The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

Richard Delgado has emphasised how critical race theorists differ in their various approaches, but has helpfully identified four common traits. Firstly, Critical Race Theory ‘takes as a given that racism is not a series of isolated acts, but is endemic in American life, deeply ingrained legally, culturally, and even psychologically’. Secondly, that it ‘reinterprets civil-rights law in the light of its ineffectuality, showing that laws to remedy racial injustices are often undermined before they can fulfill their promise’. Thirdly, that it ‘portrays the traditional claims of the legal system to neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy as camouflages for the self-interest of dominant groups in American society’. Finally, ‘it insists on subjectivity and advocates that legal doctrines be reformulated to reflect the perspectives and experiences of the “outsider groups” that experience racism first hand’.

Critical race theory tennants