Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field that analyzes how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. It emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others. The core idea of CRT is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. CRT considers racism to be systemic in nature. Within CRT, various sub-groupings focus on issues and nuances unique to particular ethno-racial and/or marginalized communities, including the intersection of race with disability, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, or religion.

CRT is not a synonym for culturally relevant teaching, which emerged in the 1990s. This teaching approach seeks to affirm students’ ethnic and racial backgrounds and is intellectually rigorous. Critics of CRT charge that the theory leads to negative dynamics, such as a focus on group identity over universal, shared traits; divides people into “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups; and urges intolerance. However, supporters of CRT see the framework as a way to help the United States live up to its own ideals, or as a model for thinking.

Recently, CRT has become a hot-button political issue, with some states passing legislation to ban its teaching in schools. Opponents of CRT fear that it admonishes all white people for being oppressors while classifying all Black people as hopelessly oppressed victims. However, supporters of CRT argue that it is a method that takes the lived experience of racism seriously, using history and social reality to explain how racism operates in American law and culture, toward the end of eliminating the harmful effects of racism and bringing about a just and healthy world for all.