Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
From Theory to Transformative Practice: The Conceptual, Doctrinal, and Lawyering Dimensions of Teaching CRT
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law faculty offer a vision for mobilizing CRT that prepares CUNY’s diverse learning community for transformative practice in movement and abolitionist lawyering.
Since its inception in 1983, CUNY’s mission-driven program has centered social justice and engaged students who are historically underrepresented in the legal profession. CUNY’s curriculum comprehensively addresses the presence of racial hierarchies in law and their intersection with other forms of legal and social subordination. CUNY’s robust clinical program embeds CRT as an animating perspective, shaping students’ professional identities in areas of practice where the effects of racism are powerfully manifest.
After George Floyd’s murder, CUNY added a mandatory CRT course to provide a shared, foundational framework for students to address how the ideology of white supremacy informs the substance of U.S. law and to identify effective responses. The panel will discuss a recent proposal to expand the requirement beyond a dedicated introductory course into a pervasive curricular approach that positions faculty from different doctrinal perspectives to further engage CRT in their classes and scholarship, and more fully reflect the conceptual, doctrinal, and lawyering dimensions of the CRT-practice continuum at CUNY.
•Chaumtoli Huq, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
•Donna H. Lee, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
•Marbré Stahly-Butts, Associate Professor of Law, CUNY Law School
•Jared M. Trujillo, Associate Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
•Moderator: Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
From Theory to Transformative Practice: The Conceptual, Doctrinal, and Lawyering Dimensions of Teaching CRT
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law faculty offer a vision for mobilizing CRT that prepares CUNY’s diverse learning community for transformative practice in movement and abolitionist lawyering.
Since its inception in 1983, CUNY’s mission-driven program has centered social justice and engaged students who are historically underrepresented in the legal profession. CUNY’s curriculum comprehensively addresses the presence of racial hierarchies in law and their intersection with other forms of legal and social subordination. CUNY’s robust clinical program embeds CRT as an animating perspective, shaping students’ professional identities in areas of practice where the effects of racism are powerfully manifest.
After George Floyd’s murder, CUNY added a mandatory CRT course to provide a shared, foundational framework for students to address how the ideology of white supremacy informs the substance of U.S. law and to identify effective responses. The panel will discuss a recent proposal to expand the requirement beyond a dedicated introductory course into a pervasive curricular approach that positions faculty from different doctrinal perspectives to further engage CRT in their classes and scholarship, and more fully reflect the conceptual, doctrinal, and lawyering dimensions of the CRT-practice continuum at CUNY.
•Chaumtoli Huq, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
•Donna H. Lee, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
•Marbré Stahly-Butts, Associate Professor of Law, CUNY Law School
•Jared M. Trujillo, Associate Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
•Moderator: Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
