Kimberly Williams Crenshaw

One has to hold on to that sense of loss in order to be appropriately cautious and aware that no matter the fact that you can have a black family in the White House, you can also, in 10 years or 20 years later, find yourself struggling to actually have the right to vote.

I think that sense of

I'm never going to forget how quickly things can turn, is what being woke is all about.

I had no idea how the framework or the word would travel, especially because

It was in the context of trying to create a remedial framework for people who consider themselves very smart judges, but couldn't figure out something that seemed pretty obvious to me.

So the idea was simply to use an experience as a metaphor to build understanding into their legal decision-making.

So their understanding of what Emma de Graffenried was asking for

That is the woman who, right, who filed the lawsuit.

But the black jobs were usually the industrial jobs, the dangerous jobs, the dirty jobs.

And the women's jobs were receptionists and secretary and telephone operators.

So we're already dealing in an industry that has race and gender structure to it, which is discriminatory.

But then on top of it, there was sort of the multiplication of the discrimination because, of course, the black jobs were not appropriate for black people who were women.

And the women's jobs, secretary, et cetera, were not appropriate for women who were black.

So there was precious little space for a black woman to get hired and to advance in this industry.

When Emma de Graffenried said, I am being discriminated against, not just as a black person and not just as a woman, but as a black woman, so I should be able to seek the law's protection against race and gender discrimination.

The courts basically said, well, no, you can't do that.

This is foul.

You can't put two causes of action together to make a claim.

Title VII says you can make it on the basis of race or gender.

It doesn't say and.