ABSTRACT
CRT has its roots in legal studies in the 1970s, when scholars such as Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, and Richard Delgado saw the momentum of the Civil Rights Movement as slowing down (Delgado 2009, 1506-1507; Delgado and Stefancic 2012, 27). Delgado and Stefancic (2012, 26) define CRT as “a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.” CRT was chosen as one of the frameworks for this study for three reasons. First, the researcher, a white male, was determined to interpret the findings through a theoretical filter that was positioned from within black philosophy and theory. Second, although multiple frameworks exist in African American studies, CRT offered a critical framework that would lead to deeper investigations of institutional or systemic narratives that were described by African American students in predominantly white systems. Third, CRT had already crossed over from legal studies and proven to benefit educational studies as can be seen through the works of Ladson-Billings, Tate IV, and others. In sum, as a social critique movement of intentional and unintentional racism, especially in terms of educational institutions, CRT offered the appropriate theoretical framework through which this phenomenological study was to be examined.
