Derrick Bell
Encyclopedia
Derrick Albert Bell, Jr. (November 6, 1930 – October 5, 2011) was the first tenured African-American professor
of Law at Harvard University
, and largely credited as the originator of Critical Race Theory
. He was the former dean of the University of Oregon School of Law
.
of Pittsburgh
, Bell received an A.B.
from Duquesne University
in 1952 and an LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law
in 1957. After graduation, and after a recommendation from then United States Associate Attorney General
William Rogers
, Bell took a position with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department
. He was the only Black person working for the Justice Department at the time. In 1959, the government asked him to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Bell quit rather than giving up his NAACP membership.
Soon afterwards, Bell took a position as an assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
(LDF), crafting legal strategies at the forefront of the battle to undo racist laws and segregation in schools. At the LDF, he worked alongside other prominent civil rights attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall
, Robert L. Carter
and Constance Baker Motley
. Bell was assigned to Mississippi
, the cradle of the deep South, where racism was at its most virulent and entrenched. While working at the LDF, Bell supervised more than 300 school desegregation cases and spearheaded the fight of James Meredith
to secure admission to the University of Mississippi
over the protests of Governor
Ross Barnett
.
as executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty. In 1969, with the help of protests from black Harvard Law School
students for a minority faculty member, Bell was hired to teach there. At Harvard, Bell established a new course in civil rights law, published a celebrated case book, Race, Racism and American Law, and produced a steady stream of law review articles. As a teacher, Bell became a mentor and role model to a generation of students of color, but he played a delicate balancing act at the university. Bell became the first black tenured professor in Harvard Law School's history and called on the university to improve its minority hiring record. But shortly after his tenure in 1971, a white university vice-president tried to purchase a house that Bell had been previously offered through the university; Bell saw this as a case of discrimination. This was the first case in which Bell's charges of racism would mobilize his supporters, who championed his efforts to stand up for principle, and anger his detractors, who accused him of being too quick with his allegations of bigotry.
, becoming one of the first African-Americans to ever head a non-black law school. He resigned in 1985 over a dispute about faculty diversity. Bell then taught at Stanford University
for a year.
Returning to Harvard in 1986, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two legal scholars on staff, both of whom adhered to a movement in legal philosophy that claims legal institutions play a role in the maintenance of the ruling class' position. The administration, not giving an inch, claimed substandard scholarship and teaching on the part of the professors as the reason for the denial of tenure, but Bell called it an unambiguous attack on ideology. Bell's sit-in galvanized student support but sharply divided the faculty.
Bell reentered the debate over hiring practices at Harvard in 1990, when he vowed to take an unpaid leave of absence until the school appointed a female of color to its tenured faculty. At the time, of the law school's 60 tenured professors, only three were black and five were women. The school had never had a black woman on the tenured staff.
Students held vigils and protests in solidarity with Bell with the support of some faculty. Critics, including some faculty members, called Bell's methods counterproductive, and Harvard administration officials insisted they had already made enormous advances in hiring. The story of his protest is detailed in his book Confronting Authority.
To some observers, Bell's lament about Harvard amounted to a call for the school to lower its academic qualifications in the quest to mold a diversified faculty on the campus. But Bell argued that academically able faculty were being ignored and that critics of diversity invariably underplay the value of a faculty that is broadly reflective of society, and, more importantly, that the credentials demanded by institutions like Harvard perpetuate the domination of white, well-off, middle-aged men. As he commented in the Boston Globe, "Let's look at a few qualifications--say civil rights experience ... that might allow [a chance at a tenured teaching position for] more folks here who, like me, maybe didn't go to the best law school but instead have made a real difference in the world."
, was formally removed from the Harvard faculty. In a speech to Harvard students quoted in the Boston Globe, Bell urged the future scholars and activists to continue the moral fights that he had championed, saying: "Your faith in what you believe must be a living, working faith that draws you away from comfort and security, and toward risk through confrontation."
Harvard ultimately hired civil rights attorney and U.S. Assistant Attorney General nominee Lani Guinier
shortly after Bell left. After resigning from Harvard, Bell remained at NYU Law where he continuing to write and lecture on issues of race and civil rights.
discourse. Bell’s critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal
and conservative
position on civil rights, race and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle and the price of racial remedies.
Bell continued writing about critical race theory
even after accepting a teaching position at Harvard University
. Much of his legal scholarship was influenced by his experience both as a black man and as a civil rights attorney. Writing in a narrative style, Bell contributed to the intellectual discussions on race. According to Bell, his purpose in writing was to examine the racial issues within the context of their economic and social and political dimensions from a legal standpoint.
For instance, in The Constitutional Contradiction, Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. With regard to the interest convergence, he maintains that "whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest." Finally, in The Price of Racial Remedies, Bell argues that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status, like the affirmative action hiring through which he acquired his status.
Bell is also the author of a number of books and short stories, including "Ethical Ambition" and "The Space Traders". Bell also wrote the book, The Faces at the Bottom of the Well, which allegorically tells the story of people who are disenfranchised.
Derrick Bell was a supporter of animal rights.
cancer
at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, at the age of 80.
and writer Trey Ellis
. It aired as the leading segment of a three-part television anthology entitled "Cosmic Slop," which focused on minority centric Science Fiction.
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Law at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and largely credited as the originator of Critical Race Theory
Critical race theory
Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...
. He was the former dean of the University of Oregon School of Law
University of Oregon School of Law
The University of Oregon School of Law is a public law school in the U.S. state of Oregon. Housed in the Knight Law Center, it is Oregon's only state funded law school. The school, founded in 1884, is located on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, on the corner of 15th and Agate streets,...
.
Education and early career
Born in the Hill DistrictHill District (Pittsburgh)
The Hill District is a collection of neighborhoods that is considered by many to be the cultural center of African-American life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an American city. Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay once called the district "the crossroads of the world," referring to the...
of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, Bell received an A.B.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from Duquesne University
Duquesne University
Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a private Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of...
in 1952 and an LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
The University of Pittsburgh School of Law was founded in 1895, and became a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools in 1900...
in 1957. After graduation, and after a recommendation from then United States Associate Attorney General
United States Associate Attorney General
The Associate Attorney General is the third-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. The Associate Attorney General advises and assists the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General in policies relating to civil justice, federal and local law enforcement, and public...
William Rogers
William Rogers
-Politics:*William P. Rogers , U.S. Attorney General under Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State under Richard Nixon*Will Rogers, Jr. , congressman from California from 1943 to 1944 and the son of the noted humorist by the same name*Will Rogers , congressman from Oklahoma, 1933–1942*William D...
, Bell took a position with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is the institution within the federal government responsible for enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. The Division was established on December 9, 1957, by...
. He was the only Black person working for the Justice Department at the time. In 1959, the government asked him to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Bell quit rather than giving up his NAACP membership.
Soon afterwards, Bell took a position as an assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City....
(LDF), crafting legal strategies at the forefront of the battle to undo racist laws and segregation in schools. At the LDF, he worked alongside other prominent civil rights attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
, Robert L. Carter
Robert L. Carter
Robert Lee Carter is a U.S. civil rights activist and judge.-Personal history and early life:Robert Lee Carter was born on March 11, 1917, in Careyville, Florida. While still very young, his mother moved north to Newark, New Jersey, where he was raised...
and Constance Baker Motley
Constance Baker Motley
Constance Baker Motley was an African American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, state senator, and President of Manhattan, New York City.-Early Life and Academics:...
. Bell was assigned to Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, the cradle of the deep South, where racism was at its most virulent and entrenched. While working at the LDF, Bell supervised more than 300 school desegregation cases and spearheaded the fight of James Meredith
James Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
to secure admission to the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
over the protests of Governor
Governor
A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
Ross Barnett
Ross Barnett
Ross Robert Barnett was the governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a States' Rights Democrat.- Early life :...
.
"I learned a lot about evasiveness, and how racists could use a system to forestall equality," Bell was quoted as saying in The Boston GlobeThe Boston GlobeThe Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
... "I also learned a lot riding those dusty roads and walking into those sullen hostile courts in Jackson, MississippiJackson, MississippiJackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
. It just seems that unless something's pushed, unless you litigate, nothing happens."
USC and Harvard
In the mid-1960s Bell was appointed to the law faculty of the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
as executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty. In 1969, with the help of protests from black Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
students for a minority faculty member, Bell was hired to teach there. At Harvard, Bell established a new course in civil rights law, published a celebrated case book, Race, Racism and American Law, and produced a steady stream of law review articles. As a teacher, Bell became a mentor and role model to a generation of students of color, but he played a delicate balancing act at the university. Bell became the first black tenured professor in Harvard Law School's history and called on the university to improve its minority hiring record. But shortly after his tenure in 1971, a white university vice-president tried to purchase a house that Bell had been previously offered through the university; Bell saw this as a case of discrimination. This was the first case in which Bell's charges of racism would mobilize his supporters, who championed his efforts to stand up for principle, and anger his detractors, who accused him of being too quick with his allegations of bigotry.
Protests over faculty diversity
In 1980 Bell became the dean of the University of Oregon School of LawUniversity of Oregon School of Law
The University of Oregon School of Law is a public law school in the U.S. state of Oregon. Housed in the Knight Law Center, it is Oregon's only state funded law school. The school, founded in 1884, is located on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, on the corner of 15th and Agate streets,...
, becoming one of the first African-Americans to ever head a non-black law school. He resigned in 1985 over a dispute about faculty diversity. Bell then taught at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
for a year.
Returning to Harvard in 1986, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two legal scholars on staff, both of whom adhered to a movement in legal philosophy that claims legal institutions play a role in the maintenance of the ruling class' position. The administration, not giving an inch, claimed substandard scholarship and teaching on the part of the professors as the reason for the denial of tenure, but Bell called it an unambiguous attack on ideology. Bell's sit-in galvanized student support but sharply divided the faculty.
Bell reentered the debate over hiring practices at Harvard in 1990, when he vowed to take an unpaid leave of absence until the school appointed a female of color to its tenured faculty. At the time, of the law school's 60 tenured professors, only three were black and five were women. The school had never had a black woman on the tenured staff.
Students held vigils and protests in solidarity with Bell with the support of some faculty. Critics, including some faculty members, called Bell's methods counterproductive, and Harvard administration officials insisted they had already made enormous advances in hiring. The story of his protest is detailed in his book Confronting Authority.
To some observers, Bell's lament about Harvard amounted to a call for the school to lower its academic qualifications in the quest to mold a diversified faculty on the campus. But Bell argued that academically able faculty were being ignored and that critics of diversity invariably underplay the value of a faculty that is broadly reflective of society, and, more importantly, that the credentials demanded by institutions like Harvard perpetuate the domination of white, well-off, middle-aged men. As he commented in the Boston Globe, "Let's look at a few qualifications--say civil rights experience ... that might allow [a chance at a tenured teaching position for] more folks here who, like me, maybe didn't go to the best law school but instead have made a real difference in the world."
Visiting professorship
In 1992, Bell, who had taken a visiting professorship at New York UniversityNew York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, was formally removed from the Harvard faculty. In a speech to Harvard students quoted in the Boston Globe, Bell urged the future scholars and activists to continue the moral fights that he had championed, saying: "Your faith in what you believe must be a living, working faith that draws you away from comfort and security, and toward risk through confrontation."
Harvard ultimately hired civil rights attorney and U.S. Assistant Attorney General nominee Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier is an American lawyer, scholar and civil rights activist. The first African-American woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Guinier's work includes professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in...
shortly after Bell left. After resigning from Harvard, Bell remained at NYU Law where he continuing to write and lecture on issues of race and civil rights.
Academic contributions
Bell is arguably the most influential source of thought critical of traditional civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
discourse. Bell’s critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
and conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...
position on civil rights, race and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle and the price of racial remedies.
Bell continued writing about critical race theory
Critical race theory
Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...
even after accepting a teaching position at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. Much of his legal scholarship was influenced by his experience both as a black man and as a civil rights attorney. Writing in a narrative style, Bell contributed to the intellectual discussions on race. According to Bell, his purpose in writing was to examine the racial issues within the context of their economic and social and political dimensions from a legal standpoint.
For instance, in The Constitutional Contradiction, Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. With regard to the interest convergence, he maintains that "whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest." Finally, in The Price of Racial Remedies, Bell argues that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status, like the affirmative action hiring through which he acquired his status.
Bell is also the author of a number of books and short stories, including "Ethical Ambition" and "The Space Traders". Bell also wrote the book, The Faces at the Bottom of the Well, which allegorically tells the story of people who are disenfranchised.
Derrick Bell was a supporter of animal rights.
Death
On October 5, 2011, Bell died from carcinoidCarcinoid
Carcinoid is a slow-growing type of neuroendocrine tumor, originating in the cells of the neuroendocrine system.In 2000, the World Health Organization redefined "carcinoid", but this new definition has not been accepted by all practitioners. This has led to some complexity in distinguishing...
cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, at the age of 80.
In popular media
His short story The Space Traders was adapted in 1994 by director Reginald HudlinReginald Hudlin
Reginald Alan Hudlin is an American writer and film director.-Biography:Hudlin is the son of Helen , a teacher, and Warrington W. Hudlin, Sr., an insurance executive and teacher...
and writer Trey Ellis
Trey Ellis
Trey Ellis is an American novelist, screenwriter, professor, and essayist.He was born in Washington D.C. and attended Stanford University.-Novels and memoirs:...
. It aired as the leading segment of a three-part television anthology entitled "Cosmic Slop," which focused on minority centric Science Fiction.
External links
- NYU Law Faculty Profile
- Derrick Bell's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
- The HistoryMakers Biography
- Rules Of Racial Standing