The Wikipedia page is not bad.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

Note that Ladson-Billings & Tate (1995) was the widespread introduction of CRT into the field of education, which I think is the bit of CRT that is creating a lot of the fuss these days.

Here is an article by Ladson-Billings:

https://www.loyola.edu/-/media/join-us/karson-institute/docu...

Short summary of how CRT is perceived these days:

https://www.economist.com/interactive/united-states/2022/07/...

This is a decent short article that explains how crt is being attacked in ways that are not “core” crt:

https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-...

In general, you can search for “critical race theory in $FIELD” and find out how the ideas have expanded beyond law.

In my personal experience, here is what I have seen and experienced that has gone far beyond what core CRT is about:

1. CRT and postmodernism in academia often go hand-in-hand. In a gross over-simplification, this means that everything is socially constructed and there is no absolute truth. These ideas have merit and a place in academic research, but the reductio ad absurdum cases (some listed below) are not a really good look for a solid theory.

2. There are groups of people who call themselves liberals who cry “that’s racist” at what seems like every opportunity they can. When you engage them on the topic, they will sometimes begrudgingly acknowledge that they are referring to structural racism (which is not a difficult case to make). When asked what they would like me (or people like me) to do about something that I cannot control (being white), they don’t really have an answer other than “don’t be racist”, which isn’t what structural racism is about. These folks completely debase a very valid argument by invoking it in (imho) inappropriate ways, seemingly just for the sake of protesting or getting under the skin of moderates and conservatives. They don’t seem to realize that their actions are sometimes (often?) alienating the types of folks whose support that they need/want (i.e., open-minded moderates who do not want to be overtly and loudly labeled as racists due to structural racism).

3. In academic work (my first career), anything that is CRT-related becomes almost unassailable in review. The academic rigor in most CRT topics is laughable because, as designed, any rigor is considered oppression of some sort. The sad thing is that there is a small amount of really well done research that gets thrown in with the less good stuff, but it is all fairly tainted due to overall lack of rigor.

3a. Note that CRT topics and researchers are embraced at universities and some journals because it makes it much easier for them to reach diversity targets and publication targets (getting published in some sort of a CRT-themed journal is super easy, much like getting published in some sort of a tech-themed journal is super easy).

4. I have seen white people told in elite university classrooms that they should only be validating what non-white people are saying in the classroom discussions. This is despite the professor openly encouraging exchanging a diversity of views.

5. I have seen half-white people openly denounce the white half of their heritage because… reasons? In one specific case, an Asian American female who looks very Asian denounced her “white privilege” when probably 90% or more of her privilege came from her Asian side (her Asian side is well known in the community and is relatively wealthy, while her white side contributed mostly hard-to-see genetic privilege). In another case, a half white half Puerto Rican male who looks very white and has a white name aggressively denounced his white side and did academic research about the Puerto Rican struggle against the white man — as though he had any idea what it was like. His personal narrative research (popular in CRT) revealed that he had issues with his white father, and that was pretty much the source of all of his rage. Of course, based on CRT tenets, his research that was more about father-son and/or familial relationships became about racism writ large (unreasonably and inappropriately imho, even though the topic is very worthy of study). There are many, many cases like these.

6. For academics who are white, straight, males in the US, it is extremely difficult to get tenure in non-STEM departments/fields at high tier universities unless you go all in with CRT and post-modernism. Even then, it is tough. On the one hand, I appreciate that there is a wider range of views and life experiences that are represented in these fields. On the other hand, I am sad that a large swath of the US pool of potential academics is almost a priori excluded from becoming researchers in these fields. Note that I had tenure, so this didn’t effect me personally, but I have seen the impact on others (mostly in terms of opting out of an academic career).

Note that I have some personal opinions that jibe with the data but aren’t really popular (which is one reason I left academia):

- Every society has one or more privileged groups. This will be forever true.

- The vast majority of privilege is determined by socio-economic status (SES). In the US, the numbers that seem to keep popping up are that about 5-10% of differences in most measures can be accounted for by race, and most/all of the rest is SES. Note that the one/main area that this may not hold true is in criminal prosecution in the US (not a legal scholar, so I’m not sure).

- Changing SES is very difficult across generations, and I think I t’s a topic worthy of study. I think affirmative action in the US has made some useful progress in this area, but not in the ways that are typically cited. Incremental changes in SES are something that are measurable and achievable. Most attempted at large-scale change in SES have failed and will fail, imho, largely because it’s easy to change the E part of SES, but it’s much harder to change the S part (the much more salient part, imho).