Critical Legal Theory
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Introduction The idea of “intersectionality” has played an important role in antidiscrimination law and in critical approaches to legal theory. But what is “intersectionality”? Here is a hypothetical that illustrates the concept. Imagine a plaintiff who sues her employer for discrimination. The employer has hired Black men for factory jobs and white women for office…
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Introduction The idea of “structural injustice” has become a fixture of contemporary political discourse. Politicians, journalists, and activists invoke structural racism, structural poverty, and structural inequality to describe social problems that seem to persist no matter who holds office or whether any particular individuals intend to discriminate. The core intuition is that serious injustice can…
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Introduction There is a very powerful idea that has developed in feminist philosophy and the philosophy of race. That idea is epistemic injustice. And it turns out that the idea of epistemic injustice is an important tool for legal theorits. Let’s figure out what epistemic injustice is and what work it can do in legal…