Rocky Mountain Collective on Race, Place & Law
The Rocky Mountain Collective on Race, Place, and Law (RPL), formed in 2013, is a group of Colorado legal academics and administrators working together to identify and address racial inequities in the U.S. and around the globe. We offer a critical lens on the complex dynamics of power, locality, and law, and their impact on subordinated communities. As scholars rooted in critical legal theory, we recognize the intersectionality of all individuals. Through our teaching, scholarship and activism we aim to expose and challenge law’s role in perpetuating inequities based on race, class and gender and other sources of disadvantage. We employ our collective efforts and expertise to effect change and pursue social justice.
RPL Celebrated Its Ten-Year Anniversary in 2023!
To commemorate this occasion, the Denver Law Review published six essays by RPL members Rashmi Goel, Katherine Steefel, Alexi Freeman, Lindsey Webb, Roberto L. Corrada, and Tom I. Romero, II, reflecting on RPL's first decade.
Statement of Principles
The following principles inform our teaching, scholarship, activism, and organization
- Antiessentialism – We resist attributing particular sets of traits to particular groups, or to individual members of those groups.
- Antisubordination – We are concerned about subordination, power, and substantive justice, rather than mere formal equal treatment.
- Globalism – We believe that subordination is both a local and a global phenomenon, and that our principles and values can inform and be informed by subordinated communities, both domestically and internationally.
- Hegemony – We believe that power works not only directly and coercively but also hegemonically – that power affects the ways people perceive “reality” as well as their understandings of what constitutes “knowledge” about the world.
- History – We believe that critical engagement with history is centrally important to understanding how power operates through race, gender, sexuality, and class to de-center and marginalize the lived experiences of subordinated peoples.
- Intersectionality – We recognize the multidimensionality of individual identity and the complex, mutually reinforcing relationships among systems of subordination.
- “Meritocracy” – We question the notion of “meritocracy,” and the assumption that standards of “merit” can be neutral under current social conditions.
- Multiplicity of Non-Whiteness – We recognize that non-whiteness takes many forms and has varied impacts.
- Praxis – We believe in doing as well as talking, in working to make real change in the world.
- Privilege – We believe that group-based privilege, such as race, class, gender, and heterosexual privilege, are pervasive in society.
RPL Activities
RPL sponsors events for the Denver Law community focused on advancing the social, legal, and historical understanding of race in the United States. RPL also hosts community building events, with the goals of creating connections, fostering inclusion in the legal academy, and responding to and addressing current events of significance to RPL's mission. RPL faculty members regularly teach and write on issues of race, place, and law, and courses such as the Critical Race Reading Seminar and Lawyering for Racial Justice are designed and taught by RPL members and offered regularly at Denver Law. RPL also provides funding for student events and other activities in alignment with RPL values. Students and others who are interested in co-sponsoring events with RPL or engaging in our work are welcome to contact us.
Recent representative events include:
Election Implications Panel
Annual RPL Welcome Reception
Movie Night: Origin
Joy as Resistance: Community Event
Reflection on Recent Supreme Court Rulings
