Kimberlé Crenshaw Honored With Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal

The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University has named Kimberlé W. Crenshaw as one of eight recipients of this year’s cohort of W.E.B. Du Bois Medalists. The award is considered Harvard’s highest honor in the field of African and African American studies.

Since 2000, Professor Crenshaw has held joint faculty appointments with Columbia Law School in New York and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. At Columbia, she serves as the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, and co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum. At UCLA, she serves as the Promise Institute Chair in Human Rights and Distinguished Professor of Law.

As a scholar and writer, Professor Crenshaw focuses her work on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism, and the law. She has conducted extensive research into the “school to prison” pipeline for African American children, as well as the criminalization of behavior among Black teenage girls. Her scholarship led her to authoring two books: Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (The New Press, 1996) and Say Her Name: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Service (Haymarket Books, 2023).

Professor Crenshaw received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University,a  juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, and master of laws degree from the University of Wisconsin.