from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, May 11th.

With us now one of the most influential American thinkers of the last 40 years with her new memoir,

and you know she's influential both by the number of people she has made think differently about things and the

backlash she has drawn for doing so. Among other things in her career, Columbia and UCLA law

professor Kimberly Crenshaw, Kimberly Williams Crenshaw, gave us the terms critical race theory and intersectionality.

President Trump and the movement he represents are on a mission to erase those words from public

discourse as much as possible.

Here's just one example.

An executive order last year about artificial intelligence models that can be used by federal agencies. It says those models,

quote, shall be neutral, nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor of ideological

dogmas such as DEI. By the way, it didn't mention any ideological dogmas of the right, but it

continues in the AI context, DEI includes incorporation of concepts like

critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, you can't say unconscious bias,

intersectionality and systemic racism, and discrimination on the basis of race or sex, unquote, from that Trump

executive order.

And that's so broad, right?

Trying to ban even the concept of discrimination on the basis of race or sex in the president's

words.

But as you heard, he also included intersectionality and critical race theory on that list. So a little context

of the moment. The book is called Backtalker, an American memoir. It's Kimberly Williams-Krenshaw's

life story, including how she was shaped by some traumas early in her life, and with great detail

of how critical race theory and intersectionality

...