Critical Race Theory (Critical DEI Series)
Full Tuition: $300 — Scholarship Options in Drop-Down Menu
Instructor: Dahiya | 5 weeks | Tuesdays May 16-June 13 | 7:00-9:00 PM EDT | ONLINE
This course is part of our Critical DEI Program. Learn more about this innovative new program here.
This course offers DEI training for educators and other professionals interested in foundational diversity work grounded in anti-racist and feminist theory and praxis. If you would like your employer to pay for this course and need documentation, contact us at nightschoolbar@gmail.com.
Perhaps no other field of study is more controversial and more crucial in our present moment than Critical Race Theory. But what is “CRT” and why is it so "dangerous"? According to Cornel West, “Critical Race Theory is a gasp of emancipatory hope that law can serve liberation rather than domination." Simply put, CRT is a theory of power, and its central tenet is that racism is deeply embedded in our political institutions, especially the law, and therefore the lived experience of race is a central feature of all our lives. Far from being a monolithic discourse, CRT is a multifaceted field that emerged within legal theory, but has found applications far beyond its initial scope. The origins of the field lie with scholars of color in law schools in the early 1970s who were deeply frustrated with how the realities of racism were unattended to and ignored in legal scholarship in favor of a “colorblind” view. Arguing that the existing frameworks actually prevent rather than catalyze social change, CRT theorists strive to call attention to, challenge, and transform oppressive social structures and hierarchies—most centrally, racism.
Over the course of five weeks, we'll ask if CRT is so vilified because calls for social justice and the end of oppression lie at its heart. In order to examine this possibility, we’ll first engage with the origins of CRT by reading key essays that galvanized the movement. We’ll use this as our groundwork to examine how the ways in which racism, sexism, and ableism live in the organizational spaces within which we seek to create change. Finally, we’ll study how storytelling and counter-storytelling are central CRT methodologies because they most powerfully and intimately communicate the lived experience of race. Indeed, landmark CRT texts are deeply creative in their methods through their use of autobiography and narrative. We’ll study their storytelling methods to learn how to tell our own stories as the grounds for imagining more liberatory futures.
Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.
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All tuition goes to paying instructors and staff a living wage. We encourage you to pick the payment tier that corresponds with your needs, but ask that you please consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.
If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.