![handle is hein.journals/bulron101 and id is 1 raw text is: AN INTRODUCTION TO
CRITICAL LEGAL RESEARCH: THE NEXT WAVE
RONALD E. WHEELER*
This symposium continues and sustains the exchange of ideas initiated at a
panel presentation offered at the 2021 American Association of Law Schools
(AALS) Annual Meeting in January 2021. The panel was titled Critical Legal
Research: The Next Wave,' and here we advance and extend that conversation
with written contributions from the panelists.
The symposium and panel are outgrowths of truly organic collaboration that
sprang from the passion for critical legal research felt by both the panel's
honorees-Professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic-and an exceptional
group of academic law librarian scholars-Yasmin Sokkar Harker, Julie
Krishnaswami, Grace Lo, Nicholas Mignanelli, and Nicholas F. Stump. Indeed
their passion for Critical Race Theory and its potential impact on the law-and
also, necessarily, on legal research-has stood the test of time by maintaining
its power and its appeal to all those who struggle against the oppressive forces
that permeate and sustain our economic and social order. Thirty years after
Delgado and Stefancic first exposed these radical ideas to the light of day, the
torch has been passed to a new generation of lawyers, legal academics, law
librarians, and scholars.
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION
I want to begin with a very personal story in the tradition of the honorees of
the Critical Legal Research: The Next Wave panel discussion. The year is 1987,
and the location is Ann Arbor, Michigan. After receiving my Bachelor of Arts
in Accounting, I moved from my family home in Detroit to Ann Arbor to attend
the University of Michigan Law School. Me! The black, gay man with the
Artist Formerly Known as Prince haircut that cascaded downward over one of
my eyes. Admittedly, I had quite a look.
Yet, I was ready to be inspired; to be intellectually challenged; to discover
ways of interpreting and applying the law that made sense; to learn legal tools
that I could apply to my experiences growing up in Detroit, to those of my
* Director of the Fineman and Pappas Law Libraries & Associate Professor of Law and
Legal Research, Boston University School of Law.
' AALS Open Source Program, Ass'N AM. L. SCHs., https://memberaccess.aals.org
/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=SesDetails&seskey=c00d4e33-ef02-4409-b610-
af5b65258b9b [https://perma.cc/QVA5-2X23] (last visited Mar. 30, 2021).
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/bulron101&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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