Friday’s Amanpour & Co. on PBS has the suffocating feel of a left-wing academic symposium, with a segment by host Christiane Amanpour on one of her favorite topics, the racism behind Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s dismantling of the harmful and racially discriminatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement in the military.
She went straight to the source, Kimberle Crenshaw, the woman who coined the academic term “intersectionality" -- in this context, the idea that black women face a double whammy of discrimination, both racism and sexism The idea broke academic containment, leaked into the outside world, leading to the current Oppression Olympics that the Trump Administration has worked to break down.
HOST CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: ….we begin with the Trump administration ramping up its crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blasted, quote, "the woke military" in his address to West Point graduates, while the Department of Justice is accusing both Yale and UCLA of illegally considering race in admissions to their medical schools. Many academics say this all goes beyond just admissions and hits right at the heart of who gets to belong in America. Our next guest is the renowned civil rights activist and law professor Kimberle Crenshaw. She coined the term intersectionality and helped spearhead critical race theory. Her new memoir, "Backtalker," traces her own personal journey growing up in Ohio during the Jim Crow era. And she's joining me now to discuss how she was inspired to speak truth to power and the importance of continuing to do so now….
Crenshaw was born in 1959, and the "Jim Crow era" ended in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Does anyone think Canton, Ohio is classic "Jim Crow" territory?
PBS host Christiane Amanpour: "….the Trump administration ramping up its crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion.... the renowned civil rights activist and law professor Kimberle Crenshaw...coined the term intersectionality and helped spearhead critical race theory." pic.twitter.com/I9qD3YNCXz
— Clay Waters 🇮🇱 (@claywaters44) June 1, 2026
Amanpour accused Hegseth of having “cracked down on black recruits and officers, on female recruits and officers, on and on.”
The DEI guru Crenshaw matched Amanpour’s leftist energy.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW, PROFESSOR OF LAW, COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL AND PROFESSOR OF LAW, UCLA: This administration has made a promise, and they're acting on it. When you say you want to make America great again, and that moment that you're trying to take us back to was a moment before most of us had rights, before there were laws against discrimination, really before the military was even fully integrated, then that tells you that the goal that they are pursuing is to recreate precisely that image, precisely that reality….
AMANPOUR: ….Do you think these people, these leaders, who want to, as you say, roll back history, give it back to when white men were supreme in the United States, is there any way they can actually make that work? Because they're rolling back voters' rights, you've got the gerrymandering, rolling back all sorts of elements of the Civil Rights Act. There's a lot going on in this regard.
Amanpour piled on the administration.
AMANPOUR: ….you're very famous for coining the term intersectionality. Right now, there's not just a racial pushback, but there's a misogyny, there's an anti-feminism pushback, anti-women pushback….
Crenshaw turned her ire on the Supreme Court, singling out black conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and relitigating his 1991 confirmation hearings.
CRENSHAW: If we look at how our democracy has been undermined by money in politics and how our democracy has been undermined by the collapse of the Voting Rights Act, these were Supreme Court decisions that were narrow decisions, five, four decisions that were made possible by a particular justice that was confirmed because of what I call a huge intersectional failure. That's Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed when our country was unable to hear, listen, and affirm the story of a black woman. So, not only is intersectionality important so that black women can be heard, women of color can be heard, intersectionality is important for us to understand what the interests are of the nation as a whole. And when we failed her, and I could come up with other black women who have been failed, we have all lost as a nation.
Amanpour eagerly chimed in.
AMANPOUR: You know, I know you're talking about Anita Hill. I know you supported her. You know her well. Legally, you supported her, as well. And yes, that was a pivotal moment….
