An Inclusive Litany

10/19/98

In a 1989 article published in the Stanford Law Review, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic note that library indexing systems lack entries for such terms as hegemony, legitimation, and false consciousness. Far from a mere oversight, they conclude this represents a replication of the dominant culture's hierarchy of values, and serves to hinder transformative academic movements such as Critical Race Theory. They note approvingly that a radical feminist friend blamed her difficulties in researching a particular feminist topic on index categories "rooted in the structure of male-dominated law."