>> reporter: can you tell me what critical-race theory is? >> no. >> critical-race theory? >> reporter: critical-race theory. >> no. i don't know. >> guessing or not. across the country, a number of politicians are getting it wrong. >> critical-race theory a marxist doctrine that rejects the vision of martin luther king jr. >> absolutely, false. >> it's basically teaching kids to hate our country, and to hate each other, based on race. >> false. and slanderous. >> reporter: meet professor and scholar, kimberly crenshaw. crenshaw is one of the founders of critical-race theory, which she helped develop in the late 1980s. in short, critical-race theory is an approach, based on the idea that the history of white supremacy, still, has a very real and lasting impact on our society and institutions, today. >> critical-race theory just says, let's pay attention to