American Bar Foundation to honor expert on race and gender equality

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, will receive the Outstanding Scholar Award from The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation (ABF) at the 60th Annual Awards Reception and Banquet at 6-10 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6 at the San Diego Natural History Museum, Balboa Park, San Diego, Calif.. Crenshaw is a leading expert on civil rights, black feminist legal theory, and race and the law. The Outstanding Scholar Award is given annually by The Fellows of the ABF to a member of the academy who has engaged in outstanding scholarship in the law or in government. Crenshaw has pioneered the intellectual movement known as Critical Race Theory, and is founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop. In 1996, she co-founded the African-American Policy Forum (AAPF), a gender in racial justice think tank with several projects designed to develop research-based strategies to encourage social inclusion. Crenshaw is the founder and director of the Center for Intersectionality & Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School. The center is dedicated to the critical examination of the interaction between social structures and related identity categories such as race, gender, class and its resulting social inequality. Crenshaw's groundbreaking work on the concept of intersectionality is recognized internationally and was influential in the drafting of the equality clause for the constitution of South Africa. She has lectured widely for audiences across the country, and in Europe, Africa, India, and Brazil as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair for Latin America. Crenshaw is a preeminent advocate for a gender-inclusive approach to racial justice interventions. She led the "Why We Can't Wait" campaign, and co-authored the reports, "Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected" and "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women." She is a founding member the Women's Media Initiative, and she regularly writes for Ms. Magazine and the Nation. Her articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and National Black Law Journal. Crenshaw's notable publications include Critical Race Theory: Key Documents that Shaped the Movement (co-editor) and Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment (co-author). "The American Bar Foundation is proud and delighted to honor Kimberlé Crenshaw with the Outstanding Scholar Award," said Ajay Mehrotra, director of the ABF. "Professor Crenshaw and her research exemplify the high standards of rigorous scholarship that are shared by the ABF." Other recipients of 2016 Fellows Awards at the San Diego event include Llewelyn G. Pritchard, Outstanding Service Award; Honorable John R. Tunheim and Barbara J. Gislason, Outstanding State Chair Award; and Selma Moidel Smith, Life Fellow Achievement Award. KPMG is the sponsor of the 2016 banquet, one of several events being hosted by The Fellows of the ABF during the ABA Midyear Meeting, Feb. 3-7, 2016. Linda Hirshman, lawyer, cultural historian, and author of New York Times bestseller, Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, will give keynote remarks. Published: Wed, Jan 27, 2016