The Promise Institute is appalled by the Trump Administration's attacks against Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the withdrawal of funding for racial sensitivity trainings for federal agencies. CRT interrogates the way that white supremacy and institutional racism are pervasive in our social structures, and particularly the law. Through an examination of the ways in which legal institutions perpetuate the marginalization of communities of color and legitimate racialized forms of violence, CRT provides an analytic lens to identify and begin to dismantle systemic racism backstopped by law. It is crucially important to engage in this type of critique to confront the racially discriminatory structures that characterize the domestic legal order in the United States and to extend these insights to the international legal order as well. CRT has a unique manifestation in UCLA's Critical Race Studies Program, which educates, inspires, and trains racial justice warriors. We stand with our colleagues Kimberlé Crenshaw, Devon Carbado, Laura Gómez, Cheryl Harris, Gerald López, Jerry Kang and others who are thought-leaders in critical race studies.

For a deeper insight into Critical Race Theory, explore some of these seminal texts, below.

• Devon Carbado & Cheryl Harris, Intersectionality at 30: Mapping the Margins of Anti-Essentialism, Intersectionality, and Dominance Theory, 132 Harvard Law Review 2193 (2019).
• Devon Carbado, Critical What What?, 43 Connecticut Law Review 1593 (2011).
• Devon Carbado & Cheryl Harris, The New Racial Preferences, California Law Review 1139-1214 (2008).
• Devon Carbado, (E)Racing the Fourth Amendment, 35 Michigan Law Review 946-1044 (2002).
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, Unmasking Colorblindness in the Law: Lessons from the Formation of Critical Race Theory, in Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines, (edited by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz, University of California Press, 2019).
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control, 59 UCLA Law Review 1418 (2012).
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, et al., eds., Critical Race Theory (New Press, 1995).
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, 43 Stanford Law Review 1241-99 (1991).
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law, 101 Harvard Law Review 1331-87 (1988).
• Laura Gómez, Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism (The New Press, 2020).
• Laura Gómez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race, 2nd ed. (New York University Press, 2018).
• Cheryl Harris, Critical Race Studies: An Introduction, 49 UCLA Law Review 1215-39 (2002).
• Cheryl Harris, Whiteness as Property, 106 Harvard Law Review 1709-91 (1993).
• Jerry Kang, Rethinking Intent and Impact: Some Behavioral Realism about Equal Protection, 66 Alabama Law Review 627-51 (2015).
• Jerry Kang, et al., Implicit Social Cognition and Law, 3 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 427-51 (2007).
• Jerry Kang, Trojan Horses of Race, 118 Harvard Law Review 1489-1593 (2005).
• Jerry Kang, Racial Violence against Asian Americans, 106 Harvard Law Review 1926 (1993).
• Gerald López, Learning About Latinos, 19 Chicano/Latino Law Review 363-416 (1998).
• Gerald López, Rebellious Lawyering: One Chicano's Vision of Progressive Law Practice, (Westview Press, 1992).
• Gerald López, The Work We Know So Little About, 42 Stanford Law Review 1-13 (1989).