Add to ORKGIn this Essay, David Trubek looks back from the viewpoint of a participant and observer at the events that led to the founding of Critical Race Theory. He notes that the formation of CRT was stimulated by resistance to demands for a black perspective at the Harvard Law School, facilitated both by CLS and the University of Wisconsin Law School, and crystalized in reaction to concerns that CLS might not welcome a racebased critique. He reviews the claim that CRT had to split from CLS because of alleged hostility to the idea of an independent race-based analysis of American law concluding that while this image of CLS may have been useful to the organizers of CRT, it was not an accurate picture of CLS views on race