Kimberlé Crenshaw

Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw was born on May 5, 1959 in Canton, Ohio to Marion Williams and Walter Crenshaw. She attended Akron Community College in Ohio before transferring to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1978, where she earned her B.A. degree in government and Africana studies in 1981. She attended Harvard Law School, where she obtained her J.D. degree in 1984. Crenshaw went on to receive her LL.M. degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1986.

From 1985 to 1986, Crenshaw worked as a law clerk for Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge Shirley Abrahamson. In 1986, she began serving as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, where she remained for over thirty-five years, becoming a Distinguished Professor of Law in 2017. Crenshaw was appointed professor of law at Columbia University School of Law in 1992. While at Columbia, she founded and became executive director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS) in 2011. Crenshaw held joint appointments at both Columbia and UCLA, while also serving as a visiting professor and fellow at various national and international universities. In 1998, she co-founded and became executive director of the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), a social justice think tank dedicated to dismantling structural inequality. In 2014, Crenshaw launched the #SayHerName campaign with AAPF and CISPS to raise awareness of Black women who are victims of police violence.

Crenshaw became a member of the Society of American Law Teachers and the Law and Society Association in 1987. She was also a founding scholar in the development of critical race theory and intersectionality. She coined the term “intersectionality” in her 1989 essay, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” Since 1989, she has authored and edited numerous articles and books on critical race theory and intersectionality, including Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement and On Intersectionality: Essential Writings.

Crenshaw has received honorary doctorates from multiple academic institutions, including John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2016, Smith College in 2018, KU Leuven in Belgium in 2020, and the University of Bayreuth in 2021. She was also the recipient of the Women’s Equality & Intersectional Gender Equity Award from the National Organization for Women in 2015. That same year, she was honored in Ebony magazine’s “Power 100” list. In 2021, Crenshaw was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2023, she received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Award from the women’s section of AALS.

Crenshaw resides in Los Angeles, California.

Kimberlé Crenshaw was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on August 9, 2024.