Kimberlé Crenshaw's Intersectionality Framework Gains Policy Relevance

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw's 1989 framework of intersectionality — coined to describe how Black women faced discrimination not captured by race-only or gender-only legal theories — gained widespread policy and cultural currency in the 2020s. Crenshaw, who also leads the African American Policy Forum, launched the #SayHerName campaign in 2015 to center Black women killed by police in the BLM movement. Intersectionality became widely taught, applied in policy analysis, and simultaneously attacked by critics who caricatured it. The framework influenced data collection, hiring practices, and legal strategies across civil rights, feminist, and LGBTQ+ advocacy.