Classroom lessons on race, diversity trainings, and debate over “systemic racism” is the latest flashpoint in the culture war. Parents and lawmakers are pushing back, and some are being punished for it.
Summary
In New Hampshire, a budget bill passed with restrictions on the use and promotion of Critical Race Theory.
- Meanwhile in Wisconsin, a group of GOP lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban the teaching of tenets closely related to Critical Race Theory such as “that a person is inherently racist by virtue of his or her race or sex.”
- In Kentucky, a bill was introduced that would prevent teachers from saying America is “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.”
- Georgia’s state Board of Education passed a resolution declaring slavery to be a “deviation” from American founding principles. The resolution contains no changes to curriculum standards or guidelines.
- Outside of classroom, a viral video in which a Black man and his apparently biracial daughter disparaging Critical Race Theory is making headlines. The video’s stars say “race does not play a factor” in one’s future or creates a predetermined narrative, and that “children do not see skin color”, and “Critical Race Theory wants to end that.
- While not addressing Critical Race Theory for some time, Vox did at least partially blame race inequality on lack of broadband access, the ending of supplemental unemployment benefits, and vaccine hesitancy.
- The New York Times reported on comments former Vice President Mike Pence made during a speech in New Hampshire in which he criticized Critical Race Theory and the Black Lives Matter movement, characterizing it as part of “an energetic campaign” “to dictate how historical and modern racism in America is taught.”
- NPR’s reporting on Critical Race Theory controversies called it “a stand-in for larger anxiety” and quoted academic Andrew Hartman who said “I’m not really sure that the conservatives know what it is” and a sociology professor who decried conservatives’ invoking Martin Luther King Jr’s call for a colorblind society.
- Reporting from OAN highlighted local efforts nationwide in which parents are “joining forces” with educators to stop Critical Race Theory’s use in school curricula, including one parent who may be sued by her daughter’s school district after filing a public records request for the district’s curriculum.
- The Federalist covered the mandate that Critical Race Theory be used in Washington state, saying it’s not just “schools in Seattle, where you’d expect a victim-centered ideology” to be taught.
- In suburban DC, the New York Post reported on parents skeptical of Critical Race Theory’s use in classrooms being bullied, threatened, and called racist.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
