Foreword: revisioning the constellations of critical race theory, law and economics, and empirical scholarship.

• Author: Freshman, Clark
• Position: Symposium on 'Pervasive Prejudice?' by Ian Ayres and 'Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory' by Francisco Valdes, Jerome McCristal Culp and Angela P. Harris

PERVASIVE PREJUDICE? UNCONVENTIONAL EVIDENCE OF RACE AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION. By Ian Ayres. ** Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. 433 pp. + xi.

CROSSROADS, DIRECTIONS, AND A NEW CRITICAL RACE THEORY. Edited by Francisco Valdes, ([dagger]) Jerome McCristal Culp ([double dagger]) & Angela P. Harris. ([section]) Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. 414 pp. + xxi.

The individual reviews that follow speak largely for themselves, but the concept of this Symposium may seem to demand some brief explanation. Partly the explanation that follows explains how the Symposium evolved, and partly it offers one perspective on some lessons from the Symposium.

It's hard to say exactly where the idea for pairing the latest critical race theory (CRT) collection and Ian Ayres's collection of empirical studies of inequality first began. In some ways, it springs from a simple feeling and intuition: These are good books by good people about an important topic, so what might connect them? As I posed this question to many fellow scholars and teachers, new motivations arose as well. Many people were rather shocked that one could even try to pair the two works. Some could see one book only as law and economics, the other as CRT, and the two movements as somehow inherently and profoundly antagonistic. Given the tenor of published criticism of both, this reaction is easy enough to understand.

It's also easy enough to understand given the experiences I have had since I first began law school. As a student, my small section at Stanford had as professors both Patricia Williams, often thought of as one of the founders of CRT, and Mark Kelman, who often applied law and economics principles with a critical legal studies twist. Our section soon seemed as divided as Northern and Southern California: Many of us loved one, and had far less fuzzy feelings about the other. And yet some of us, including myself, found ourselves fascinated by both--much as some of us grew to love all of California.

So, too, since I left law school, I came to better know how the other contributors to this Symposium also found themselves drawn to practices and works that others habitually saw as different, and often antagonistic, schools of thought. In the case of Kevin Haynes, that has meant many years of transactional lawyering practice, years of graduate training in American literature and literary theory, and, when we were both at Stanford, editing the huge Stanford symposium on women of color and the law. For Rachel Moran, this has meant applying law and economics in her teaching, exploring her experiences as one of the only women of color at Boalt Law School (and the University of California at Berkeley generally), and enriching her scholarship with insights from psychology, economics, and literature. (1) For Mary Anne Case, among many other...