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Race, Racism, and American Law
Fourth Edition
1034 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Derrick A. Bell
38 books129 followersDerrick Albert Bell Jr. was the first tenured African-American professor of law at Harvard Law School and is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory (CRT). He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 1991 until his death. He was also a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law. [wikipedia]
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June 21, 2025
When Derrick Bell was hired at Harvard Law School in 1969, he was the school’s “first and only Black professor.” He “had to earn the respect of many skeptical white and some black students who wondered if his status as an affirmative action hire meant that he was not as qualified as the other professors. Bell worked hard at his teaching, developing innovative approaches to constitutional law and race courses. Over time, his courses became the most popular in the curriculum” (Delgado and Stefancic, The Derrick Bell Reader, 6).
He soon created the course Race, Racism, and American Law, the first law school course in the country to focus specifically on racism in American law. Bell was seeking, with his students, “to determine to what extent that racism is reflected in the law” (xxxix). He published this collection of course readings in 1973, consisting of law review articles, history articles, and his own “Racism Hypos” for students to debate. The publication was, as one reviewer said, “the first set of teaching materials to attempt an examination of racism and the law.”
At the heart of the book, and indeed of Bell’s seminal contribution to Critical Race Theory, is the question: “whether or not law today can solve the problems that it has helped to create." Bell asked, "As lawyers, can we advise blacks and other minorities to stake their futures on . . . laws?” Especially when “the hard-won decisions protecting basic rights of black citizens from racial discrimination become obsolete before they are effectively enforced” (xxxix). In a motif that Bell would develop in his later work, he was distinguishing between “the symbols” and “the substance” of equal opportunity (xl).
The book covers all of American history (up to the 1970s in this first edition). It covers every major area of law (and life!): education, rights of citizenship (voting, use of public facilities, protest rights, and sex and marriage), employment, housing, and administration of justice (jury discrimination, criminal and civil remedies).
This first edition runs over 1100+ pages, and is a tour de force of scholarship, not so much of authorship per se, but of editing, and teaching, as a publication like this necessarily is.
The book went through 6 editions and was revised and updated over the years:
1st (1973)
2nd (1980)
3rd (1992)
4th (2000)
5th (2004)
6th (2008)
Bell would go on to become the “intellectual father figure” of the Critical Race Theory movement (Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, 6). Indeed, the “critical” look at American laws provided by this book is CRT at its very best (in my opinion!), and proves why CRT is only “dangerous” and “un-American” to those wishing to preserve, or revert back to, a time when racism was enforced by law at every level in this country. At this point I would even go so far as to say that CRT is not only “useful” or “helpful,” but, especially as taught and practiced by Bell, is a *necessary* component of any real path forward toward racial justice in this country.
Highly recommend, but only if you have a good year to work through it all.
For a review written at the time (1974), see district judge and law professor A. Leon Higginbotham's review of Bell on JStor, where he not only reviews Bell's "excellent treatise," and "monumental casebook" but also addresses the question "why should racism be studied in law school?" and also "why law professors have not published similar casebooks before."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3311421
He soon created the course Race, Racism, and American Law, the first law school course in the country to focus specifically on racism in American law. Bell was seeking, with his students, “to determine to what extent that racism is reflected in the law” (xxxix). He published this collection of course readings in 1973, consisting of law review articles, history articles, and his own “Racism Hypos” for students to debate. The publication was, as one reviewer said, “the first set of teaching materials to attempt an examination of racism and the law.”
At the heart of the book, and indeed of Bell’s seminal contribution to Critical Race Theory, is the question: “whether or not law today can solve the problems that it has helped to create." Bell asked, "As lawyers, can we advise blacks and other minorities to stake their futures on . . . laws?” Especially when “the hard-won decisions protecting basic rights of black citizens from racial discrimination become obsolete before they are effectively enforced” (xxxix). In a motif that Bell would develop in his later work, he was distinguishing between “the symbols” and “the substance” of equal opportunity (xl).
The book covers all of American history (up to the 1970s in this first edition). It covers every major area of law (and life!): education, rights of citizenship (voting, use of public facilities, protest rights, and sex and marriage), employment, housing, and administration of justice (jury discrimination, criminal and civil remedies).
This first edition runs over 1100+ pages, and is a tour de force of scholarship, not so much of authorship per se, but of editing, and teaching, as a publication like this necessarily is.
The book went through 6 editions and was revised and updated over the years:
1st (1973)
2nd (1980)
3rd (1992)
4th (2000)
5th (2004)
6th (2008)
Bell would go on to become the “intellectual father figure” of the Critical Race Theory movement (Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, 6). Indeed, the “critical” look at American laws provided by this book is CRT at its very best (in my opinion!), and proves why CRT is only “dangerous” and “un-American” to those wishing to preserve, or revert back to, a time when racism was enforced by law at every level in this country. At this point I would even go so far as to say that CRT is not only “useful” or “helpful,” but, especially as taught and practiced by Bell, is a *necessary* component of any real path forward toward racial justice in this country.
Highly recommend, but only if you have a good year to work through it all.
For a review written at the time (1974), see district judge and law professor A. Leon Higginbotham's review of Bell on JStor, where he not only reviews Bell's "excellent treatise," and "monumental casebook" but also addresses the question "why should racism be studied in law school?" and also "why law professors have not published similar casebooks before."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3311421
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