Thread by @ProfDBernstein

One of the great flaws of Critical Race Theory as practiced in the American legal academy is that it tends to be a closed intellectual system, ie (with some exceptions) the adherents tend to just cite each other. Case in point: 1/

My own work on racial classification, which is directly relevant to the work of several critical race people. Now, I'm not so arrogant as to think I "deserve" to be cited. But my book Classified is the most extensive lawprof treatment of modern racial classification. More important 2/

my work on the subject was cited by Justice Gorsuch in his concurrence SFFA, which was in turn cited favorably by CJ Roberts in his concurrence. So even if you didn't think my work was objectively "important," it has practical significance, and is being cited in multiple 3/

cases that are in ongoing litigation as we speak. So just out of curiosity, I checked Westlaw. Not a single cite to my book, the article it grew out of, etc. Not by the prominent scholars who have written entire books about Latino identity, nor by the scholars who have written 4/

about race and medicine, each of which has a standalone chapter in the book. Again, it's not that I'm "entitled" to citations, it's just rather than if you have, for example, written an entire book about the development of Latino identity, and Justice Gorsuch writes an opinion 5/

essentially saying that your theories are wildly wrong both empirically as a legal matter, and cites academic work on the subject, it's the sort of thing a scholar would want to address. But that's only if they are doing scholarship in a traditional sense 6/

which includes engaging with people who disagree with you, but whom you can still potentially learn from. But if instead you are just in a closed intellectual loop, doing something more akin to propaganda or politics than scholarship, I suppose it makes sense. /end