Teaching kids to hate America? Republicans want critical race theory out of schools – USA TODAY

Shortly after signing House Bill 1775, Governor Kevin Stitt released this video on Twitter explaining why he signed the bill into law. Oklahoman

Idaho's governor last week signed into law a bill whose purpose, at face value, is noncontroversial. The lawprohibits public schools and colleges from teaching that "any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior."

The catch?Baked into the legislation is an effort to stamp out conversations about race and equity. A dozen or so states including Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and West Virginia have introduced bills that would prohibit schools from teaching "divisive," "racist" or "sexist" concepts.

Critics warn these measures are part of a larger movement to draw Americas culture wars into classrooms. And this war centers on a once-obscure legal theory about how the legacy of slavery continues to permeateAmerican society today.

Teachers from Capital City Public Charter School in Northwest Washington and others decorate their school fence with yellow paper to spell the words Black Lives Matter on June 18, 2020. In an apparent backlash against the teaching of anti-racism lessons in schools, proposed legislation has cropped up in at least a dozen states attacking a once obscure legal premise critical race theory, which questions how the legacy of slavery still affects American society today.(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP)

Critical race theory goes beyond advocating for civil rights or banning discrimination. Proponents see it as a framework to examine how the taint of racism still affects Black Americans and other people of colorin matters ranging from who gets bank loans and admissioninto elite universitiesto how suspects are treated by police.

Detractors dismiss critical race theory as a method for teaching kids to hate their country or to promote public school wokeness.

But while such talking points play well among conservative media circles, political and legal experts contend they obscure more meaningful discussion about the role systemic racism plays in the American experience.

The bills seeking to prohibit the instruction of divisive concepts seldom mention critical race theory directly, but in many cases legislators have cited it as a driving force behind the measures.

Rhode Island state Rep. Patricia Morgan said critical race theory must be stopped while promoting a bill that purports to be about prohibiting the teaching of divisive concepts that can make individuals feel distress on account of their race or sex.(Photo: Patrick Anderson, Kris Craig, The Providence Journ)

In an April Facebook post promoting a billin Rhode Island that has since stalled in committee,state Rep. Patricia Morgan, a co-sponsor,wrote, "Critical Race Theory must be stopped." After quoting Martin Luther King Jr., she went on to say,"Our state must reject the neo-racism and race-shaming of Critical Race Theory. We have no time to waste in rooting out this disturbing, divisive and false ideology."

While discussing a new civics education initiative in Florida's public schools, Gov. Ron DeSantissaid, "Theres no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayermoney."

While promoting a new civics initiative, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out critical race theory as teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other.(Photo: Andrew West/The News-Press Part of the USA Today Network, The News-Press)

Overall, such legislation would better enable opponents to ensure that so-called ideology doesn't fester in institutions such as schools, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, has said in his newsletter. "Our movement to abolish critical race theory indoctrination in public schools," he wrote in one issue,"has caught fire."

The bills' language reflects many conservatives' view that critical race theory portrays the United States as a racist country, that certain people are "inherently oppressive" and that those people are accountable for the sins committed by their predecessors. In their interpretation, the theory seeks to make particular individuals namely, white people feel uncomfortable and guilty abouttheir race.

This was the premise of former President Donald Trump's executive order banning diversity trainings for federal workers a directive that garnered lawsuits, wasblocked by a federal judge and was eventually rescinded by President Joe Biden.

"They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, its a racist place," Trump said during the first presidential debate. "And they were teaching people to hate our country."

The ideas behind critical race theory were developed in the 1970s by a group of legal scholars who became interested in how anti-discrimination law wasnt addressing the persistent inequalities they were seeing, said Adrienne Dixson,a professor of critical race theory and education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The recent wave of attention on critical race theory didnt start with Trump but rather became crystalized during his administration, Dixson said. Former President Barack Obama's election "was shocking and traumatic for people who always imagined the U.S. as a white nation, she added, and since then, theres been a profound ignorance about what critical race theory really is.

Adrienne Dixson is a professor of education policy and critical race theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(Photo: Adrienne Dixson)

Interest in the topic has grown over the past year, fueled in partbyBlack Lives Matter activism following the murder ofGeorge Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.Google search trends show a spike this spring.

In some states, political debates have erupted over the role and design of racial justice-minded education.In March, activistslaunched a national,largely conservativegrassroots organization called Parents Defending Education aimed at resisting what members believe areactivists and ideologues "pumping divisive, polarizing ideas into classrooms," according to the group's literature.

Much of the group's advocacy focuses on challenging curriculabased on the 1619 Project,a series of stories by The New York Timesin 2019 that frames U.S. history within the context of slavery. (A separate series of state bills have also sought topunish schools for incorporating the project into lesson plans.)

A recent poll by Parents Defending Educationfoundmore than two-thirds of respondents "opposed schools teaching that America was founded on racism and is structurally racist." Close to 3 in4respondents said schools shouldn't teach students that white people are inherently privileged and people of colorinherently oppressed.

The group has taken to filingfederal civil rights complaints against districts that say structural racism plays a role in schools. The complaintsin cities such as Columbus, Ohio;Hopkins, Minnesota;Webster Groves, Missouri; and Hillsborough, North Carolina, contend such admissions amount to districts violatingfederal anti-discrimination law, which should void theirfederal funding.

"We would like the Department of Education to investigate these incidents in order to determine whether these allegationsare true and if so, how best to remedy the situation to prevent future discrimination by that district," Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told USA TODAY in March.

Educators who study critical race theory see value in teaching about America's history with slavery and discrimination. But Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Fordham Institute, is concerned about the growing trend of anti-racism lessons in schools.

Pondiscio doesnt oppose the founding principles of critical race theory.But hesays teachers can better combat systemic racismbysetting high expectations for all students, using a rigorous and rich curriculum and focusing on literacy notideologies.

Whenever you have a phenomenon like this that people dont fully understand, itll be ripe for demagoguery,he said in an interview.

Legislation targeting critical race theory isnt the answer, he added.

Robert Pondiscio is senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.(Photo: Robert Pondiscio)

People make the assumption that you can pass a law and it changes what gets taught, he said. That's not how it works.

The legislation also raises free-speech concerns, said Emerson Sykes, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union'sSpeech, Privacy and Technology Project.

"The underlying impetus for these bills is antithetical to the free-speech values that many of these legislators claim to hold dear," he said, adding that the ACLU is in the process of evaluating its litigation options in response to the bills.

Sykes said the proposals are a form of prior restraint "censorship before someone has even had the opportunity to speak" and called inserting schools intocontroversial political debatesand mandating that teachers take a side is "hugelyproblematic."

The pushback has received its own pushback, prompting some of the bills including New Hampshire's to stall or die in committee. Others are proceeding at full speed.

Iowa's Department of Education had to postpone a conference related to social justice and equity in schools in anticipation of that state's bill being signed into law,Iowa Public Radio reported.Officials decided to put off the event until the fall.

In Idaho, Republican representatives said they wouldn't support a bill related to educators' salaries unless it alsoincluded lines reflecting the state's critical race theory-related legislation and banned schools from incorporating social justice into their teaching.

Non-legislative efforts to oppose critical race theory in schools have unfolded as well, including political task forces, campaign initiatives and school board debates.

In Anchorage, Alaska, the school board's move to adopt anti-racism policies drew criticism from one member who argued the measures would usher critical race theory into lesson plans. In California, activists launched a fight against both critical race theory and ethnic studies in schools. In April, theysued the San Diego Unified School District, claiming it'sunlawfully training educators in critical race theory.

In Texas,critical race theory's potential as a political lightning rod became clear following aDallas-areaschool district's efforts to soothe feelings after a viral TikTok video showed agroup of white teens shouting racial slurs.

School board meetings grew heated afterthe Carroll Independent School Districtcreated a diversity council thatdrafteda plan aimed at making its classrooms anti-racist. At one meeting,a Black student and member of the newdiversity council was booed after testifying"my life matters," according to the Dallas Morning News.

This month, opponents of the planwon a handful of seats including the mayor's office and positions on the school board in an election that garnered record-high voter turnout.

Their victory was described by The Federalist, a conservative online magazine, as a harbinger of "a new cultural Tea Party." It marks"an escalating movement to reclaim K-12 schools infected by the racism of critical race theory," the publication wrote.

In that kind of political climate, critical race theory has become a rallying cryto stoke conservative voters' fears, saidthe University of IllinoisDixson even though the theory was originally intended to advocate forthe same principles the legislation attacking it purports to promote.

What critical race theory doesnt do is indict entire races of people and blame the inequality on all white people, Dixson said. I dont know that any school teaches critical race theory in the way that these [legislators] interpret it.

Contributing: Jessica Guynn

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Teaching kids to hate America? Republicans want critical race theory out of schools - USA TODAY