NEWS & EVENTS
Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium Celebrates 10 Years of CRS Graduates
CRS Alumnus of the Year Saul Sarabia (center)
Community Partner Award winners Joshua Kim, CT Turner and Susan Burton of A New Way of Life Reentry Project
CRS Director Jasleen Kohli and Jason Wu
in MaRch, the cRitical Race StudieS PRogRaM (cRS) hosted the 2013 CRS symposium, “Critical Race Studies at 10: Building Our Home.” The event celebrated the growth of the CRS Program and the accomplishments of 10 years of CRS graduates. The symposium also offered an opportunity to reflect on the impact the CRS faculty and alumni have had on the fields of racial justice scholarship and advocacy. “The symposium provided us with an important chance to collectively and critically discuss the amazing work that Critical Race Studies Program alumni have engaged in since the program’s inaugural class graduated 10 years ago,” said Jasleen Kohli, director of the Critical Race Studies Program. “Our CRS graduates are actively working to improve the course of racial justice in our communities, and to reconnect as a community with a common goal was a great reminder of what can be accomplished when we work together.” Symposium participants looked both to the past, examining the roots and foundations of CRS, and to the future, discussing how to advance the work and mission of the program. Panelists addressed: the challenges that racial justice advocates faced, and continue to face, in both building an academic home for Critical Race Theory and in bridging the gap between theory and practice; and the groundbreaking life and work of the late Derrick Bell, the first tenured African-American professor of law at Harvard Law School, who in many ways laid the foundation for the efforts of Critical Race Theorists, among other topics. “I came back to campus this spring for the annual CRS symposium and reunion so that I could engage with the CRS faculty, alumni and students and the critically innovative social justice work that they do,” said Jason Wu ’10, staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York City. “I continue to draw inspiration from what I have learned and from the energy and passion of the CRS community.” This year’s symposium was also the site of the inaugural Alumni Celebration Dinner, the proceeds of which are being used to establish the Derrick Bell Critical Race Studies Scholarship for incoming students dedicated to advancing the goals of the program. The dinner provided a festive atmosphere for alumni and colleagues to connect and featured the thought-provoking comedy and political satire of Master of Ceremonies W. Kamau Bell, the star of FX’s Totally Biased.
Law Journal Symposia Reflect on Work of Seminal Critical Race Theorists in aPRil, the Asian Pacific American Law Journal (APALJ) and Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review (CLLR) hosted events celebrating the seminal work of Critical Race Theorists Mari Matsuda and Margaret E. Montoya. The APALJ symposium, “Only We Can Free Ourselves: Reflections on the Works of Mari Matsuda,” featured a keynote address by Professor Matsuda, a former UCLA Law professor and current professor of law at the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law. Using Professor Matsuda’s work as a platform, speakers addressed issues that she has Mari Matsuda Margaret E. Montoya written about, including gender, class, speech and affirmative action. The CLLR event, “Mascaras, Trenzas y Greñas: Un/Masking the Self While Un/Braiding Latina Stories and Legal Discourse,” was a retrospective analysis celebrating 20 years since the publication, in the CLLR, of Margaret E. Montoya’s influential piece. Professor Montoya, professor of law emerita at the University of New Mexico School of Law, also gave a keynote address at the event. Panelists discussed the progress made during the last 20 years on understanding marginalized identities, as well as ideas about how to move forward in the future. The Asian Pacific American Law Journal is one of only two law journals in the country that focuses exclusively on the legal, social and political issues affecting Asian Pacific American communities. The Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review was the first law journal in the United States to focus primarily on how law and policy affect the Chicana/o and Latina/o community.
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