Adelle Blackett: Teaching Critical Race Theory and Slavery in Faculties of Law

From 2014 to 2016, law students at McGill University learned about critical race theory and slavery and the law in ad hoc courses taught by Adelle Blackett. Blackett’s article, “Follow the Drinking Gourd: Our Road to Teaching Critical Race Theory and Slavery and the Law, Contemplatively,” published in the fourth and final issue of the 2017 McGill Law Journal, argues that courses like these are integral to “the collective project of cultivating jurists who live rooted, multilingual, and layered lives in law.” Blackett nevertheless concluded that much “homework” remains to be done towards this collective project: institutions must undertake a redemptive work of transforming themselves from within. Adelle Blackett is a 2016 Trudeau fellow, professor of law and William Dawson scholar at McGill University.

Read the full issue here (access restricted).