Critical Race Theory - Critique

Critique

Many mainstream legal scholars have criticized CRT on a number of grounds, including some scholars' reliance on narrative and storytelling, as well as CRT's critique of objectivity. Judge Richard Posner of the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has "label critical race theorists and postmodernists the 'lunatic core' of 'radical legal egalitarianism.'" He writes,

What is most arresting about critical race theory is that...it turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative. Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories — fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal—designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today. By repudiating reasoned argumentation, the storytellers reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites.

Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals writes that critical race theorists have constructed a philosophy which makes a valid exchange of ideas between the various disciplines unattainable.

The radical multiculturalists' views raise insuperable barriers to mutual understanding. Consider the Space Traders story. How does one have a meaningful dialogue with Derrick Bell? Because his thesis is utterly untestable, one quickly reaches a dead end after either accepting or rejecting his assertion that white Americans would cheerfully sell all blacks to the aliens. The story is also a poke in the eye of American Jews, particularly those who risked life and limb by actively participating in the civil rights protests of the 1960s. Bell clearly implies that this was done out of tawdry self-interest. Perhaps most galling is Bell's insensitivity in making the symbol of Jewish hypocrisy the little girl who perished in the Holocaust—as close to a saint as Jews have. A Jewish professor who invoked the name of Rosa Parks so derisively would be bitterly condemned—and rightly so.

Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry have argued that critical race theory, along with critical feminism and critical legal studies, has antisemitic and anti-Asian implications, has worked to undermine notions of democratic community and has impeded dialogue.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. has written a critical evaluation of CRT. Gates emphasizes how campus speech codes and anti-hate speech laws have been applied to anti-white speech, contrary to the intentions of CRT theorists: "During the year in which Michigan's speech code was enforced, more than twenty blacks were charged—by whites—with racist speech. As Trossen notes, not a single instance of white racist speech was punished."

Jeffrey Pyle wrote in the Boston College Law Review:

Critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law. These liberal values, they allege, have no enduring basis in principles, but are mere social constructs calculated to legitimate white supremacy. The rule of law, according to critical race theorists, is a false promise of principled government, and they have lost patience with false promises.

In an article published in current affairs and culture Online magazine Slate, Will Oremus wrote that CRT is radical "in the sense that it questions fundamental assumptions.... And unlike some strands of academic and legal thought, critical race theory has an open and activist agenda, with an emphasis on storytelling and personal experience. It’s about righting wrongs, not just questing after knowledge" and that CRT is not "radical today in the sense of being outside the mainstream: Critical race theory is widely taught and studied."

Peter Wood considers CRT a "grievance ideology" and an "absurdity". He sees the central tenet of "white racism in the American legal system" to be shown false because of items such as the 14th Amendment, the Voting Rights Acts and Brown v. Board of Education.