Randall Kennedy

He was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and grew up in Washington, D.C., because his parents were afraid for their future in South Carolina; he has said his family history profoundly shaped his views on race.⁠[1]

He was born in 1954, four months after the Supreme Court decided BrownBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry v. Board of Education; during his childhood summers in South Carolina, local officials closed the public parks rather than desegregate them.⁠[2]

He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry in 1977, studied at the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry as a Rhodes Scholar, and received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1982.⁠[3]

He clerked for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, and is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court.⁠[4]

He has been a member of the Harvard Law School faculty since 1984.⁠[5]

In the Harvard Law Review he published “Racial Critiques of Legal Academia,” which credited critical race theory with raising questions that had received little attention but argued that its writings failed to support persuasively claims that scholars of color were excluded or produced a racially distinctive brand of scholarship.⁠[6]

The article appeared in volume 102 of the Harvard Law Review in 1989, when he was an assistant professor at Harvard Law School.⁠[7]

Derrick Bell wrote that he had urged Kennedy not to publish the article, fearing it would be used against the cause of racial justice, and that it was hailed by white critics of critical race theory but condemned by most Black scholars.⁠[8]

He served as a Princeton University trustee from 1994 to 1998 and again from 2005 until early 2016.⁠[3]

Race, Crime, and the Law, published in May 1997, acknowledged discrimination against minorities by prosecutors, judges and police but argued that white racism had genuinely declined in recent decades; he also criticized Paul Butler for urging Black jurors to protest racism by acquitting some clearly guilty Black defendants.⁠[9]

The book won the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.⁠[4]

In a Summer 1998 essay in New Politics, Derrick Bell criticized the book, arguing that Kennedy cast himself as a neutral commentator while in effect apologizing for the system, and faulting his reliance on stereotypes of Black people.⁠[8]

In 2002 Pantheon published his N*****: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, which traces the origins and meanings of the slur against African Americans and the legal and cultural controversies surrounding it.⁠[10]

He explained that the word is an important part of the history of American racism and that knowing it helps people understand that history; he called it presumptively a bad word but said it can also be used to document racism or be “defanged.”⁠[11]

In February 2002 he began a three-month promotional tour at the Penn Bookstore; the audience was divided, with some saying they were not convinced, and he said he was glad of the discussion the book provoked.⁠[12]

That year HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry government professor Martin Kilson wrote in the online periodical The Black Commentator that the book had set off racial incidents at Harvard Law School and that its title was commercially motivated; Kennedy replied that Kilson did not know his motives and had not checked the facts, noting that he had led a discussion with the student section concerned.⁠[13]

In 2003 Pantheon published Interracial Intimacies, five years in the making, which examines the history and law of interracial sex, marriage and family in the United States; he argued that parentless children should be placed with adoptive parents as quickly as possible without regard to race.⁠[14]

A chapter on “passing” takes what he called a “somewhat sympathetic” view, and he said anger should be directed at the social system.⁠[15]

In 2008 Pantheon published his Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, which explores the meanings and history of accusations of “selling out” among Black Americans, discussing figures such as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama, with a case study of Clarence Thomas.⁠[16]

Kirkus Reviews noted his conclusion that Thomas had proven less the “quintessential sellout” than his critics feared.⁠[17]

The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, published in 2011, argued that Obama’s election did not signal a post-racial era; he described himself as a center-left admirer of the president.⁠[18]

He called Obama’s election an extraordinary landmark in the history of Black-white race relations but said there were important continuities: “Are we in a completely different environment? No, we’re not.”⁠[19]

For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, published in September 2013, defends affirmative action; he wrote that he himself had benefited from it and argued that ending it prematurely would be a “major calamity.”⁠[20]

In the book he criticized the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action rulings as marked by ambivalence and inconsistency, while voicing some reservations about the policy.⁠[21]

In 2019, when Harvard Law School professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. was criticized for joining Harvey Weinstein’s defense team, Sullivan’s email to Winthrop House residents attached pieces defending him by faculty including Kennedy.⁠[22]

In October 2020 the Harvard Law Review republished the article as one of five classic critical race theory pieces; he said, “I stand by the key arguments.”⁠[6]

Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture, published in September 2021, collects nearly 30 essays from three decades and traces how he abandoned what he had called “mandatory optimism” and grew pessimistic about racial progress.⁠[2]

In the book he defends using the N-word “for pedagogical purposes” and criticizes “antiracism gone awry.”⁠[23]

In it he called Clarence Thomas “a Republican apparatchik,” while also pushing back against critical race theory in legal studies, speech restrictions and police abolition.⁠[24]

At a book talk he said he had defended Thomas in Sellout but “changed my mind,” calling the 2013 Shelby County voting-rights decision a turning point; former Justice Stephen Breyer, in the audience, said Thomas’s personal history should be weighed, and Kennedy replied that his criticism was confined to Thomas’s official actions.⁠[25]

Responding to those who call him a “Black conservative,” he said he favors radically redistributing wealth and opportunity, and that his ambitions had shrunk from “racial equality” to “racial decency.”⁠[1]

His views have drawn criticism from both left and right; in a January 2022 interview he said government must guarantee everyone a decent standard of living even if that means raising taxes dramatically.⁠[26]

He appeared on episode 379 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, whose description calls him a Harvard law professor and author of many books on race, law, history, culture and politics; topics included the N-word, education, critical race theory, racism and policing, racial profiling, affirmative action and Martin Luther King Jr.⁠[27]

In June 2023 the Supreme Court ruled that colleges may not consider race in admissions. He has long championed “sensibly designed racial affirmative action,” arguing that on balance it is conducive to the public good and partially redresses social wrongs suffered by marginalized groups.⁠[28]

In an essay published in The Harvard Crimson and republished by Persuasion in May 2024, he argued against requiring DEI statements in academic hiring, arguing that they amount to “pledges of allegiance,” lean toward academic leftism and threaten academic freedom, while stressing that universities have a duty to act against discriminatory conduct.⁠[29]

As of October 2026 he is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, teaching contracts, criminal law and the regulation of race relations.⁠[4]

He also writes for the London Review of Books.⁠[30]

Harvard Law School: Official website: https://hls.harvard.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[27]

Princeton University: Official website: https://www.princeton.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[15]