It’s CRT v. the Constitution — and Law Schools Are Picking SidesGoldwater Institute
Jul 28, 2023
The following column is by The Goldwater Institute's Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy Fellow Corbin Witt.The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled on one of the most monumental issues facing this country: the legality of race-based preferential treatment in college admissions. But even as the court attempts to settle the debate over affirmative action, a broader battle is raging within American higher education between those favoring race-based legal standards and those committed to constitutional equality under the law.
Nowhere is this battle more apparent—or more significant—than within the training grounds of America’s next generation of lawyers and legal scholars. And nowhere is the contrast clearer than in the juxtaposition between two emerging camps of law schools: those aligned with the Constitution, and those aligned against it.
The purpose of a law school is, or at the very least ought to be, to prepare students to practice law. Unfortunately, many of America’s elite law schools seem to be forgetting that mission in favor of prioritizing an ideology undermines not only the Constitution, but most basic principles of liberal democracies. This ideology, known more widely as Critical Race Theory (CRT), is now promoted in even the most elite circles of academia, including the halls of Yale and Harvard, which have hosted annual conferences supporting CRT for years.
What does CRT teach? In the words of one of the theory’s founders:
Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.
While it’s true that asking questions is how ideas get refined, CRT does not merely question rationalism and neutral law to refine them; it seeks to undermine and replace them. Yet schools like Columbia, Harvard, and Yale appear hell-bent on weaving CRT into their teaching and establishing research centers devoted to its principles. Given CRT’s radical nature, one might expect it to reside at these institutions at most as an optional elective, or a footnote in a class on legal theories. Instead, campus administrators are welcoming this toxic dogma with open arms—and bestowing upon it increasing institutional prestige.
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Source:
https://townhall.com/columnists/townhallcomstaff/2023/07/28/its-crt-v-the-constitution-and-law-schools-are-picking-sides-n2626302