete 300 hours of supervised practice. Read more details on this update here.
Professor Kimberlé W. Crenshaw has received the 2021 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Women in Legal Education. Holder of the Promise Institute Chair in Human Rights, Crenshaw is among the most widely cited legal scholars in the country, a leader in critical race theory, and a co-founder of the Critical Race Studies program. She is the ninth recipient of the award, which was first presented to Ginsburg in 2013.

Professor Laura E. Gómez has been honored with the 2021 Outstanding Scholar Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. A leader in pathbreaking scholarship that promotes social justice, Gómez holds the Rachel F. Moran Endowed Chair in Law and is a co-founder and the current faculty director of the Critical Race Studies program. This award is among the highest honors for scholarship in law or government.

Professor E. Tendayi Achiume testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on slavery reparations. As an expert witness in the hearing on the bill H.R. 40, also known as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, Achiume offered an international human rights perspective to the issue of reparations for slavery. Since 2017, Achiume has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance. She is the first woman and the first person from southern Africa to hold that position.
UCLA School of Law CRS Program | Website