The Imperial Scholar Revisited: How to Marginalize Outsider Writing, Ten Years Later

Abstract

Investigates the state of affairs now that critical race theorists and radical feminists have entered the legal academy in substantial numbers. Revisits the original article, The Imperial Scholar, and explores whether the new generation of majority-race (white) scholars continue to operate in an insular fashion that marginalizes outsider and minority writers. Documents how the descendants of the original imperial scholars -- white academics writing about race in the top reviews -- although younger and hipper than the original versions, continue the same exclusionary pattern of neglect and non-citation. Concludes that those who control the terms of discourse will marginalize outsider writing as long as possible.

Keywords: civil rights, legal scholarship, hegemony, legal discourse, imperial scholars and scholarship