Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw’s ‘Groundbreaking Work’ Earns Her The Prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Medal

Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw is a leading voice and scholar in critical race theory and intersectionality.

Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), was awarded the prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. This award is the highest honor for exemplary contributions to Black studies, culture, and scholarship.

“Her groundbreaking work has shaped contemporary discussions around systemic inequality and continues to inspire activists and scholars worldwide,” an AAPF news release stated.

Professor Crenshaw is a leading voice and scholar in critical race theory and intersectionality. She has dedicated her career to addressing the complexities of race, gender, racism, and the law. Crenshaw’s studies and legal theories led to the formation of The African American Policy Forum in 1996. AAPF is on a mission to transform public policy that addresses educational censorship, defends American democracy, and ensures racial and gender justice through research.

“AAPF is an innovative think tank that connects academics, activists and policy-makers to promote efforts to dismantle structural inequality,” a statement reads on the website. “We utilize new ideas and innovative perspectives to transform public discourse and policy.”

In 2014, AAPF launched the iconic #SayHerName campaign to call attention to police violence against Black women and girls.

“Black women and girls as young as seven and as old as 93 have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names. Knowing their names is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for lifting their stories, which in turn provides a much clearer view of the wide-ranging circumstances that make Black women’s bodies disproportionately subject to police violence,” a statement on the initiative reads.

Then, in 2022, the organization convened the Freedom to Learn Coalition. The coalition is made up of leading civil rights, human rights, and social justice organizations, national teachers unions, students, parents, and others who united against the widespread attempts to limit antiracist education in U.S. schools and undermine democracy.