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Title: CRT Forward Project Director, UCLA School of Law, and Lecturer of Law, University of Southern California
Tenured: NoÂ
Age: 34
Education: B.S., legal studies, St. Johnâs University; LL.M., UCLA School of Law; and J.D., Georgetown University Law CenterÂ
Career mentors: Eloise Pasachoff, Georgetown University Law Center; Janel George, Georgetown University Law Center; Noah Zatz, UCLA School of Law; Dr. Laura Gomez, UCLA School of Law; and Ching Wen Rosa Yen, St. Johnâs University
Words of wisdom/advice for new faculty members: âYou belong here.â
Taifha Natalee Alexander lives her life by the guiding thought: would this make my mother, my husband, my sisters proud?
âAt my core, thatâs what drives and motivates me,â says Alexander.Â
Alexanderâs mother immigrated from Jamaica to Queens, New York, with hopes to give her children access to opportunities she never had. So, her recent and unexpected passing had a tremendous impact on Alexander.
âEven if the person youâre doing something for isnât around, itâs still important to try and live your life in a way that would make them proud,â says Alexander. âWithout [my motherâs] sacrifices, my sisters and I wouldnât have been able to achieve the things weâve been able to accomplish.â
Alexanderâs upbringing in Queens was far from easy. She calls the experience âformidable,â as she witnessed âmassive injustices as it related to police encounters,â particularly for Black and Brown youth in the borough.
âThings like that really shaped my understanding of the systems under which we are all operating,â says Alexander. âBut it wasnât until I went to St. Johnâs University in Queens for undergrad that my understanding of multiculturalism, the ideals of a multiracial democracy, began to forge my passions and interests and put me on the path to law school.â
Alexander is a lecturer of law at the University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law. She is the project director of Critical Race Theory (CRT) Forward, a database that, she says, identifies, tracks, and analyzes governmental actions or legislation âthat aim to restrict access to truthful information about race.â
CRT Forwardâs data have been used by parents, educators, and activists across the nation and globe as censorship laws spread.
âFolks can go on our website and see if a measure is pending at their local board. They can go in and submit comments over email or engage in an intentional way to say, âWe want our students to have access to truthful information about race and racism,ââ says Alexander.
Anti-CRT âarchitects,â adds Alexander, are hard at work manipulating the protective nature of parents. They are âwell aware of the power of the âmomma bear,ââ says Alexander.
âThereâs a lot of work that has to be done to disentangle the intentional misinformation and disinformation to help the momma bears realize that itâs not CRT or diversity, equity, and inclusion that are harming their children; itâs the ones feeding the misinformation that do that,â says Alexander. âI think thatâs where we need to start, building these bridges, helping folks understand the full scope and magnitude of these attacks and the architects of them.â
Noah Zatz, a professor of law and labor studies at USC, first met Alexander when she was a student in his Low-Wage Workers course. He says Alexanderâs work as a scholar and institution builder is helping to integrate racial justice into the foundation of organizations. Alexander, he adds, is unveiling how racial justice is either âfacilitated or constrained by the broader legal environment.â
âUnderstanding these initiatives is crucial to the ongoing struggle for a multi-racial democracy, as they have become a prime vehicle for backlash against the racial reckoning of 2020,â says Zatz. âEfforts to dismantle white supremacy are often recast legally as unfair to those who feel entitled to dominance.â
Alexander says she wants to âensure the magnitude and scope of anti-CRT campaigns does not continue to spread and frustrate studentsâ ability to gain access to the tools they need to address the most pressing social justice and racial issues of our time.â
âThese students have so many ideas and thoughts, interests, desires, and aspirations for what the world should be, and I consider it a professional honor to help manifest them in the spaces we occupy together,â she continues. âI really do take that into my role, allowing students to envision radical changes and use the law as a tool to create the world they want to live in. Thatâs been the honor of a lifetime.â Â