Laudatio - Motivatio Kimberlé Crenshaw

Laudatio

Laudatio for Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw 
Delivered in Leuven on 3 February 2020 by
Professor Gleider Hernandez and Professor Elise Muir  

Honourable Rector
Your Excellencies
Dear Colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen
Dear Students 

 
In Belgium and Flanders several laws prohibit different types of discrimination. The federal and the Flemish statutes seem similar, but are also fundamentally different. And it is exactly in this difference that the influence of the work of Professor Crenshaw comes into play. Whereas the federal laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic such as race, sex or religion, the Flemish statute prohibits discrimination based on one or more protected characteristics, such as race, sex or religion. This statute thus allows for claims to be brought on intersectional discrimination, a concept originating directly from Professor Crenshaw’s seminal work.  
 
Professor Crenshaw’s work is incredibly informative for those striving for full and equal participation of all in society. The idea for nominating Professor Crenshaw stems from the junior and associate academic staff of the Law Faculty, whom we represent here, and where the values of full and equal participation are shared broadly. The University, just like our Faculty, is slowly growing more and more diverse. While this process brings a great wealth of ideas to the University, reaching and including everyone in society remains challenging. A significant risk in this process is exactly to ignore the vulnerabilities of people, stemming from their race, gender, religion and more. In the words of Professor Crenshaw: ‘If we can’t see a problem, we can’t fix a problem.’ The different aspects of her work emphasize the role the law can play in maintaining or breaking through societal and structural patterns of disadvantage stemming from one or more of these characteristics. Hardly surprising then that when the nomination process for honorary doctorates was opened last year, we were eager to nominate Kimberlè Crenshaw. Through this honorary doctorate, we want to give such reflections a central place in our University. Honorary doctors are consciously nominated and appointed by the University. They are considered to be the persons who represent the values the university aspires to, our role models. These people can inspire us, not only the faculty staff but our students as well. Professor Crenshaw’s high-quality legal scholarship, her eye and advocacy for vulnerable groups in society and her willingness to make both of these heard in the public debate, make her such a role model par excellence. 
 
It is now 31 years ago since Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality. Through this term, which offers a prism or metaphor for understanding the way in which multiple forms of disadvantage compound. The intersectional perspective thus reveals problems that otherwise would have remained blind spots in the legal system. Originally used to describe the specific disadvantage suffered by black women (as opposed to black men and white women), the concept has gained wide traction throughout the social sciences and in the public debate. Pushing the boundaries of a majority’s understanding of how discriminatory disadvantage would come about, it is now an essential and inherent part of the way in which disadvantage and vulnerability in societal groups is conceived/ reflected on and discussed. While ‘adopted’ by these other social sciences, the influence of Professor Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality is clearly visible in important international treaties such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or the CEDAW treaty but similarly inspired the drafting of the South-African Constitution. 
 
In a society in which, about half a century after the first antidiscrimination law of note was passed (the US Civil Rights Act 1964), racism, sexism and many other forms of discrimination persist, Professor Crenshaw’s work offers insightful and critical material that challenges legal scholars to think beyond the obstacles presented in current structures and to progress. Intersectionality has already been mentioned but Professor Crenshaw is also one of the founders of critical race theory, actively challenging the ways in which societal structures, including the law, construct and/or maintain racial discrimination. She does not shy away from asking the difficult questions, including those on colour blindness within academia.  
 
She asks these questions within academia but her ideas have impacted and shaped important societal debates. Debates in which she is not afraid to take a public stance. She does this by frequent public speaking on her areas of expertise but also by aspiring policy change. Not only is she a professor at Columbia Law School and UCLA, she is also a co-founder of the African American Policy Forum. The Forum’s mission is to bring together people and ideas to promote frameworks and strategies stimulating racial justice and empowering those marginalized in society. Amongst many other initiatives, it launched the ‘say her name’-campaign bringing much required attention to police violence against Black women.  
 
The power of her ideas does not remain limited to the USA, however, nor has its influence remained confined to the legal arena. Indeed, the concepts she has coined have found their way to scholarship all over the world and surface here too in societal debates. The lens of intersectionality, for example, can be found in the debates on headscarves and burkinis where a disparate impact is placed on women of specific religions. The concept of intersectionality has also transcended its legal origins and is now widely used across disciplines within the humanities. Thus both through the impact of her ideas and through her work as a Civil Rights activist, Professor Crenshaw bridges the gap that can exist- and all too often and all too easily exists- between society and academia.  
 
Young students of the law and of other disciplines and indeed, anyone thinking about the way in which they can contribute to an inclusive and just society, will easily find inspiration in the academic and societal work of Professor Crenshaw. Making such a societal difference for the better and providing inspiration for researchers across disciplines is a feat that calls for praise from our academic community. For researchers, her work is a powerful signal that research can impact and change society. For students, it provides an incentive not to remain on the sidelines with the knowledge they acquire at University, but to stand up for their ideas and spread them. 
 
To conclude, we are honoured to pronounce the laudatio for so distinguished a guest. To the many accolades on her cv, i.a. the Gittler Prize for Social Justice in 2017 from Brandeis University and the inclusion on Prospect Magazine World’s top 50 thinkers in 2019 list, we would be most happy to add an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven. 
 
Om al deze redenen, mijnheer de rector, verzoek ik u, op voordracht van de Academische Raad, het eredoctoraat van KU Leuven te verlenen aan professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. 

Motivatio

Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw

KU Leuven is honouring you:

For your inspiring, critical vision of legal relations, a vision that is empowering rather than descriptive, that frames legal relations in their social context and that understands the role of law in contributing to social injustice—and the fight against it.

For developing academic theories that do not simplify social phenomena and structural inequalities, but capture them in all their complexity.

For challenging social hierarchies through your scholarship, especially those that are based on race and gender, and for using your scholarship as a disruptive force to challenge injustice based on the status quo.

For your passionate advocacy that links scholarship to practice, social change and activism in all the best senses.

For these reasons, I hereby bestow upon you – in my capacity as Rector of KU Leuven, and on the recommendation of the Academic Council – the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa of this University.