The Pursuit of Social Justice: A Look at Derrick Bell
This Friday, I’ll leave you all with a motivating piece. CNN writer Tom Cohen published a great profile on President Obama’s Harvard law professor and social justice “maverick,” Derrick Bell.
Here are a few highlights :
. . . [M]any who knew Bell [he passed away last October] through his legal and teaching career express admiration for his life’s achievements and his academic prowess.
“Bell’s pursuit of racial and social justice and his dogged critique of liberal incrementalism in universities and elsewhere was like a persistent wind that changed the landscape of law schools and influenced the larger academic world as well,” wrote Harvard law professor Lani Guinier and Texas School of Law professor Gerald Torres in a remembrance of Bell published in the “Chronicle of Higher Education.”
“He worked in so many ways: a mentor to many of today’s leading academics, a master teacher whose commitment to his law students was unquestioned and unmatched, and a provocative scholar and critic,” Guinier and Torres continued. “He was a celebrated maverick before that word lost its luster.”
Guinier had particular reason to honor Bell. In 1998, she became the first black women granted tenure as a Harvard Law School professor, six years after Bell’s departure over that issue.
Bell was a founder of critical race theory, which examined the intersection of race, power and law in a harsh portrayal of American society as one dominated by class and racial conflict. . . .
“He [Bell] wrote and spoke with powerful authenticity about race in ways that alienated not only many an adversary but also many a friend, some who even begged for his silence,” Sexton said. “But he knew that the cost of silence to his soul could exceed the sacrifice of good opinion and material goods to himself.”
To Sexton, Bell “knew that he was meant to strive, to struggle, and to push — there would be no short cuts.”
“Yes, Derrick rocked the boat,” he continued. “He also shook the tree, yielding fruits of exceptional scholarship that nourished the discipline of law and thousands of colleagues, students and friends, whom he inspired to teach each other the law and to stand up, speak out, and find joy and satisfaction in stretching the boundaries of justice.”
You can read the rest here. You can also read the NY Times’ obituary for Mr. Bell here.
Have a great weekend!