Even though there is no clear definition of exactly what “critical race theory” (CRT) is – see my November 18th OK, OK, It’s Really Bad… But What is It? blog – statutes and regulations in a whole lot of red states make teaching CRT illegal with all sorts of penalties. Generally, the concept seems to be anchored in a clearly false belief that systematic racism in the United States ended with the civil rights Supreme Court rulings and federal legislation beginning with the 1954 school integration case, Brown vs Board of Education, and the subsequent racially directed federal legislation (e.g., the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, etc.) as well as the judicial embellishments. Further, current members of the incumbent population can no longer be blamed for our ignominious past. Statistics prove otherwise, but to most red states these numbers are inconvenient truths to be ignored. They are not accorded the dignity of being “facts.” Guess where the Black Lives Movement sits in this continuum.
Florida’s approach, which applies to public schools, is fairly typical of such anti-CRT rules: “After hours of debate and public comment [in June of 2021], the Florida State Board of Education unanimously approved the amendment banning critical race theory. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed much of the board, spoke ahead of the meeting, saying critical race theory would teach children ‘the country is rotten and that our institutions are illegitimate… That is not worth any taxpayer dollars,’ he said.
“The amendment states topics must be ‘factual and objective,’ and specifically prohibits ‘the teaching of Critical Race Theory, meaning the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.’… In a statement posted to Twitter, DeSantis said the amendment protects students from being ‘indoctrinated to think a certain way,’ mirroring language used by other states and locales that have made similar moves.” CNN.com, June 10th. The bans also frequently deal with the notion of “gender fluidity” and with the presentation of current events.
As school boards issue guidelines without much in the way of clarity, books are being purged from school curricula and libraries, non-compliant public school districts/individual public schools face defunding, and individual teachers face loss of pay and outright discharge for cause. It seems almost impossible for a teacher to helm a down-and-dirty, garden variety civics class without violating these new rules. All of the states that ban CRT are also openly passing voter restriction laws and imposing exclusionary redistricting that rather clearly minimize the voting power of minority – read “people of color” – voters.
These philosophical restrictions result in highly politicalizing teaching, Trumpist visions in red states and liberal views in blue, even as to dramatically important current events continue to dominate the news. For example, even the January 6, 2021 “insurrection”… er “protest” or…. er “exercise of free speech” U.S. Capitol… er… “event.” Writing for the January 10th Associated Press, Heather Hollingsworth explains how this anti-democratic wave of regulations impact daily classroom instruction: “What students are learning about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol may depend on where they live.
“In a suburb of Boston in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, history teacher Justin Voldman said his students spent the day journaling about what happened and talking about the fragility of democracy… ‘I feel really strongly that this needs to be talked about,’ said Voldman, who teaches history at Natick High School, 15 miles west of Boston. The grandson of a Holocaust survivor, he said ‘it is fair to draw parallels between what happened on Jan. 6 and the rise of fascism.’… Voldman said he feels fortunate: ‘There are other parts of the country where ... I would be scared to be a teacher.’
“Liz Wagner, an eighth- and ninth-grade social studies teacher in a Des Moines suburb in increasingly Republican Iowa, last year got an email from an administrator warning teachers to be careful about how they framed the discussion… ‘I guess I was so — I don’t know if ‘naive’ is the appropriate word, perhaps exhausted, from the pandemic teaching year last year, to understand how controversial this was going to be,’ she said… Some students questioned Wagner last year when she referred to what happened as an insurrection. She responded by having them read the dictionary definition for the word.” White supremacist parents are quick to come down on local teachers who violate their view of a racist-free America.
Beyond the questionable and apparent violation of the First Amendment, a battle that will fill courtrooms for the foreseeable future, teachers are genuinely deeply concerned about what to teach. Some have avoided entire historical eras – the Civil War and the Jim Crow era in particular. Their confusion and frustration are evident, as Hollingsworth illustrates: “With crowds shouting at school board meetings and political action committees investing millions of dollars in races to elect conservative candidates across the country, discussions with students about what happened on Jan. 6 are increasingly fraught.
“Teachers now are left to decide how — or whether — to instruct students about the events that sit at the heart of the country’s division. And the lessons sometimes vary based on whether they are in a red or blue state…. Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit that helps teachers with difficult lessons on subjects like the Holocaust, offered tips on how to broach the topic with students in the hours after the riot.
“Within 18 hours of publication, the guide had 100,000 page views — a level of interest that Abby Weiss, who oversees the development of the nonprofit’s teaching tools, said was unlike any the group had seen before… In the year that has followed, Weiss said, Republican lawmakers and governors in many states have championed legislation to limit the teaching of material that explores how race and racism influence American politics, culture and law…. ‘Teachers are anxious,’ she said. ‘On the face of it, if you read the laws, they’re quite vague and, you know, hard to know actually what’s permissible and what isn’t.’”
Red states were already losing droves of qualified teachers by failing to impose rules that would reasonably protect them against the novel coronavirus. These news anti—CRT rules are only making public school teacher retention that much more difficult. The political impact on impressionable students is beyond obvious.
I’m Peter Dekom, and we have effectively made teachers our frontline soldiers in the Republican “culture wars.”
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