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Please feel free to add resources directly into this padlet.
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Or you can email resources to me at kleechez@gmail.com
Online articles/reports are white.
Books are orange.
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Videos are purple.
Primary sources are red.

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STUDENTS PICKET LAW COURSE IN RIGHTS PROTEST AT HARVARD

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STUDENTS PICKET LAW COURSE IN RIGHTS PROTEST AT HARVARD

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

Students today picketed the opening session of a course at Harvard Law School taught by two prominent civil rights lawyers, one black and one white.

About 50 students, most of them white, held signs and stood quietly as fellow classmates walked into an amphitheater classroom for the civil rights course.

The Harvard Black Law Students Association organized a boycott of the class to protest the law school's record in recruiting black teachers.

But some Harvard administrators say the students are protesting because the course is taught in part by Jack Greenberg, a white lawyer who is executive director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. 'Real Issue' Obscured

''This is not a personal attack on Jack Greenberg,'' said Kim Crenshaw, a law student from Canton, Ohio. ''This whole charge of reverse racism has done what it was intended to - to obscure the real issue.''

She and other students say the real issue is the racial makeup of the law school's faculty. The 60 professors who have tenure include one black and one woman. Another black and four other women are on the untenured faculty.

Thirty-six students, including one black, attended the first class, but many of them waited until the picket line dispersed before entering the classroom. Harvard officials said that 50 or 60 students, including several blacks, had signed up for the course.

The dispute began last summer after Harvard asked Julius LeVonne Chambers, a black who is president of the legal fund, to teach an intensive, three-week civil rights course. He said he could not handle the whole course and suggested that Mr. Greenberg take part of the responsibility.

The black students' group and the Third World Coalition voted to boycott the course, and Dean James Vorenburg released a series of letters between Mr. Chambers, Mr. Greenberg and Muhammed Kenyatta, president of the black students' group.

Mr. Kenyatta said in a letter to Mr. Chambers that his group wanted the course ''taught in its entirety by a minority professor, most preferably a full-time professor.'' Dean Says Boycott Is Wrong

In a letter to students, Dean Vorenburg said, ''To boycott a course on racial discrimination because part of it is taught by a white lawyer is wrong in principle and works against, not for, shared goals of racial and social justice.''

Mr. Greenberg, one of the nation's top civil rights lawyers, became chief of the NAACP fund in 1961 when he succeeded Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Supreme Court Justice.

The civil rights course was taught for several years by Derrick Bell, a black professor who resigned in 1980 to become dean of the University of Oregon Law School.

''The issue is not that this is taught by a white person,'' said Lito Copeley of Somerville, Mass., who was on the picket line today. ''This of all courses should have been taught by a minority person in line for a tenured position.''

Neither Mr. Greenberg nor Mr. Chambers has expressed interest in teaching at Harvard full time.

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STUDENTS PICKET LAW COURSE IN RIGHTS PROTEST AT HARVARD (Published 1983)

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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BOOK - Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement by Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, & Garry Peller (May 1, 1996)

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BOOK - Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement by Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, & Garry Peller (May 1, 1996)

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Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement a book by Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, and Garry Peller

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What is Critical Race Theory and why is it under fire from the political right? This foundational essay collection, which defines key terms and includes case studies, is the essential work to understand the intellectual movement Why did the president of the United States, in the midst of a pandemic…

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"In the meantime, all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on "critical race theory/9 "white privilege," or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. "

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On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered.

This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.

Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow, back to war.⚔️

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On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered.

This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.

Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow, back to war.⚔️ https://t.co/W11n933geR

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
The days of taxpayer funded indoctrination trainings that sow division and racism are over. Under the direction of @POTUS we are directing agencies to halt critical race theory trainings immediately.

https://t.co/dyMeJka9rt

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On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered.

This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.

Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow, back to war.⚔️ https://t.co/W11n933geR
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) September 5, 2020

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On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered.

This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.

Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow, back to war.⚔️ https://t.co/W11n933geR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.includes.tweets[].text
The days of taxpayer funded indoctrination trainings that sow division and racism are over. Under the direction of @POTUS we are directing agencies to halt critical race theory trainings immediately.

https://t.co/dyMeJka9rt

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered.

This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.

Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow, back to war.⚔️ https://t.co/W11n933geR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered.

This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.

Tonight, we celebrate; tomorrow, back to war.⚔️

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
The days of taxpayer funded indoctrination trainings that sow division and racism are over. Under the direction of @POTUS we are directing agencies to halt critical race theory trainings immediately.

https://t.co/dyMeJka9rt

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Trump Calls for ‘Patriotic Education’ to Defend American History From the Left (September 17, 2020)

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Trump Calls for ‘Patriotic Education’ to Defend American History From the Left (September 17, 2020)

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"The president focused much of his speech on his claim that American schools have become infected with revisionist ideas about the nation’s founding and history, producing a new generation of “Marxist” activists and adherents of “critical race theory” who believe American society to be fundamentally racist and wicked — and who have taken to the streets in recent month"

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At the National Archives Museum, the president warned against a "radical movement" that has emerged from "decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools."

President Trump said Thursday at the National Archives Museum that he would promote a new "pro-American" school curriculum. Credit... Oliver Contreras for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - President Trump escalated his attacks on "left-wing demonstrators" and "far-left mobs" on Thursday, portraying himself as a defender of American heritage against revolutionary fanatics and arguing for a new "pro-American" curriculum in the nation's schools.

Speaking at the National Archives Museum, Mr. Trump vowed to counter what he called an emerging classroom narrative that "America is a wicked and racist nation," and he said he would create a new "1776 Commission" to help "restore patriotic education to our schools." The president reiterated his condemnations of demonstrators who tear down monuments to historical American figures, and he even sought to link the Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to the removal of a founding father's statue in Mr. Biden's home state, Delaware.

"Our heroes will never be forgotten," Mr. Trump said. "Our youth will be taught to love America."

Since the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, in police custody in May in Minneapolis, and the protests that followed nationwide, the president has seized on cultural issues and has sounded many of the same themes - notably including at a showyIndependence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore.

Since then, his vision of a Democratic Party hijacked by anti-American Marxists has become a core theme of his campaign. But he elevated the concepts on Thursday by delivering them in the august setting of the National Archives Museum, standing before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in what was billed as the first "White House Conference on American History."

The event was held on Constitution Day, the anniversary of the document's signing in 1787. Mr. Trump said it reflected "centuries of tradition, wisdom and experience."

"Yet as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance," he added.

The president focused much of his speech on his claim that American schools have become infected with revisionist ideas about the nation's founding and history, producing a new generation of "Marxist" activists and adherents of "critical race theory" who believe American society to be fundamentally racist and wicked - and who have taken to the streets in recent months.

Mr. Trump said that "left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools," adding that "it's gone on far too long." He boasted that the National Endowment for the Humanities "has awarded a grant to support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation's great history."

Douglas Brinkley, a historian at Rice University, said that conservatives have long been angry at what they see as a growing emphasis in American public schools on themes of civil rights at the expense of more traditional historical narratives, mainly those revolving around white men.

"I think Donald Trump sees the cultural wars as a pathway to victory," Mr. Brinkley added. But, he said, "what he sees as a cultural war is just trying to open up the narrative to other peoples' experiences - not just white males."

Mr. Trump gave his remarks a campaign twist when he promised to include a statue of Caesar Rodney, who rode 70 miles to Philadelphia in 1776 to cast a tiebreaking vote to declare independence, in a national statuary garden to honor "American heroes" whose creation he ordered in July. Mr. Biden, he charged, "said nothing as to his home state's history and the fact that it was dismantled and dismembered.

"And a founding father's statue was removed," the president added.

Denouncing "propaganda tracts" that "try to make students ashamed of their own history," Mr. Trump singled out The New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project, named for the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in the Virginia colony, and which reframes American history around the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans. The project, whose lead author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, has been incorporated into a curriculum and is taught in many schools across the United States.

Mr. Trump said the project in fact "rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Mr. Trump continued, saying that the United States' founding "set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal and prosperous nation in human history."

A Times spokeswoman, Danielle Rhoades Ha, described the 1619 Project as "landmark, groundbreaking journalism."

"It deepened many readers' understanding of the nation's past and forced an important conversation about the lingering effects of slavery, and its centrality to America's story," she said in a statement. "We are proud of it and will continue this vital journalism."

Seemingly as a counterpoint, Mr. Trump said that he would soon sign an executive order to create the 1776 Commission, named after the year the American colonies declared their independence. He said the commission would promote a "patriotic education" and "encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding."

William R. Ferris, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina and a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, criticized Mr. Trump for "treating historians just as he treats scientists - by disregarding our very best voices who have written on American history and race."

Mr. Ferris said that creating a new commission to promote American history makes little sense. "We already have institutions like the National Archives and others that preserve and promote our nation's history," he said. "I would encourage him to request congressional support for the existing programs at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and the National Endowment for the Humanities."

"They do a good job with very little funding, and I know they would welcome his strong support to expand those budgets," Mr. Ferris said.

Mr. Trump's speech also singled out the doctrine of critical race theory, the view that the law and other societal institutions are based on socially constructed theories of race that benefit white people. He called the theory "a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed."

"Critical race theory is being forced into our children's schools, it's being imposed into workplace trainings, and it's being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors and families," Mr. Trump said.

In what he called an example of critical race theory in action, the president condemned the Smithsonian Institution for publishing online a description of "whiteness" that included the concepts of rational thinking, hard work and the nuclear family.

"This is offensive and outrageous to Americans of every ethnicity, and it is especially harmful to children of minority backgrounds who should be uplifted, not disparaged," Mr. Trump said. "Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words."

The president did not offer more detail, but he appeared to be referring to a graphic removed from the website of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture last month after criticism from conservatives, including Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son.

"Our 'Talking About Race' website was designed to help people talk about racial identity, racism and the way these forces shape every aspect of society," said Linda St. Thomas, the chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution. "We removed a graphic that did not contribute to productive discussions."

This month, Mr. Trump directed administration officials to halt or revise racial sensitivity training programs that he deemed "divisive" and "un-American propaganda," and he threatened on Twitter to cut off federal education funding to California over the state's incorporation of the 1619 Project in its public school curriculum.

Hours after extolling the United States' iconic heroes, Mr. Trump missed a ceremony honoring a major one. He was absent from the dedication of a new memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington. That was unusual: President Bill Clinton dedicated a memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt, President George W. Bush dedicated one to World War II, and President Barack Obama dedicated one to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Trump instead left town for a campaign rally in Wisconsin.

Peter Baker contributed reporting.

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Trump Calls for 'Patriotic Education' to Defend American History From the Left (Published 2020)

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At the National Archives Museum, the president warned against a "radical movement" that has emerged from "decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools." WASHINGTON - President Trump escalated his attacks on "left-wing demonstrators" and "far-left mobs" on Thursday, portraying himself as a defender of American heritage against revolutionary fanatics and arguing for a new "pro-American" curriculum in the nation's schools.

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Executive Order Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (September 28, 2020)

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Executive Order Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (September 28, 2020)

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Executive Order 13950 of September 22, 2020

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, 40 U.S.C. 101 et seq., and in order to promote economy and efficiency in Federal contracting, to promote unity in the Federal workforce, and to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. From the battlefield of Gettysburg to the bus boycott in Montgomery and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, heroic Americans have valiantly risked their lives to ensure that their children would grow up in a Nation living out its creed, expressed in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." It was this belief in the inherent equality of every individual that inspired the Founding generation to risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish a new Nation, unique among the countries of the world. President Abraham Lincoln understood that this belief is "the electric cord" that "links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving" people, no matter their race or country of origin. It is the belief that inspired the heroic black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment to defend that same Union at great cost in the Civil War. And it is what inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to dream that his children would one day "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Thanks to the courage and sacrifice of our forebears, America has made significant progress toward realization of our national creed, particularly in the 57 years since Dr. King shared his dream with the country.

Today, however, many people are pushing a different vision of America that is grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual. This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.

This destructive ideology is grounded in misrepresentations of our country's history and its role in the world. Although presented as new and revolutionary, they resurrect the discredited notions of the nineteenth century's apologists for slavery who, like President Lincoln's rival Stephen A. Douglas, maintained that our government "was made on the white basis" "by white men, for the benefit of white men." Our Founding documents rejected these racialized views of America, which were soundly defeated on the blood-stained battlefields of the Civil War. Yet they are now being repackaged and sold as cutting-edge insights. They are designed to divide us and to prevent us from uniting as one people in pursuit of one common destiny for our great country.

Training materials from Argonne National Laboratories, a Federal entity, stated that racism "is interwoven into every fabric of America" and described statements like "color blindness" and the "meritocracy" as "actions of bias."

Materials from Sandia National Laboratories, also a Federal entity, for non-minority males stated that an emphasis on "rationality over emotionality" was a characteristic of "white male[s]," and asked those present to "acknowledge" their "privilege" to each other.

A Smithsonian Institution museum graphic recently claimed that concepts like "[o]bjective, rational linear thinking," "[h]ard work" being "the key to success," the "nuclear family," and belief in a single god are not values that unite Americans of all races but are instead "aspects and assumptions of whiteness." The museum also stated that "[f]acing your whiteness is hard and can result in feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear."

All of this is contrary to the fundamental premises underpinning our Republic: that all individuals are created equal and should be allowed an equal opportunity under the law to pursue happiness and prosper based on individual merit.

Executive departments and agencies (agencies), our Uniformed Services, Federal contractors, and Federal grant recipients should, of course, continue to foster environments devoid of hostility grounded in race, sex, and other federally protected characteristics. Training employees to create an inclusive workplace is appropriate and beneficial. The Federal Government is, and must always be, committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals before the law.

But training like that discussed above perpetuates racial stereotypes and division and can use subtle coercive pressure to ensure conformity of viewpoint. Such ideas may be fashionable in the academy, but they have no place in programs and activities supported by Federal taxpayer dollars. Research also suggests that blame-focused diversity training reinforces biases and decreases opportunities for minorities.

Our Federal civil service system is based on merit principles. These principles, codified at 5 U.S.C. 2301, call for all employees to "receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to" race or sex "and with proper regard for their . . . constitutional rights." Instructing Federal employees that treating individuals on the basis of individual merit is racist or sexist directly undermines our Merit System Principles and impairs the efficiency of the Federal service. Similarly, our Uniformed Services should not teach our heroic men and women in uniform the lie that the country for which they are willing to die is fundamentally racist. Such teachings could directly threaten the cohesion and effectiveness of our Uniformed Services.

Therefore, it shall be the policy of the United States not to promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating in the Federal workforce or in the Uniformed Services, and not to allow grant funds to be used for these purposes. In addition, Federal contractors will not be permitted to inculcate such views in their employees.

Sec. 2. Definitions. For the purposes of this order, the phrase:

(a) "Divisive concepts" means the concepts that (1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist; (3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (6) an individual's moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race. The term "divisive concepts" also includes any other form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating.

(b) "Race or sex stereotyping" means ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or sex, or to an individual because of his or her race or sex.

(c) "Race or sex scapegoating" means assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex. It similarly encompasses any claim that, consciously or unconsciously, and by virtue of his or her race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others, or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others.

(d) "Senior political appointee" means an individual appointed by the President, or a non-career member of the Senior Executive Service (or agency-equivalent system).

Sec. 3. Requirements for the United States Uniformed Services. The United States Uniformed Services, including the United States Armed Forces, shall not teach, instruct, or train any member of the United States Uniformed Services, whether serving on active duty, serving on reserve duty, attending a military service academy, or attending courses conducted by a military department pursuant to a Reserve Officer Corps Training program, to believe any of the divisive concepts set forth in section 2(a) of this order. No member of the United States Uniformed Services shall face any penalty or discrimination on account of his or her refusal to support, believe, endorse, embrace, confess, act upon, or otherwise assent to these concepts.

Sec. 4. Requirements for Government Contractors. (a) Except in contracts exempted in the manner provided by section 204 of Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965 (Equal Employment Opportunity), as amended, all Government contracting agencies shall include in every Government contract hereafter entered into the following provisions:

"During the performance of this contract, the contractor agrees as follows:

2. The contractor will send to each labor union or representative of workers with which he has a collective bargaining agreement or other contract or understanding, a notice, to be provided by the agency contracting officer, advising the labor union or workers' representative of the contractor's commitments under the Executive Order of September 22, 2020, entitled Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, and shall post copies of the notice in conspicuous places available to employees and applicants for employment.

3. In the event of the contractor's noncompliance with the requirements of paragraphs (1), (2), and (4), or with any rules, regulations, or orders that may be promulgated in accordance with the Executive Order of September 22, 2020, this contract may be canceled, terminated, or suspended in whole or in part and the contractor may be declared ineligible for further Government contracts in accordance with procedures authorized in Executive Order 11246, and such other sanctions may be imposed and remedies invoked as provided by any rules, regulations, or orders the Secretary of Labor has issued or adopted pursuant to Executive Order 11246, including subpart D of that order.

4. The contractor will include the provisions of paragraphs (1) through (4) in every subcontract or purchase order unless exempted by rules, regulations, or orders of the Secretary of Labor, so that such provisions will be binding upon each subcontractor or vendor. The contractor will take such action with respect to any subcontract or purchase order as may be directed by the Secretary of Labor as a means of enforcing such provisions including sanctions for noncompliance: Provided, however, that in the event the contractor becomes involved in, or is threatened with, litigation with a subcontractor or vendor as a result of such direction, the contractor may request the United States to enter into such litigation to protect the interests of the United States."

(b) The Department of Labor is directed, through the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), to establish a hotline and investigate complaints received under both this order as well as Executive Order 11246 alleging that a Federal contractor is utilizing such training programs in violation of the contractor's obligations under those orders. The Department shall take appropriate enforcement action and provide remedial relief, as appropriate.

(c) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Director of OFCCP shall publish in the Federal Register a request for information seeking information from Federal contractors, Federal subcontractors, and employees of Federal contractors and subcontractors regarding the training, workshops, or similar programming provided to employees. The request for information should request copies of any training, workshop, or similar programing having to do with diversity and inclusion as well as information about the duration, frequency, and expense of such activities.

Sec. 5. Requirements for Federal Grants. The heads of all agencies shall review their respective grant programs and identify programs for which the agency may, as a condition of receiving such a grant, require the recipient to certify that it will not use Federal funds to promote the concepts that Start Printed Page 60687 (a) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (b) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (c) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (d) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (e) an individual's moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (f) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (g) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (h) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the heads of agencies shall each submit a report to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that lists all grant programs so identified.

Sec. 6. Requirements for Agencies. (a) The fair and equal treatment of individuals is an inviolable principle that must be maintained in the Federal workplace. Agencies should continue all training that will foster a workplace that is respectful of all employees. Accordingly:

(i) The head of each agency shall use his or her authority under 5 U.S.C. 301, 302, and 4103 to ensure that the agency, agency employees while on duty status, and any contractors hired by the agency to provide training, workshops, forums, or similar programming (for purposes of this section, "training") to agency employees do not teach, advocate, act upon, or promote in any training to agency employees any of the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order. Agencies may consult with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 4116, in carrying out this provision; and

(ii) Agency diversity and inclusion efforts shall, first and foremost, encourage agency employees not to judge each other by their color, race, ethnicity, sex, or any other characteristic protected by Federal law.

(b) The Director of OPM shall propose regulations providing that agency officials with supervisory authority over a supervisor or an employee with responsibility for promoting diversity and inclusion, if such supervisor or employee either authorizes or approves training that promotes the divisive concepts set forth in section 2(a) of this order, shall take appropriate steps to pursue a performance-based adverse action proceeding against such supervisor or employee under chapter 43 or 75 of title 5, United States Code.

(c) Each agency head shall:

(i) issue an order incorporating the requirements of this order into agency operations, including by making compliance with this order a provision in all agency contracts for diversity training;

(ii) request that the agency inspector general thoroughly review and assess by the end of the calendar year, and not less than annually thereafter, agency compliance with the requirements of this order in the form of a report submitted to OMB; and

(iii) assign at least one senior political appointee responsibility for ensuring compliance with the requirements of this order.

Sec. 7. OMB and OPM Review of Agency Training. (a) Consistent with OPM's authority under 5 U.S.C. 4115-4118, all training programs for agency employees relating to diversity or inclusion shall, before being used, be reviewed by OPM for compliance with the requirements of section 6 of this order.

(c) Within 90 days of the date of this order, each agency shall report to OMB all spending in Fiscal Year 2020 on Federal employee training programs relating to diversity or inclusion, whether conducted internally or by contractors. Such report shall, in addition to providing aggregate totals, delineate awards to each individual contractor.

(d) The Directors of OMB and OPM may jointly issue guidance and directives pertaining to agency obligations under, and ensuring compliance with, this order.

Sec. 8. Title VII Guidance. The Attorney General should continue to assess the extent to which workplace training that teaches the divisive concepts set forth in section 2(a) of this order may contribute to a hostile work environment and give rise to potential liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. If appropriate, the Attorney General and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shall issue publicly available guidance to assist employers in better promoting diversity and inclusive workplaces consistent with Title VII.

Sec. 9. Effective Date. This order is effective immediately, except that the requirements of section 4 of this order shall apply to contracts entered into 60 days after the date of this order.

Sec. 10. General Provisions. (a) This order does not prevent agencies, the United States Uniformed Services, or contractors from promoting racial, cultural, or ethnic diversity or inclusiveness, provided such efforts are consistent with the requirements of this order.

(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to prohibit discussing, as part of a larger course of academic instruction, the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order in an objective manner and without endorsement.

(c) If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

(d) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(e) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(f) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE, September 22, 2020. Filed 9-25-20; 8:45 am]

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government federal register executive rulings notices

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Executive Order 13950 of September 22, 2020 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, 40 U.S.C.

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Executive order silences speech, UI leaders say, following decision to suspend diversity training under White House threat to cut funding (October 9, 2020)

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Executive order silences speech, UI leaders say, following decision to suspend diversity training under White House threat to cut funding (October 9, 2020)

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On Thursday, university President Bruce Harreld and other administrators acknowledged that the decision to pause trainings has raised questions on campus about free speech.
"We have heard from many on our campus regarding the chilling effect of Executive Order 13950 — and we agree with you," the statement reads. "The history of racism and discrimination in our nation is an unquestioned fact, and we must face that as a society if we are to become a stronger country."
In the same statement, administrators said that it would be "irresponsible" to not realize the potential impact of the executive order on the university. UI currently has 923 active projects that rely on federal funding. In fiscal year 2020, the university received $346,721,973 in federal dollars for sponsored projects.

Statement from President Bruce Harreld
https://now.uiowa.edu/2020/10/message-regarding-executive-order-13950?utm_source=IANowFaculty&utm_medium=exec_order_message&utm_campaign=IANowFaculty-10-8-2020

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Executive order silences speech, UI leaders say, following decision to suspend diversity training under White House threat to cut funding

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UI has paused diversity and equity trainings that could be found in noncompliance with a new executive order from President Donald Trump.

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Las Vegas charter school sued for curriculum covering race, identity - Jan 21, 2021

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Las Vegas charter school sued for curriculum covering race, identity - Jan 21, 2021

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A Black mom is accusing a Las Vegas charter school of creating a hostile learning environment for her white-passing son by requiring him to participate in the school’s social justice curriculum.

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A Black mom is accusing a Las Vegas charter school of creating a hostile learning environment for her white-passing son by requiring him to participate in the school's social justice curriculum.

In the federal lawsuit, Gabrielle Clark and her son, William Clark, allege that Democracy Prep at the Agassi Campus violated the high school senior's First Amendment rights by "repeatedly compelling his speech involving intimate matters of race, gender, sexuality and religion" during a required civics class. New York-based attorney Jonathan O'Brien is representing the Clarks. Marquis Aurbach Coffing is the Las Vegas-based firm serving as local counsel. The lawsuit was filed Dec. 22 in the U.S. District Court of Nevada.

The Nevada State Public Charter School Authority, which oversees the charter school, is named as a defendant along with Democracy Prep - as are the civics teacher, several school administrators, the school's board of directors and the school's Manhattan-based charter management organization, Democracy Prep Public Schools.

The lawsuit has already garnered national attention, particularly among right-wing commentators who are critical of critical race theory and the concept of white privilege. The lawsuit is also receiving an assist from the International Organization of Families, an Illinois-based nonprofit whose work under the project name World Congress of Families has been designated an anti-LGBT extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

IOF is not directly involved or directly financing the Democracy Prep lawsuit, says O'Brien, but is instead providing an online platform for crowdfunding. O'Brien says that step was necessary because established crowdfunding platforms, including CrowdJustice.com, rejected him because the issue at hand is "too disagreeable."

The lawsuit centers around Sociology of Change, a yearlong mandatory class for seniors at Democracy Prep. The Clarks allege that assignments in the course required students to reveal their race, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities and then determine if privilege or oppression is attached to those identities. The class, which was conducted virtually due to the ongoing pandemic, also included breakout discussions which the plaintiffs say students could opt out of but still created a "psychologically abusive dilemma" and a "hostile educational environment."

"William Clark was compelled to participate in public professions of his racial, religious, sexual, and gender identities, and would be labeled as an "oppressor" on these bases," reads the court filing.

O'Brien calls it "coercive."

"It serves no apparent pedagogical purpose," he says.

William Clark is described in the lawsuit as having "green eyes and blondish hair" and "generally regarded as white by his peers." William's mother, Gabrielle, is Black and his deceased father was white, according to court documents.

Kathryn Bass, the Democracy Prep Sociology of Change teacher, is white, according to a classroom slide included in court documents.

Democracy Prep's student body is 63.8 percent Black, 30.2 percent Hispanic and 2.2 percent white, according to the state's K-12 data portal.

Gabrielle Clark, in an email to the charter school's board of directors quoted within court documents, wrote: "My son is the only white student in this class, as far as we can tell. This teacher is blatantly justifying racism against white people thereby putting my son in emotional, psychological, and physical danger. This is not ok."

At immediate stake is William Clark's graduation.

The Clarks accuse Democracy Prep of refusing to accommodate the student's "conscientious objection" to the course material by changing his grade or allowing him to take an alternative course. The plaintiffs are asking for the court to enjoin the school from denying William a high school diploma and accommodate him with "an alternative non-discriminatory, non-confessional class."

They also want the court to declare that requiring students to reveal racial, sexual, gender and religious identities in a public-school classroom and in graded assignments is unconstitutional.

In a written statement provided to the , Princess Lyles, vice president of external affairs for Democracy Prep Public Schools, said the charter school network would not comment on pending litigation but "intends to defend itself vigorously in court."

"Democracy Prep stands firmly against racism," her statement continued. "Our curriculum teaches students about American democracy and movements for social change throughout our history. We strongly disagree with how the curriculum has been characterized in this filing."

The State Public Charter School Authority also does not comment on pending litigation.

Democracy Prep has been lauded by the Charter School Authority for making anti-racism a top priority at the school. The Charter School Authority and its board have said equity is a top priority for charter schools, whose students bodies are on average whiter and more affluent than the K-12 system at large.

Democracy Prep Executive Director Adam Johnson, who is also named as a defendant in the Clarks' lawsuit, appeared before the Charter School Board in early December for a presentation on the school's commitment to equity. He highlighted the school's efforts to diversify its boards and noted the school was providing anti-racism training to all employees.

Johnson did not address curriculum, but presentation materials from that meeting note the school intends to "design antiracist curriculum for all content areas."

Johnson told board members that the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the spring and summer of 2020 inspired the charter school to explore systematic oppression in schools. In the fall, the school unveiled a new five-year strategic plan naming anti-racism as its top priority.

The high-profile deaths of those Black Americans brought increased national attention to the issue of systemic racism and heightened calls for more training on issues like implicit bias. But that has come with pushback.

O'Brien says last summer he encountered "a lot of parents with cases (like the Clarks) but no lawyer. ... This was an issue people were talking about but not doing anything about. I offered to help parents and that's how the Clarks got in touch with me. There weren't any lawyers willing to put their neck out on this issue."

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Las Vegas charter school sued for curriculum covering race, identity - Nevada Current

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A Black mom is accusing a Las Vegas charter school of creating a hostile learning environment for her white-passing son by requiring him to participate in the school's social justice curriculum. In the federal lawsuit, Gabrielle Clark and her son, William Clark, allege that Democracy Prep at the Agassi Campus violated the high school senior's [...]

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BOOK - The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee (February 16, 2021)

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BOOK - The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee (February 16, 2021)

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The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together a book by Heather McGhee

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LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone--not just for people of color. WI…

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What Students Are Saying About Race and Racism in America - February 28, 2021

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What Students Are Saying About Race and Racism in America - February 28, 2021

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Iowa House passes bill seeking to ban 'divisive' school, university, government diversity trainings (March 17, 2021)

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Iowa House passes bill seeking to ban 'divisive' school, university, government diversity trainings (March 17, 2021)

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House Republicans and Democrats tangled on topics of racism, sexism and freedom of speech for more than three hours as they debated a bill that would keep Iowa's state and local governments from allowing certain "divisive concepts" to be part of their diversity and sensitivity trainings.

Republicans said the bill would specifically prohibit concepts that stem from critical race theory, which they criticized as racist in its own way, but Democrats said it will have a chilling effect on needed discussions about issues like structural racism and implicit bias.

"I reject absolutely and with great enthusiasm the idea that we must adopt racist ideology - and scapegoat races of people, marking each individual as either 'oppressor' or 'oppressed' - in order to stop racism and foster inclusiveness," said Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, the floor manager of the bill, during the Tuesday debate.

Holt and other Republicans quoted Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech from the floor multiple times as they worked to pass the bill, House File 802, on a 59-38 party-line vote, saying they believe trainings should encourage people to judge one another on their character, not preconceived notions based on their skin color.

But Democrat after Democrat on Tuesday stood to speak in opposition the bill, with many saying the bill lacks clarity and goes against Republicans' push for other "free speech" issues this session.
More: Ames school leaders defend Black Lives Matter week; one Iowa lawmaker called it an 'abuse of power'
"We can't say on one hand we want freedom of speech, on another hand ... say we want to hear both sides - then stifle those sides," said Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, one of six Black lawmakers in the House.

Iowa House Republicans' proposal, which includes many of the same elements as a proposal the Senate passed last week, initially only covered trainings at public schools and colleges. House Republicans expanded it Tuesday to also include trainings offered for state, city and county governments.

Abdul-Samad and other lawmakers of color, from both parties, spoke passionately from the floor Tuesday about some of their own personal experiences with racism.

Rep. Henry Stone, R-Forest City, who became Iowa's first Asian American legislator earlier this year, said he has been called a number of racial slurs while growing up in the United States.

"It sickens me that we have to deal with those issues, and this is 2021. I completely support diversity, and diversity training, but my problem is, how are we teaching diversity? How are we conducting diversity training?" he said.

Rep. Phyllis Thede, D-Bettendorf, said issues like systematic racism and implicit bias need to be discussed openly.

"I understand all of these terms because I have experienced them," said Thede, who is Black. "We must talk about these terms in order for us to learn and grow."

Bill resembles blocked Trump executive order

The effort by state legislators echoes a now-reversed executive order that former President Donald Trump signed last year to oppose diversity trainings that use critical race theory, which teaches that racism is interwoven into America's government and other institutions. A federal judge later blocked the order, and President Joe Biden rescinded it after he took office in January.

Following the signing of the Trump order, groups around the country began reviewing and at times suspending their diversity and inclusion training programs. T he University of Iowa was among those temporarily suspending diversity training.

"that the state of Iowa is fundamentally racist or sexist'"

"that an individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;"

that anyone should "feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress" because of their race or sex.

The Iowa bill includes a lengthy definition of concepts considered divisive, many of them similar to Trump's order. Among those banned concepts are:
More: Bill advances to ban use of 1619 Project in Iowa schools to teach about slavery
The full impact that the bill would have on trainings across Iowa's cities, counties and educational institutions remains unclear. Many Democrats said that the bill, like Trump's order, could have a chilling effect on current sensitivity trainings. But Republicans argued that the bill doesn't outlaw diversity trainings and also doesn't fully limit conversations on sensitive topics.

Rep. Ras Smith, D-Waterloo, specifically asked Holt during debate if terms like white privilege, unconscious bias or systemic racism, sexism or inequality would be considered "divisive."

Holt answered that the bill allows trainers to respond to questions about divisive concepts or teach them as part of a larger course of academic instruction. He said, for example, a diversity training instructor couldn't teach that America or Iowa is systematically racist but could discuss "areas and elements of our society where there is still systemic racism."

He said the intent is not to stifle robust discussions on race and later said that the bill is not meant not stop implicit bias training, including among police departments.

"You can't teach that everybody is X, Y, Z automatically - that the entire white race is this or that the entire United States of America is this - but you can certainly have discussions about all, I believe, of these issues," he said.
More: Can Iowa legally penalize social media companies for 'censorship'? Here are the issues at play
Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, who has worked as a diversity educator, said having intentional discussions about those concepts is important, and he believes the bill would create confusion about what schools can teach and could dissuade opportunities.

"Many have acknowledged that racism, sexism, etc., does exist, and the tool to combat that is not to give it the Voldemort treatment," he said. "It's to be able to have focused, intentional discussions."

Rep. Christina Bohannan, D-Iowa City, said she believes the bill undermines the Legislature's credibility on free speech issues, making it look like the Legislature only cares about one side. Bohannan, a law professor at the University of Iowa, pointed to the First Amendment issues the Trump order raised.

"In fact, one federal court held that the executive order on which this bill was based did violate the First Amendment," she said.

Republicans say critical race theory goes too far; some call it 'Marxist,' 'racist'

Other Republicans who spoke about the bill Tuesday said the measure is necessary to prevent diversity training that goes too far.

Stone, the Forest City Republican, said he was born in Korea and experienced racism after moving to the U.S. He said he supports the bill because he doesn't believe that people Iowans are fundamentally racist.

"To say that we teach diversity by talking about that the United States and Iowa are fundamentally - which means at its root - and systemically racist or sexist, I don't believe that," he said. "I do not believe that fundamentally, that everyone in here that's sitting in here is a racist. I can't believe that."
More: Iowa bill would give property tax break to boost home improvements in formerly redlined neighborhoods
Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, said that critical race theory amounts to "cultural Marxism" and is in itself racist.

"It means one group of people, due to something they can't control, such as their skin or their gender, (are) oppressors, and other groups of people, due to something they can't control such as their skin or their gender, (are) the oppressed," he said. "There's no room or opportunity for looking at the content of people's characters or other factors, just skin color or gender."

Other Republicans shared similar concerns. Rep. Jeff Shipley, R-Fairfield, said he also believes the term "white privilege" is "racist on its face" because it judges people based on their skin color, "just as Dr. Martin Luther King advised people not to do."

House, Senate take different approaches to 'divisive concepts' bill

Last week, the Senate passed its own version of the legislation, Senate File 478, by a 33-14 vote, with four Democrats joining Republicans in support. The Senate bill as passed does not include as expansive a definition of "divisive concepts" nor put state, city and county governments under the requirements, meaning the two chambers have yet to come to an agreement on the language.
Ian Richardson covers the Iowa Statehouse for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at irichardson@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8254, or on Twitter at @DMRIanR.
In the Senate, some Democrats supported the measures, saying they would not affect the way Iowa's institutions currently operate.

During debate, Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said he supported the Senate bill because he has confirmed it would not affect the existing trainings at Iowa's universities, colleges and schools. He said the bill still gives trainers the opportunity to respond to questions about concepts, and the bill also does not affect academic instruction on those concepts as part of coursework.

University of Northern Iowa spokesman Steve Schmadeke confirmed to the Des Moines Register that the university does not believe any of its mandatory trainings would go against the restrictions in either the House or Senate's version of the bill. The University of Iowa and Iowa State University did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Senate bill also includes a mandate for First Amendment rights training at educational institutions and discipline for faculty members who restrict protected speech. Republicans in the House on Tuesday passed a bill with similar provisions, House File 744, on a 97-1 vote. Democratic Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, cast the sole dissenting vote.

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Iowa House passes bill seeking to ban 'divisive' school, university, government diversity trainings

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House Republicans and Democrats tangled on topics of racism, sexism and freedom of speech for more than three hours as they debated a bill that would keep Iowa's state and local governments from allowing certain "divisive concepts" to be part of their diversity and sensitivity trainings.

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NORTH CAROLINA HOUSE BILL 324 (March 18, 2021)

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NORTH CAROLINA HOUSE BILL 324 (March 18, 2021)

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Throughout Trial Over George Floyd’s Death, Killings by Police Mount - April 17, 2021

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Throughout Trial Over George Floyd’s Death, Killings by Police Mount - April 17, 2021

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Since testimony in Derek Chauvin’s trial began on March 29, more than three people a day have died at the hands of law enforcement.

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Protesters marching in the wake of the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was killed by the police in Brooklyn Center, Minn. Credit... Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Since testimony in Derek Chauvin's trial began on March 29, more than three people a day have died at the hands of law enforcement.

Protesters marching in the wake of the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was killed by the police in Brooklyn Center, Minn. Credit... Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

MINNEAPOLIS - Just seven hours before prosecutors opened their case against Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, a Chicago officer chased down a 13-year-old boy in a West Side alley and fatally shot him as he turned with his hands up.

One day later, at a hotel in Jacksonville, Fla., officers fatally shot a 32-year-old man, who, the police say, grabbed one of their Tasers. The day after that,as an eyewitness to Mr. Floyd's death broke down in a Minneapolis courtroom while recounting what he saw, a 40-year-old mentally ill man who said he was being harassed by voices was killed in Claremont, N.H., in a shootout with the state police.

On every day that followed, all the way through the close of testimony, another person was killed by the police somewhere in the United States.

The trial has forced a traumatized country to relive the gruesome death of Mr. Floyd beneath Mr. Chauvin's knee. But even as Americans continue to process that case - and anxiously wait for a verdict - new cases of people killed by the police mount unabated.

Video

Back

transcript

From Rodney King to George Floyd: Reliving the Scars of Police Violence

The murder trial of Derek Chauvin is at the center of a national reckoning on race and policing. But cycles of protests over systemic racism and policing are not new. We watched the trial with the families of Rodney King, Oscar Grant and Stephon Clark to see this moment in history through their eyes.

"May it please the court. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good morning. The video evidence, I think, will be very helpful and meaningful to you because you can see it for yourself without lawyer talk, lawyer spin, lawyer anything. You can see it for yourself." "Please. Please. I can't breathe. Please, man. Please somebody help me. Please. I'm about to die in this thing." "Oh my God." "What did he say?" "He said, I'm about to die. Oh my God." "While watching the George Floyd trial, I noticed the differences and the importance of footage." "This corner -" "When Stephon was murdered, we only had the officers' footage. We only had their point of view." "Hey, show your hands." "You know, when my son was killed being on the platform, there was several bystanders that filmed. And had it not been for the cameras, we wouldn't even be here today because they would have probably said it was justified." "Bro, with your feet on his head, man. You knee on his neck." "He's pushing harder." "Yeah." "I cannot breathe." "A little bit more. Right here." "I don't watch the footage of my dad's incident because it's torture." "You see the officers giving a trove of blows to his body?" "Yes." "To his arms, to his torso, to his legs." "Here it is 30 years later, nothing has changed." "Now who are you going to believe? The defendants or your own eyes?" "I am watching the George Floyd case with my best friend, Tiffany, at her home." "Oh my gosh." "Wow." "And he's still on his neck." "Today was the first time I watched the entire video of George Floyd, and it definitely made me think about my dad begging for his life screaming." "Check his pulse. Check his pulse." "His daughter was the same age I was when my dad was beaten." "My name is Lora Dene King. I'm the middle child of Rodney Glen King." "The world saw the videotape." "We thought the video showed excessive force and unnecessary force." "With that videotape, if they had two eyes and they weren't blind, you could see that it was excessive force." "The defense tried to dilute the impact of the tape by dissecting it, frame by frame, in an effort to show that King was a threat to the officers." "He kind of gave out like a bear-like yell, like a wounded animal. If he had grabbed my officer, it would have been a death grip. If he had grabbed the weapon, he would have had numerous targets." "He didn't grab anybody during these events, did he?" "No sir, he did not." "He couldn't walk. He had 50 broken bones. His skull was permanently fractured. He had permanent brain damage. My dad was never the same after that. You know, and everybody just considered him to be normal. I think if that happened to anybody, they wouldn't be normal ever again." "This doesn't just affect the person it happened to. It also affects all those people who are out there watching it. They're all affected forever." "I was desperate to help." "I was just kind of emotional, and I went to the African-American that was standing there on the curb. And I was just like, they're not going to help them." "Oh my God." "This man, he witnessed another African-American man getting his life taken. The nine-year-old speaker on the trial." "Good morning, [inaudible]." "Good morning." "Which one is you?" "Just so happened to be walking down the street. She will never forget that for the rest of her life." "You ultimately ended up posting your video to social media, right?" "Correct." "And it went viral?" "Correct." "It changed your life, right?" "The girl who filmed George Floyd, the fact that there was nothing she can do to save his life." "It's been nights, I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more." "That's something that will haunt her like George Holliday, who captured my dad's video." "Without George Holliday, these four officers might not be on trial." "He just wanted to test this new camera he had. Like, oh let me take - he stood there shaking, terrified. And he still suffers to this day because that was the right thing to do." "What could he have done to deserve that?" "If I was to see George Floyd's daughter today, I wish there was something I can say. But it's not easy. It's not easy at all. Because I'm sure she's watched that videotape. And that's something that carries in your mental every everyday, just like my dad's video tape." "For the jury, a difficult decision ahead, knowing that to acquit the four officers could ignite this city." "Not guilty of -" Chanting: "No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace." "And damage to the city of Los Angeles running into billions of dollars." "That's what I'm saying. The police, they don't pay a cent for this trial. So my mother and I, we was watching the George Floyd's trial. And it brought back so many memories of my son Oscar's case. Oscar's last picture in his cellphone was of the officer who shot him." "My name is Wanda Johnson. I'm the mother of Oscar Grant." "Grant was shot once in the back as he lay face down on the train station's platform." "He was unarmed." "The 27-year-old officer has said he thought he had drawn his Taser gun -" "- but accidentally pulled out his handgun instead." "And the incident was captured on cellphone video." "Video speaks for themselves. And the jury will see that and make the correct decision." "We knew that we would have a very hard time winning in the court systems because the judicial system was not made for everyone in the society." "As the situation went on, the crowd began to grow and grow." "Oh my goodness, the same playbook that they used for what happened with Oscar, they used the same thing for George Floyd. Oh, there was a crowd of angry mob people." "They were behind them. There were people across the street, people yelling." "We don't know if they were going to attack us. I thought about the young man testifying in George Floyd's case." "You grew angrier and angrier." "Calling the police on the police." "911, what's the address of the emergency?" "How do you have somebody investigate those that they work with? Of course you're going to find that they're going to believe the people that they work with quicker than they will believe the citizens who are filing the complaint." "Would you like to speak with those sergeants?" "Yeah, I'd like to. He was unresponsive. He wasn't resisting arrest or any of this." "OK, one second." "Murderers, bro. Y'all are just murderers, bro." "You know, when we was going to jury trial for Oscar, they would ask questions like, 'Do you know anybody who went to jail? Do you know anybody who had an encounter with the police?' And as soon as the person said that, they would strike them from being a juror, right? Having a jury that consists of different backgrounds, it could help with the decision-making of innocent or guilty." "The 27-year-old officer -" "- pleaded not guilty to the murder charge." "His trial had been moved to Los Angeles over concerns of racial tension and intense media scrutiny." "Everybody, let's just pray for one minute." "Father God, we come to you and your son named Jesus Christ. Father, we ask the people that see this -" "Every time I come to my mom's house, I'm reminded that my son was killed here." "My name is Sequette Clark. I'm the mother of Stephon Clark." "22-year-old Stephon Clark was fatally shot while running from police." "Clark was see evading authorities after allegedly smashing a car window." "He was shot eight times in his grandmother's backyard." "Police apparently thinking he was holding a gun, now say it was a cellphone." "Out of fear for their own lives, they fired their service weapon." "And following the incident, officers manually muted their body cameras at times." "Move over this way." "As we watched the George Floyd trial, I invited particular members of my family because you can't address something in the community or the city or the nation until you address it at home with the family." "When Mr. Floyd was in distress, Mr. Chauvin wouldn't help him, didn't help him." "So that's just how they left my boy out there. They handcuffed him after he was dead." "Excessive force." "Excessive force and lethal force after the fact of death. I felt saddened, heavy, drained. I felt as if I was a slave 400 years ago. Just hearing how he was dead, seeing how he was dead. And then to turn around and hear the defense's attempt to bring up the fact that we should not focus on the -" "- 9 minutes and 29 seconds -" "- that it took to kill George Floyd. But we should focus on what went on ahead of that. Anything that does not deal directly with the murder of George Floyd is irrelevant in my opinion." "He's 6 to 6 and a half feet tall. You did not know that he had taken heroin. Mr. Floyd did use a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase a pack of cigarettes. Mr. Floyd put drugs in his mouth." "Poppa's already dead. George Floyd is already dead." "That's right. That's right." "So now you're resurrecting him just to kill him all over again." "Basically." "Defame him in order to justify the wrongdoing of your officers, reminded me exactly of what the district attorney did to Stephon." "The cellphone examination revealed a domestic violence incident that happened with the mother of his children. Texts and phone calls showing that he was seeking drugs and a photograph of his hand holding 10 Xanax pills." "What was on his cellphone has zero to do with the actions of the police officers at the time of his homicide. I feel like it's a bittersweet thing that's happening watching the George Floyd trial. Because I'm optimistic that this is a piece of justice for the death of my son." "We might not be here. They're going to get him. They're going to get him." "Was a crime committed? The answer to that question is no. And as a result, we will not charge these officers with any criminal liability related to the shooting death or the use of force of Stephon Clark." "April 14, 1991: King fights emotional and physical scars. So this is basically a photo album book of my dad's newspaper articles since he's been in the news. Years and years and years. You throw someone to the wolves and you expect them to be normal. You know, there's no such thing as normal after that. And then, can you imagine how many Rodney Kings there is that never got videotaped? There's plenty of them." "I would have prayed and hoped that Oscar's trial would have been televised because America has to really look in the mirror and say, 'Are all people being treated equally?'" "There was excessive use of force against George Floyd -" "We're not focused on the videotape, his toxicology, his heart condition. We're focused on the fact that several people witnessed this man get murdered." "You can see it with our own eyes. It's crazy." "People don't realize what it does to your family. It's bigger than just a trial and this officer. We never get to see them again. We never get to smell them again and kiss them again. Our lives are completely affected forever."

The murder trial of Derek Chauvin is at the center of a national reckoning on race and policing. But cycles of protests over systemic racism and policing are not new. We watched the trial with the families of Rodney King, Oscar Grant and Stephon Clark to see this moment in history through their eyes.

Since testimony began on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. As of Saturday, the average was more than three killings a day.

The deaths, culled by The New York Times from gun violence databases, news media accounts and law enforcement releases, offer a snapshot of policing in America in this moment. They testify not only to the danger and desperation that police officers confront daily, but also to the split-second choices and missteps by members of law enforcement that can escalate workaday arrests into fatalities.

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They are the result of domestic violence calls, traffic stops gone awry, standoffs and chases. The victims often behave erratically, some suffering from mental illness, and the sight of anything resembling a weapon causes things to escalate quickly.

And their fallout has been wrenchingly familiar, from the graphic videos that so often emerge to the protests that so often descend into scuffles between law enforcement and demonstrators on streets filled with tear gas. Just as one community confronts one killing, another happens.

Across the spectrum, from community activists to law enforcement personnel, there is emotional and mental exhaustion - and the feeling that the nation cannot get this right.

"How many more losses must we mourn?" Miski Noor, the co-executive director of the Minneapolis-based activist group Black Visions, said in a statement after the killing of Daunte Wright, 20, during a recent traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minn.

The pain of George Floyd's death "is still scarred into our minds and yet history continues to repeat itself," the statement continued. "Our community has reached its breaking point."

This past week the mayor of Chicago called for calm as "excruciating" body camera footage was released in the police killing of the 13-year-old, Adam Toledo. The shaky video shows a police officer, responding to a call of shots fired, chasing a boy with what appears to be a gun down an alley at night in a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

"Stop right now!" the officer screams while cursing. "Hands. Show me your hands. Drop it. Drop it." A single shot fells the boy as he turns, lifting his hands.

Other recent lethal force incidents have rocked communities large and small: Michael Leon Hughes, 32, a Black man shot to death on March 30 after, the police say, he used a Taser on a Jacksonville police officer responding to a domestic dispute in a motel; Iremamber Sykap, 16, a Pacific Islander killed on April 5 as he fled from the Honolulu police in a stolen Honda Civic; and Anthony Thompson Jr., 17, a Black teenager in Knoxville, Tenn., killed by the police on April 12 in a high school bathroom after reports that a student had brought a gun onto campus.

All of those killings and many more occurred as testimony in the Minneapolis trial unfolded, though few attracted as much national attention as the shooting of Mr. Wright less than 10 miles from the courthouse where Mr. Chauvin stood trial. Protests erupted in Brooklyn Center after a veteran police officer fatally shot Mr. Wright, saying she mistook her gun for her Taser, as he attempted to flee during a traffic stop.

Abigail Cerra, a Minneapolis civil rights lawyer and a member of the Minneapolis Police Conduct Oversight Commission, said it was unclear why the officers stopped him for an expired registration, an issue for many drivers in the state during the coronavirus pandemic.

But two aspects of the case, she said, were infuriatingly familiar: that Mr. Wright was Black, and that the police tasked with delivering him safely to the courts, where violations of the law are supposed to be adjudicated, effectively delivered a death sentence.

"It's just another example of a nothing offense escalated to lethality," Ms. Cerra said.

Though many of these killings have a familiar ring, it is unfair to blame them all on law enforcement, said Patrick Yoes, a retired sheriff's office captain and president of the national Fraternal Order of Police.

"In a lot of cities it has to do with people feeling hopeless," he said. "It's poverty, it's a failing education system. It's all of these things that are vitally important to stability of a community."

That instability often places officers in situations in which they confront individuals who may be dangerous and noncompliant, he said. Part of the reason society has been unable to prevent deadly encounters between law enforcement and the community is that some people are unwilling to discuss the real challenges of crime that officers sometimes encounter, he said.

"There's just so many factors that people have already made up their minds and they think that law enforcement is based off of race," said Mr. Yoes, who is white.

Federal and state laws generally hold that officers are justified in using lethal force as long as they have a "reasonable" fear of "imminent" injury or death for themselves or another person. And jurors tend not to second-guess what might be "reasonable" force in the moment.

Of the 64 fatal encounters compiled by The Times for the past three weeks, at least 42 involved people accused of wielding firearms. More than a dozen involved confrontations with people who were mentally ill or in the throes of a breakdown. And at least 10 arose as the police responded to reports of domestic violence.

Some dispute the notion that danger, rather than bias, is more likely to drive a law enforcement officer's reactions.

"What I see sometimes is in these encounters with people of color, there is a different aggression," said Ron Johnson, a retired Missouri State Highway Patrol captain who led the police response in Ferguson, Mo., after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014.

"This adrenaline starts going out of the roof," added Mr. Johnson, who is Black. "And why? It's because we don't have these experiences and these understandings of each other. And in some cases, it's about humanity. We don't see them in the same human way that we see ourselves."

Since at least 2013, with a slight dip because of the pandemic, about 1,100 people have been killed each year by law enforcement officers, according to databases compiled by Mapping Police Violence, a research and advocacy group that examines all such killings, including non-gun-related deaths such as Mr. Floyd's. The Washington Post, whose numbers are limited to police shootings, reflect a similarly flat trend line.

Nearly all of the victims since March 29 have been men, with Black or Latino people substantially overrepresented - a pattern that reflects broader criminal justice research. And most were under 30. Four were teenagers.

Philip Stinson, a professor in the criminal justice program at Bowling Green State University who studies civilian killings by members of law enforcement, said the most striking aspect of the statistics on lethal police force is how little the numbers have changed in the decade or two since researchers began to comprehensively track them.

Even as cellphone videos and body cameras make it harder to hide human error and abuses of authority by law enforcement - and even as social media amplifies public outrage - only about 1.1 percent of officers who kill civilians are charged with murder or manslaughter, Dr. Stinson said.

Since the beginning of 2005, he said, 140 nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers - such as police officers, deputy sheriffs and state troopers - have been arrested on charges of murder or manslaughter resulting from an on-duty shooting. Of those, 44 have been convicted of a crime resulting from the incident, in most cases for a lesser offense.

That could be because many of the shootings are legally justified, or also, as Dr. Stinson believes, because the legal system and laws themselves are overly deferential to the police. That deference, he added, protects the status quo in the more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country.

"All law enforcement is local," he said. "Culture eats policy, as the saying goes, and we have a police subculture whose core elements in many places include a fear of Black people."

Dr. Stinson cited the now-infamous traffic stop of a uniformed Army medic who was held at gunpoint and doused with pepper spray by the police in Windsor, Va., a rural town near Norfolk. The encounter, which occurred in December, was brought to light this month after Caron Nazario, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, filed a federal lawsuit.

Body camera footage shows members of the Windsor Police Department threatening and attacking Lieutenant Nazario, who is Black and Latino, after stopping him because he had not yet put permanent license plates on his new Chevrolet Tahoe.

The footage underscores the extent to which police culture has resisted change in much of the country, Dr. Stinson said.

"We only know about this one because he has a lawyer, they filed a civil lawsuit and they were able to get recordings they could release," he said.

For many victims of police violence and their families, however, there is no video evidence to rely on.

Daly City, Calif., police officers were not wearing body cameras when they got into a struggle with Roger Allen, 44, as he sat in a car idled with a flat tire on April 7. The officers say that Mr. Allen had what appeared to be a gun on his lap, according to Stephen M. Wagstaffe, the San Mateo County district attorney, who is investigating the case. It turned out to be a pellet gun, but an officer fired a fatal bullet to Mr. Allen's chest during the fracas.

Now Talika Fletcher, 30, said she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that her older brother, who was like a father figure, had joined the grim tally of Black men who died at the hands of law enforcement.

"I never thought in a million years that my brother would be a hashtag," she said.

She has little faith that the dynamic between Black men and law enforcement will be any better once her 14-month-old son, Prince, grows up.

"The cycle," she said, "it's not going change."

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

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Throughout Trial Over George Floyd's Death, Killings by Police Mount

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Since testimony in Derek Chauvin's trial began on March 29, more than three people a day have died at the hands of law enforcement. Protesters marching in the wake of the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was killed by the police in Brooklyn Center, Minn. Credit...

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The Death of George Floyd Reignited a Movement. What Happens Now? - April 20, 2021

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The Death of George Floyd Reignited a Movement. What Happens Now? - April 20, 2021

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Calls for racial justice touched nearly every aspect of American life on a scale that historians say has not happened since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

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The Death of George Floyd Reignited a Movement. What Happens Now? (Published 2021)

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Calls for racial justice touched nearly every aspect of American life on a scale that historians say has not happened since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

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McConnell Attacks Biden Rule’s Antiracism Focus, Calling It ‘Divisive’ - April 30, 2021

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McConnell Attacks Biden Rule’s Antiracism Focus, Calling It ‘Divisive’ - April 30, 2021

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The minority leader joined Republicans in protesting a proposal to promote teaching about systemic racism and the consequences of slavery, saying it would indoctrinate students with “a slanted story.”

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The minority leader joined Republicans in protesting a proposal to promote teaching about systemic racism and the consequences of slavery, saying it would indoctrinate students with "a slanted story."

"Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it," Senator Mitch McConnell and more than 30 other Republican senators wrote to the education secretary. Credit... T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, led Republican senators on Friday in protesting a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the legacy of American slavery, calling the guidance "divisive nonsense."

In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, and three dozen other Republicans singled out a reference in the proposal to The New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project, which was included as an example of a growing emphasis on teaching "the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society."

"Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it," the senators wrote. "Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil."

It was the latest bid by Republicans to stoke outrage within their conservative base about President Biden's agenda, which party leaders are increasingly portraying as a radical overreach into every corner of American life.

Mr. McConnell's lead role in it, reported earlier by Politico, came the day after former President Donald J. Trump - who specializes in using matters of race to inflame his supporters - had attacked the Kentucky Republican publicly, saying in an interview that he had done a poor job and should be replaced as the party leader.

Mr. Trump has directed his ire at Mr. McConnell since the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, when Mr. McConnell privately backed impeaching Mr. Trump, then voted to acquit him even as he delivered a damning condemnation of the former president. Mr. Trump recently told hundreds of Republican donors at a party confab that Mr. McConnell was "dumb" and used a profane phrase to disparage him.

With Mr. Biden pushing a number of popular domestic programs, Republicans have increasingly turned to litigating cultural issues to attack him and his party, accusing them of advancing a divisive agenda focused on political correctness, a message they believe will help them regain majorities in both the House and the Senate in 2022.

In his official party rebuttal to Mr. Biden's address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican, upbraided Democrats, colleges and corporations for "doubling down" on the nation's racial divisions "by pretending we haven't made any progress at all."

"Kids again are being taught that the color of their skin defines them, and if they look a certain way, they're an oppressor," Mr. Scott said, adding later: "Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country."

Similar efforts have played out in state legislatures across the country, from Idaho to Missouri to Rhode Island, as Republicans have sought to restrict how issues of race and racism are taught in public schools. They have taken aim specifically at critical race theory, an academic movement that posits that historical patterns of discrimination have created race-based disadvantages that persist today in modern systems of power.

On his first day in office, Mr. Biden signed an executive order asserting that the federal government should "pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all," especially people of color "who have been historically underserved, marginalized and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality."

"Our country faces converging economic, health and climate crises that have exposed and exacerbated inequities, while a historic movement for justice has highlighted the unbearable human costs of systemic racism," Mr. Biden wrote in the order.

The administration's proposed rule protested by Mr. McConnell and others does not mandate any curriculum changes. Instead, it lays out priorities for federal competitions or grant programs to which schools could elect to apply for initiatives that "take into account systemic marginalization, biases, inequities and discriminatory policy and practice in American history." In addition to citing the 1619 Project, the rule quotes the work of Ibram X. Kendi, the author of the book "How to Be an Antiracist."

"It is critical that the teaching of American history and civics creates learning experiences that validate and reflect the diversity, identities, histories, contributions and experiences of all students," it states.

In their letter, Mr. McConnell and the other Republicans denounced the focus.

"Our nation's youth do not need activist indoctrination that fixates solely on past flaws and splits our nation into divided camps," they wrote. "Taxpayer-supported programs should emphasize the shared civic virtues that bring us together, not push radical agendas that tear us apart."

They also argued that the 1619 Project "has become infamous for putting ill-informed advocacy ahead of historical accuracy," and that "citing this debunked advocacy confirms that your proposed priorities would not focus on critical thinking or accurate history, but on spoon-feeding students a slanted story."

Jordan Cohen, a spokesman for The Times, defended the project as "landmark, groundbreaking journalism."

"It deepened many readers' understanding of the nation's past and forced an important conversation about the lingering impact of slavery, and its centrality to America's story," Mr. Cohen said in a statement. "The resistance some have expressed to having this conversation is not new. Similar objections have arisen at various points in recent decades when scholars have attempted to broaden the way American history is taught."

Mr. McConnell took up a similar theme earlier this month, when he suggested that corporations and sports leagues were being "intimidated by the left" into weighing in on issues like Georgia's voting law that would only further partisan divisions.

"Republicans drink Coca-Cola, too," he said, "and we fly."

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McConnell Attacks Biden Rule's Antiracism Focus, Calling It 'Divisive'

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The minority leader joined Republicans in protesting a proposal to promote teaching about systemic racism and the consequences of slavery, saying it would indoctrinate students with "a slanted story." WASHINGTON - Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, led Republican senators on Friday in protesting a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the legacy of American slavery, calling the guidance "divisive nonsense."

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The GOP’s ‘Critical Race Theory’ Obsession: How conservative politicians and pundits became fixated on an academic approach by Adam Harris, The Atlantic (May 7, 2021)

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The GOP’s ‘Critical Race Theory’ Obsession: How conservative politicians and pundits became fixated on an academic approach by Adam Harris, The Atlantic (May 7, 2021)

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Most legal scholars say that these bills impinge on the right to free speech and will likely be dismissed in court. “Of the legislative language so far, none of the bills are fully constitutional,” Joe Cohn, the legislative and policy director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told me, “and if it isn’t fully constitutional, there’s a word for that: It means it’s unconstitutional.” This does not appear to concern the bills’ sponsors, though. The larger purpose, it seems, is to rally the Republican base—to push back against the recent reexaminations of the role that slavery and segregation have played in American history and the attempts to redress those historical offenses. The shorthand for the Republicans’ bogeyman is an idea that has until now mostly lived in academia: critical race theory.

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How conservative politicians and pundits became fixated on an academic approach

On January 12, Keith Ammon, a Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, introduced a bill that would bar schools as well as organizations that have entered into a contract or subcontract with the state from endorsing "divisive concepts." Specifically, the measure would forbid "race or sex scapegoating," questioning the value of meritocracy, and suggesting that New Hampshire-or the United States-is "fundamentally racist."

Ammon's bill is one of a dozen that Republicans have recently introduced in state legislatures and the United States Congress that contain similar prohibitions. In Arkansas, lawmakers have approved a measure that would ban state contractors from offering training that promotes "division between, resentment of, or social justice for" groups based on race, gender, or political affiliation. The Idaho legislature just passed a bill that would bar institutions of public education from compelling "students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere" to specific beliefs about race, sex, or religion. The Louisiana legislature is weighing a nearly identical measure.

The language of these bills is anodyne and fuzzy- compel, for instance, is never defined in the Idaho legislation-and that ambiguity appears to be deliberate. According to Ammon, "using taxpayer funds to promote ideas such as 'one race is inherently superior to another race or sex' ... only exacerbates our differences." But critics of these efforts warn that the bills would effectively prevent public schools and universities from holding discussions about racism; the New Hampshire measure in particular would ban companies that do business with government entities from conducting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. "The vagueness of the language is really the point," Leah Cohen, an organizer with Granite State Progress, a liberal nonprofit based in Concord, told me. "With this really broad brushstroke, we anticipate that that will be used more to censor conversations about race and equity."
Read: The real stakes of the fight over history
Most legal scholars say that these bills impinge on the right to free speech and will likely be dismissed in court. "Of the legislative language so far, none of the bills are fully constitutional," Joe Cohn, the legislative and policy director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told me, "and if it isn't fully constitutional, there's a word for that: It means it's unconstitutional." This does not appear to concern the bills' sponsors, though. The larger purpose, it seems, is to rally the Republican base-to push back against the recent reexaminations of the role that slavery and segregation have played in American history and the attempts to redress those historical offenses. The shorthand for the Republicans' bogeyman is an idea that has until now mostly lived in academia: critical race theory.

The late Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell is credited as the father of critical race theory. He began conceptualizing the idea in the 1970s as a way to understand how race and American law interact, and developed a course on the subject. In 1980, Bell resigned his position at Harvard because of what he viewed as the institution's discriminatory hiring practices, especially its failure to hire an Asian American woman he'd recommended.

Black students-including the future legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who enrolled at Harvard Law in 1981-felt the void created by his departure. Bell had been the only Black law professor among the faculty, and in his absence, the school no longer offered a course explicitly addressing race. When students asked administrators what could be done, Crenshaw says they received a terse response. "What is it that is so special about race and law that you have to have a course that examines it?" Crenshaw has recalled administrators asking. The administration's inability to see the importance of understanding race and the law, she says, "got us thinking about how do we articulate that this is important and that law schools should include" the subject in their curricula.

Crenshaw and her classmates asked 12 scholars of color to come to campus and lead discussions about Bell's book Race, Racism, and American Law. With that, critical race theory began in earnest. The approach "is often disruptive because its commitment to anti-racism goes well beyond civil rights, integration, affirmative action, and other liberal measures," Bell explained in 1995. The theory's proponents argue that the nation's sordid history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination is embedded in our laws, and continues to play a central role in preventing Black Americans and other marginalized groups from living lives untouched by racism.

For some, the theory was a revelatory way to understand inequality. Take housing, for example. Researchers have now accumulated ample evidence that racial covenants in property deeds and redlining by the Federal Housing Authority-banned more than 60 years ago-remain a major contributor to the gulf in homeownership, and thus wealth, between Black and white people. Others, perhaps most prominently Randall Kennedy, who joined the Harvard Law faculty a few years after Bell left, questioned how widely the theory could be applied. In a paper titled "Racial Critiques of Legal Academia," Kennedy argued that white racism was not the only reason so few "minority scholars" were members of law-school faculties. Conservative scholars argued that critical race theory is reductive-that it treats race as the only factor in social identity.

As with other academic frameworks before it, the nuances of critical race theory-and the debate around it-were obscured when it escaped the ivory tower. It first entered public discourse in the early 1990s, when President Bill Clinton nominated the University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Lani Guinier to run the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Republicans mounted an aggressive and ultimately successful campaign to prevent her appointment, tagging her the "Quota Queen." Among the many reasons her adversaries said she was wrong for the job was that she had been "championing a radical school of thought called 'critical race theory.'" The theory soon stood in for anything resembling an examination of America's history with race. Conservatives would boil it down further: Critical race theory taught Americans to hate America. Today, across the country, school curricula and workplace trainings include materials that defenders and opponents alike insist are inspired by critical race theory but that academic critical race theorists do not characterize as such.

Fox News gave only passing thought to critical race theory until last year. The first mention on the network occurred after Bell died, in 2012. A video of President Barack Obama praising him 21 years earlier began circulating online. "Open up your minds and your hearts to the words of Mr. Derrick Bell," Obama said. That introduction was followed by a hug between the two men, which Fox cited as further evidence of Obama's tendency to consort with radicals. A guest on Hannity offhandedly alluded to the theory during a segment on George Zimmerman's trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2014; network regulars briefly referred to it twice in 2019. Then, in 2020, after Derek Chauvin was captured on video kneeling on George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, and the United States became awash in anti-racist reading lists-some of which included books and articles that discussed critical race theory-Fox suddenly took a great interest in the idea. It became the latest in a long line of racialized topics (affirmative action perhaps being the most prominent) that the network has jumped on. Since June 5, 2020, the phrase has been invoked during 150 broadcasts.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: 'A hug that the media won't show'
If a single person bears the most responsibility for the surge in conservative interest in critical race theory, it is probably Christopher Rufo. Last summer, Rufo, a 36-year-old senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a libertarian think tank, received a tip from a municipal employee in Seattle. (Rufo had lived in the city and, in 2018, ran unsuccessfully for city council.) According to the whistleblower, the city was conducting "internalized racial superiority" training sessions for its employees. Rufo submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and wrote about his findings for the institute's public-policy magazine.

"In conceptual terms," Rufo wrote, "the city frames the discussion around the idea that black Americans are reducible to the essential quality of 'blackness' and white Americans are reducible to the essential quality of 'whiteness'-that is, the new metaphysics of good and evil." The training was rampant, he wrote, infecting every part of the city's municipal system. "It is part of a nationwide movement to make this kind of identity politics the foundation of our public discourse. It may be coming soon to a city or town near you." His article-which did not include the phrase critical race theory -inspired a rush of whistleblowers from school districts and federal agencies, who reached out to him complaining about diversity training they had been invited to attend or had heard about.

A month later, Rufo employed the term for the first time in an article. "Critical race theory-the academic discourse centered on the concepts of 'whiteness,' 'white fragility,' and 'white privilege'-is spreading rapidly through the federal government," he wrote. He related anecdotes about training influenced by critical race theory at the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, and the Treasury Department, among others. In early September, Tucker Carlson invited him on his Fox News show during which Rufo warned viewers that critical race theory had pervaded every institution of the federal government and was being "weaponized" against Americans. He called on President Donald Trump to ban such training in all federal departments.

"Luckily, the president was watching the show and instructed his Chief of Staff to contact me the next morning," Rufo wrote to me. (He would agree to be interviewed only by email.) Within three weeks, Trump had signed an executive order banning the use of critical race theory by federal departments and contractors in diversity training. "And thus," he wrote to me, "the real fight against critical race theory began."

Trump's executive order was immediately challenged in court. Nonprofit organizations that provide these training sessions argued that the order violated their free-speech rights and hampered their ability to conduct their business. In December, a federal judge agreed; President Joe Biden rescinded the order the day he took office. But by then, critical race theory was already a part of the conservative lexicon. Since Trump's executive order, Rufo told me, he has provided his analysis "to a half-dozen state legislatures, the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senate." One such state legislature was New Hampshire's; on February 18, the lower chamber held a hearing to discuss Keith Ammon's bill. Rufo was among those who testified in support of it.

Concerned that the measure might fail on its own, Republicans have now included its language in a must-pass budget bill. In March, Republican Governor Chris Sununu signaled that he would object to "divisive concepts" legislation because he believes it is unconstitutional, but he has since tempered his stand. "The ideas of critical race theory and all of this stuff-I personally don't think there's any place for that in schools," he said in early April. But, he added, "when you start turning down the path of the government banning things, I think that's a very slippery slope." Almost everyone I spoke with for this article assumed that Sununu would sign the budget bill, and that the divisive-concepts ban would become law.

Although free-speech advocates are confident that bills like Ammon's will not survive challenges in court, they believe the real point is to scare off companies, schools, and government agencies from discussing systemic racism. "What these bills are designed to do is prevent conversations about how racism exists at a systemic level in that we all have implicit biases that lead to decisions that, accumulated, lead to significant racial disparities," Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, told me. "The proponents of this bill want none of those discussions to happen. They want to suppress that type of speech."

Conservatives are not the only critics of diversity training. For years, some progressives, including critical race theorists, have questioned its value: Is it performative? Is it the most effective way to move toward equity or is it simply an effective way of restating the obvious and stalling meaningful action? But that is not the fight that has materialized over the past nine months. Instead, it is a confrontation with a cartoonish version of critical race theory.
Conor Friedersdorf: Can Chloé Valdary Sell Skeptics on DEI?
For Republicans, the end goal of all these bills is clear: initiating another battle in the culture wars and holding on to some threadbare mythology of the nation that has been challenged in recent years. What's less clear is whether average voters care much about the debate. In a recent Atlantic/Leger poll, 52 percent of respondents who identified as Republicans said that states should pass laws banning schools from teaching critical race theory, but just 30 percent of self-identified independents were willing to say the same. Meanwhile, a strong majority of Americans, 78 percent, either had not heard of critical race theory or were unsure whether they had.

Last week, after President Biden's first joint address to Congress-and as Idaho was preparing to pass its bill-Senator Tim Scott stood in front of United States and South Carolina flags to deliver the Republican response. "From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven't made any progress," Scott said. "You know this stuff is wrong. Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country." Rufo immediately knew what he meant. "Senator Tim Scott denounces critical race theory in his response to Biden's speech tonight," he tweeted. "We have turned critical race theory into a national issue and conservative political leaders are starting to fight."

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identical measure.the language of these bills

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The GOP's 'Critical Race Theory' Obsession

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How conservative politicians and pundits became fixated on an academic approach On January 12, Keith Ammon, a Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, introduced a bill that would bar schools as well as organizations that have entered into a contract or subcontract with the state from endorsing "divisive concepts."

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The fight to whitewash US history: ‘A drop of poison is all you need’: At least 15 states are trying to ban schools from teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. The reactionary movement stretches back to the 1920s and the KKK by Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian (May 25, 2021)

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The fight to whitewash US history: ‘A drop of poison is all you need’: At least 15 states are trying to ban schools from teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. The reactionary movement stretches back to the 1920s and the KKK by Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian (May 25, 2021)

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The laborious project of establishing truth in the face of official lies is one that Americans embraced during the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, whether it was individuals speaking out about their experiences of racism at work, or institutions acknowledging their own complicity in racial injustice. For a time, it seemed that America was finally ready to tell a more honest, nuanced story of itself, one that acknowledged the blood at the root.

But alongside this reassessment, another American tradition re-emerged: a reactionary movement bent on reasserting a whitewashed American myth. These reactionary forces have taken aim at efforts to tell an honest version of American history and speak openly about racism by proposing laws in statehouses across the country that would ban the teaching of “critical race theory”, the New York Times’s 1619 Project, and, euphemistically, “divisive concepts”.

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n 25 May 2020, a man died after a "medical incident during police interaction" in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The man was suspected of forgery and "believed to be in his 40s". He "physically resisted officers" and, after being handcuffed, "appeared to be suffering medical distress". He was taken to the hospital "where he died a short time later".

It is not difficult to imagine a version of reality where this, the first police account of George Floyd's brutal death beneath the knee of an implacable police officer, remained the official narrative of what took place in Minneapolis one year ago. That version of reality unfolds every day. Police lies are accepted and endorsed by the press; press accounts are accepted and believed by the public.

That something else happened - that it is now possible for a news organization to say without caveat or qualification that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd - required herculean effort and extraordinary bravery on the part of millions of people.

The laborious project of establishing truth in the face of official lies is one that Americans embraced during the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, whether it was individuals speaking out about their experiences of racism at work, or institutions acknowledging their own complicity in racial injustice. For a time, it seemed that America was finally ready to tell a more honest, nuanced story of itself, one that acknowledged the blood at the root.

Protesters march after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photograph: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

But alongside this reassessment, another American tradition re-emerged: a reactionary movement bent on reasserting a whitewashed American myth. These reactionary forces have taken aim at efforts to tell an honest version of American history and speak openly about racism by proposing laws in statehouses across the country that would ban the teaching of " critical race theory", the New York Times's 1619 Project, and, euphemistically, " divisive concepts ".

The movement is characterized by a childish insistence that children should be taught a false version of the founding of the United States that better resembles a mythic virgin birth than the bloody, painful reality. It would shred the constitution's first amendment in order to defend the honor of those who drafted its three-fifths clause.

"When you start re-examining the founding myth in light of evidence that's been discovered in the last 20 years by historians, then that starts to make people doubt the founding myth," said Christopher S Parker, a professor of political science at the University of Washington who studies reactionary movements. "There's no room for racism in this myth. Anything that threatens to interrogate the myth is seen as a threat."

Legislation seeking to limit how teachers talk about race has been considered by at least 15 states, according to an analysis by Education Week.

In Idaho, Governor Brad Little signed into law a measure banning public schools from teaching critical race theory, which it claimed will "exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the wellbeing of the state of Idaho and its citizens". The state's lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, also established a taskforce to "examine indoctrination in Idaho education and to protect our young people from the scourge of critical race theory, socialism, communism, and Marxism".

In Tennessee, the legislature has approved a bill that would bar public schools from using instructional materials that promote certain concepts, including the idea that, "This state or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist."

The Texas house of representatives has passed a flurry of legislation related to teaching history, including a bill that would ban any course that would "require an understanding of the 1619 Project" and a bill that would establish an "1836 Project" (a reference to the date of the founding of the Republic of Texas) to "promote patriotic education".

Representative Ted Budd speaks about banning federal funding for the teaching of critical race theory. Photograph: Michael Brochstein/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, in April came out in opposition to a small federal grant program (just $5.25m out of the department of education's $73.5bn budget) supporting American history and civics education projects that, among other criteria, "incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives".

"Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense," McConnell wrote in a letter to the secretary of education, Miguel Cardona. "Voters did not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil."

Unsurprisingly, McConnell left out a few pertinent adjectives.

"Whose children are we talking about?" asked LaGarrett King, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Education who has developed a new framework for teaching Black history. "Black parents talk to their kids about racism. Asian American parents talk to their kids about racism. Just say that you don't want white kids to learn about racism."

"If we understand the systemic nature of racism, then that will help us really understand our society, and hopefully improve it," King added. "Laws like this - it's simply that people do not want to improve society. History is about power, and these people want to continue in a system that they have enjoyed."

While diversity training and the 1619 Project have been major targets, critical race theory has more recently become the watchword of the moral panic. Developed by Black legal scholars at Harvard in the 1980s, critical race theory is a mode of thinking that examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law.

Black parents talk to their kids about racism. Asian American parents talk to their parents about racism. Just say that you don't want white kids to learn about racism.

LaGarrett King

"Its effectiveness created a backlash," said Keffrelyn D Brown, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Education who argues that critical race theory does have a place in classrooms. Brown said that she believes students should learn about racism in school, but that teachers need tools and frameworks to make those discussions productive.

"If we are teaching this, we need to think about racism as just as robust a content area as if we were talking about discrete mathematics or the life cycle," Brown said. "I find that critical race theory provides a really elegant and clear way for students to understand racism from an informed perspective."

Multiple states are trying to ban schools from teaching the 1619 Project. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/The Guardian

But in the hands of the American right, critical race theory has morphed into an existential threat. In early January, just five days after rightwing rioters had stormed the US Capitol, the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing thinktank with close ties to the Trump administration, hosted a panel discussion about the threat of "the new intolerance" and its "grip on America".

"Critical race theory is the complete rejection of the best ideas of the American founding. This is some dangerous, dangerous philosophical poisoning in the blood stream," said Angela Sailor, a VP of the Heritage Foundation's Feulner Institute and the moderator of the event.

"The rigid persistence with which believers apply this theory has made critical race theory a constant daily presence in the lives of hundreds of millions of people," she added, in an assessment that will probably come as a surprise to hundreds of millions of people.

The Heritage Foundation has been one of the top campaigners against critical race theory, alongside the Manhattan Institute, another conservative thinktank known for promoting the "broken windows" theory of policing.

Bridging the two groups is Christopher Rufo, a documentary film-maker who has become the leading spokesperson against critical race theory on television and on Twitter. As a visiting fellow at Heritage, he produced a report arguing that critical race theory makes inequality worse, and in April the Manhattan Institute appointed him the director of a new "Initiative on Critical Race Theory". (Rufo is also affiliated with another rightwing thinktank, the Discovery Institute, which is best known for its repeated attempts to smuggle Christian theology into US public schools under the guise of the pseudoscientific "intelligent design".)

A host of new organizations has also sprung up to spread the fear of critical race theory far and wide. The Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (Fair) launched recently with an advisory board composed of anti-"woke" media figures and academics. The group is so far encouraging opposition to the grant program McConnell opposed and has highlighted a legal challenge to a debt relief program for Black farmers as a " profile in courage ".

Those who take the Fair " pledge " can also join a message board where members discuss their activism against critical race theory in schools and access resources such as the guide, How to Talk to a Critical Theorist, which begins, "In many ways, Critical Theorists (or specifically Critical Race Theorists) are just like anyone."

Demonstrators protest critical race theory in front of the Los Alamitos unified school district in California.

Demonstrators protest critical race theory in front of the Los Alamitos unified school district in California. Photos: EPA/ Étienne Laurent

Parents Defending Education, another new organization, encourages parents to " expose" what's happening in their schools and offers step-by-step instructions for parents to set up " Woke at X " Instagram accounts to document excessive "wokeness" at their children's schools.

A new website, What Are They Learning, was set up by the Daily Caller reporter Luke Rosiak to serve as a "woke-e-leaks" for parents to report incidents of teachers mentioning racism in school. "In deep-red, 78% white Indiana, state department of education tells teachers to Talk about Race in the Classroom, cites Ibram X Kendi," reads one such report. (The actual document submitted is, in fact, titled Talk ing about Race in the Classroom and appears to be a copy of a webinar offering teachers advice on discussing last year's Black Lives Matter protests with their students.)

Such initiatives and others - the Educational Liberty Alliance, Critical Race Training in Education, No Left Turn in Education - have received enthusiastic support from the rightwing media, with the New York Post, Daily Caller, Federalist and Fox News serving up a steady stream of outrage fodder about the threat of critical race theory. Since 5 June, Fox News has mentioned "critical race theory" by name in 150 broadcasts, the Atlantic found.

For some of these groups, critical race theory is just one of many "liberal" ideas they don't want their children to learn. No Left Turn in Education also complains about comprehensive sex education and includes a link on its website to an article suggesting that teaching children about the climate crisis is a form of indoctrination.

It's not enough to be balanced; it's not adequate to say that we balance out criticism of the past with praise of the past. The idea is that a drop of poison is all you need to ruin the well

For others, it seems possible that attacking critical race theory is just a smokescreen for a bog standard conservative agenda. (Toward the end of the Heritage Foundation's January panel, the group's director of its center for education policy told viewers that the "most important" way to fight critical race theory was to support "school choice", a longstanding policy goal of the right.)

Whatever their motives, today's reactionaries are picking up the mantle of generations of Americans who have fought to ensure that white children are taught a version of America's past that is more hagiographic than historic. The echoes are so strong that Adam Laats, a Binghamton University professor who studies the history of education in the US, remarked, "It's confusing which decade we're in."

In the 1920s and 1930s, reactionaries objected to textbooks that gave credence to the progressive historian Charles Beard's argument that the founders' motives were not strictly principled, but instead were influenced by economic self-interest, according to Seth Cotlar, a history professor at Willamette University.

In 1923, an Oregon state government controlled by members of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan enacted a law that banned the use of any textbook in schools that "speaks slightingly of the founders of the republic, or of the men who preserved the union, or which belittles or undervalues their work". And in the 1930s, conservatives waged what Laats called a "frenzied campaign" against the textbooks of Harold Rugg, another progressive historian, that actually resulted in a book burning in Bradner, Ohio.

For those supporting the resurgent Klan, "To speak ill of a founder was akin to a kind of sacrilege," said Cotlar.

Another battle over textbooks flared in the 1990s when Lynne Cheney launched a high-profile campaign against an effort to introduce new standards for teaching US history, which she found insufficiently "celebratory" and lacking "a tone of affirmation". Harriet Tubman, the KKK, and McCarthyism all received too much attention, Cheney complained, and George Washington and Robert E Lee not enough.

The decades change; the fixation on maintaining a false idea of historic figures as pure founts of virtue remains. Today, the single contention in the 1619 Project that has drawn the most vociferous outrage is author Nikole Hannah-Jones's assertion that "one of the primary reasons" colonists fought for independence was to preserve the institution of slavery. Hannah-Jones was denied tenure by the University of North Carolina's board of trustees, which overruled the dean, faculty and university, reportedly due to political pressure from conservative critics of the 1619 Project.

"Underlying this is the never-solved dilemma about what history class is supposed to do," said Laats. "For some people it's supposed to be a pep talk before the game, a well of pure inspiration for young people, and I think that is why the danger seems so intense to conservatives.

"It's not enough to be balanced; it's not adequate to say that we balance out criticism of the past with praise of the past. The idea is that a drop of poison is all you need to ruin the well."

Black Lives Matter protesters march in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Still, the fact that reactionaries are looking to legislate against certain ideas may be a sign of just how weak their own position is.

Laats suspects that the right is using "critical race theory" as a euphemism. "You can't go to a school board and say you want to ban the idea that Black Lives Matter.

"They've given up on arguing in favor of indoctrination and instead say that critical race theory is the actual indoctrination," he said of the conservative movement. "They've given up on arguing in favor of racism to say that critical race theory is the real racism. This campaign against the teaching of critical race theory is scary, and it's a sign of great strength, but it's strength in favor of an idea that's already lost."

Or at least, so we hope.

Last week I called Paweł Machcewicz, a Polish historian who has been at the center of a battle in his own country between those who want to tell the truth about the past, and those who want to weaponize history for political purposes. Machcewicz was one of the historians who uncovered evidence of Polish complicity in Nazi war crimes, and as the founding director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, he attempted to provide an accurate account of Poland's experience in the war. The far-right ruling party, Law and Justice, deemed the museum insufficiently patriotic and fired him. The next year, the government passed legislation to outlaw accusing Poland of complicity in Nazi war crimes.

"Democracy turned out to be very fragile," Machcewicz said. "I knew history was important for Law and Justice, but it became a sort of obsession. I never thought that as a founding director of a museum of the second world war, I would become a public enemy."

"You never know what price you have to pay for independent history," he added. "I don't think it will ever go as far in the US as Poland, but some years ago, I also felt quite secure in my country."

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The fight to whitewash US history: 'A drop of poison is all you need'

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At least 15 states are trying to ban schools from teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. The reactionary movement stretches back to the 1920s and the KKK

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Rocky River parents fighting diversity and inclusion program being taught in schools - May 26, 2021

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Rocky River parents fighting diversity and inclusion program being taught in schools - May 26, 2021

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Rocky River parents are not happy about a diversity and inclusion program being taught in their schools, saying it’s closely tied to Critical Race Theory.

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Rocky River parents are not happy about a diversity and inclusion program being taught in their schools, saying it's closely tied to Critical Race Theory.

ROCKY RIVER, Ohio - In the year following the death of George Floyd, companies, organizations and even schools have focused on promoting diversity and inclusion.

But a group of parents in the Rocky River City School district are not happy about diversity and inclusion programming being taught in their school district, saying it's closely tied to a controversial and political concept called Critical Race Theory (CRT).

The school district currently uses a program for students centered around justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion - known by its acronym JEDI - with help from the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio. But now the JEDI program is under fire with parents speaking out in opposition at a May 20th school board meeting.

About a dozen parents and guardians spoke during a public comment period today, arguing that the program is masking the teachings of CRT.

"I'm here to voice my opposition to the Marxist Critical Race Theory practices being forced into our school system," said Larry Hrovat, the first resident to speak at the meeting.

He continued, "the superintendent has vehemently denied that the JEDI program is teaching these ideologies. However, I along with a large group of concerned residents, have done our research and consulted other districts [and] have seen the doctrines of CRT exposed in institutions around the country."

"Stop teaching the dangerous politics of group identity. The parents and taxpayers of Rocky River see right through it," said another resident who identified herself as Anne Robins.

Critical Race Theory is a controversial concept and teaches the idea that racism is a systemic issue and not an individual bias. The theory states that problems stem from laws and biases of our country's forefathers.

But Rocky River school administrators say they're not teaching that at all.

An emailed statement from district officials say its diversity and inclusion program started in 2013 and that "programming focuses on anti-bullying, conflict resolution and recognizing the value of self-esteem."

The Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio website also addresses the issue saying, "youth programming does not include critical race theory as a component." But parents who spoke at the meeting aren't buying that explanation.

"To be clear, the words diversity and inclusion do not mean what people think they mean," said Robins.

And state leaders are taking notice. Republican State Representative Don Jones introduced legislation that would ban Critical Race Theory from being taught in schools. Parents in Rocky River say they support diversity and inclusion but want to make sure the JEDI program isn't including more than that.

The school district says they're committed to teaching students the significant importance of respect, equality, diversity, inclusion and justice for all.

To date, 3News has not been given any evidence proving that Critical Race Theory is being taught in any local school district.
Editor's note: The video in the player below is from a story published KSDK, our sister station out of St. Louis, Missouri.

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Rocky River parents fighting diversity and inclusion program being taught in schools

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Rocky River parents are not happy about a diversity and inclusion program being taught in their schools, saying it's closely tied to Critical Race Theory. ROCKY RIVER, Ohio - In the year following the death of George Floyd, companies, organizations and even schools have focused on promoting diversity and inclusion.

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Disputing Racism’s Reach, Republicans Rattle American Schools - June 1, 2021

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Disputing Racism’s Reach, Republicans Rattle American Schools - June 1, 2021

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Republicans have focused their attacks on the influence of “critical race theory,” a graduate school framework that has found its way into K-12 public education. The concept argues that historical patterns of racism are ingrained in law and other modern institutions, and that the legacies of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow still create an uneven playing field for Black people and other people of color.

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President Biden in Philadelphia

In a culture-war brawl that has spilled into the country's educational system, Republicans at the local, state and national levels are trying to block curriculums that emphasize systemic racism.

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Protesting against the teaching of "critical race theory" outside a school district building in Los Alamitos, Calif., in May. Credit... Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock

In Loudoun County, Va., a group of parents led by a former Trump appointee are pushing to recall school board members after the school district called for mandatory teacher training in "systemic oppression and implicit bias."

In Washington, 39 Republican senators called history education that focuses on systemic racism a form of "activist indoctrination."

And across the country, Republican-led legislatures have passed bills recently to ban or limit schools from teaching that racism is infused in American institutions. After Oklahoma's G.O.P. governor signed his state's version in early May, he was ousted from the centennial commission for the 1921 Race Massacre in Tulsa, which President Biden visited on Tuesday to memorialize one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history.

From school boards to the halls of Congress, Republicans are mounting an energetic campaign aiming to dictate how historical and modern racism in America are taught, meeting pushback from Democrats and educators in a politically thorny clash that has deep ramifications for how children learn about their country.

Republicans have focused their attacks on the influence of " critical race theory," a graduate school framework that has found its way into K-12 public education. The concept argues that historical patterns of racism are ingrained in law and other modern institutions, and that the legacies of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow still create an uneven playing field for Black people and other people of color.

Many conservatives portray critical race theory and invocations of systemic racism as a gauntlet thrown down to accuse white Americans of being individually racist. Republicans accuse the left of trying to indoctrinate children with the belief that the United States is inherently wicked.

Democrats are conflicted. Some worry that arguing America is racist to the root - a view embraced by elements of the party's progressive wing - contradicts the opinion of a majority of voters and is handing Republicans an issue to use as a political cudgel. But large parts of the party's base, including many voters of color, support more discussion in schools about racism's reach, and believe that such conversations are an educational imperative that should stand apart from partisan politics.

"History is already undertaught - we've been undereducated, and these laws are going to get us even less educated," said Prudence L. Carter, the dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Attempts to suppress what is still a nascent movement to teach young Americans more explicitly about racist public policy, like redlining or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, amount to "a gaslighting of history," she said, adding, "It's a form of denialism."

The debate over the real or perceived influence of critical race theory - not just in schools but also in corporate, government and media settings - comes as both parties increasingly make issues of identity central to politics. And it accelerated during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, when discussions over racism in the country were supercharged by his racist comments and by a wave of protests last year over police killings of Black people.

In Tulsa on Tuesday, Mr. Biden said the killing of Black citizens by a white mob a century ago had been driven by racism that became "embedded systematically and systemically in our laws and our culture." America, he said, can't pretend "it doesn't impact us today." In response, he announced policies to narrow the racial wealth gap by aiding Black home buyers and small-business owners.

Some of the discussion about education has been fueled by the 1619 Project, developed by The New York Times Magazine, which argues that "the country's very origin" traces to when the first ship carrying enslaved people touched Virginia's shore that year. "Out of slavery - and the anti-black racism it required - grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional," the magazine's editor wrote.

Educators have embraced curriculums created along with the project, responding to a changing nation in which a majority of public-school students are now nonwhite, but the teaching force remains nearly 80 percent white.

Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed bills to prevent schools from teaching critical race theory. The Idaho Senate, above, passed legislation in April. Credit... Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman, via Associated Press

Republican pushback has been intense. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the G.O.P. leader, said recently that he disagreed that 1619 was important in U.S. history. He and other Republican senators are pushing the Biden administration to drop efforts by the Education Department to prioritize history courses that emphasize "systemic marginalization" of peoples.

In Ohio, Republicans in the General Assembly introduced a bill last week to ban teaching that any individual is "inherently racist," that any individual "bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by the same race or sex," or that the advent of slavery "constitutes the true founding" of the United States.

"Critical race theory is a dangerous and flat-out wrong theory," State Representative Don Jones, the bill's lead sponsor, said in a statement. "Students should not be asked to 'examine their whiteness' or 'check their privilege.'"

Mr. Jones, in an interview, could not cite any examples of such teaching taking place now in Ohio. He said his bill was a response to voter concerns.

Although parents have appeared before school boards in Ohio and elsewhere to object to critical race theory, calling it "Marxist," many school administrators vehemently deny that they are teaching the subject, or are being influenced by it. They say that much of what conservatives object to amounts to little more than more frequent and frank discussions of subjects like slavery. Parents are also pushing back against the loosely related trend of anti-bias training for students and staff members, which has led to dust-ups across the country.

A biracial student sued his Las Vegas charter school for requiring him to take a sociology course that asked students to list their various racial and gender identities, and that named institutions like family and religion as oppressive. A Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio, Jane Timken, said that during a listening tour of the state, she had heard a parent object that second-graders were made to draw pictures of themselves as a different race.

Republicans' attacks on critical race theory are in sync with the party's broad strategy to run on culture-war issues in the 2022 midterm elections, rather than campaigning head-on against Mr. Biden's economic agenda - which has proved popular with voters - as the country emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.

Because the nation's three million public-school teachers have a great deal of autonomy over what happens in classrooms, legislation will most likely be ineffective in controlling how children are exposed to concepts of race and racism, said Robert Pondiscio, an education expert who in June will join the center-right American Enterprise Institute, a think tank.

Still, he said, the controversy over critical race theory serves a purpose in warning educators to tread carefully on a divisive subject. "People have strong feelings about the degree to which race should be central to a kid's educational experience," he said.

While few K-12 educators use the term "critical race theory," discussions of systemic racism have become more common in American schools in recent years, particularly in liberal areas.

State social studies standards and textbooks have been updated to highlight subjects like redlining and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Historically, curricular changes have often drawn backlashes, said Albert S. Broussard, a historian at Texas A&M University and an author of middle and high school American history textbooks. "It's what we as historians have seen throughout African-American history when whites - particularly conservatives - feel they have lost control," he said.

Conservatives and even some liberals have said that discussions of race are crowding out the traditional curriculum and are encouraging students and teachers to see themselves less as individuals and more as members of identity groups.

In North Carolina, Republicans who control the state House of Representatives passed a bill in May to limit teaching that the country was "created by members of a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex."

The bill was a response to new social studies standards adopted by the state Board of Education that include themes of systemic racism. But State Representative James D. Gailliard, a Democrat who opposed the bill, said that the legislation told historically overlooked Americans that "we want to strip you of your right to tell your story."

State Representative James D. Gailliard, Democrat of North Carolina, in July 2020. He opposed new Republican legislation restricting the teaching of critical race theory. Credit... Robert Willett/The News & Observer, via Associated Press

Last year, Mr. Gailliard, the senior pastor of Word Tabernacle Church in Rocky Mount, N.C., withdrew his predominantly Black congregation from the Southern Baptist Convention over a statement by leaders of the denomination condemning critical race theory.

To recognize that systemic racism endures in America, he said, one need look no further than how it is often harder for Black home buyers to acquire mortgages than it is for white people of equal means. "The whole point of systemic racism is, once it's embedded in our power structure, it works on its own," he said in an interview. "You don't need to wear a K.K.K. cloak."

Still, he acknowledged that Republicans had "figured out how to message this."

The messaging goes back to Mr. Trump, who, in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, announced the formation of the 1776 Commission, set up explicitly to link what he said was "left-wing indoctrination" in schools to the sometimes violent protests over police killings.

A report by the commission was derided by mainstream historians; Mr. Biden canceled the project on his first day in office, but its impact endures on the right.

Media Matters for America, a liberal group, documented a surge of negative coverage of critical race theory by Fox News beginning in mid-2020 and spiking in April, with 235 mentions. And the Pew Research Center found last year that Americans were deeply divided over their perceptions of racial discrimination. Over 60 percent of conservatives said it was a bigger problem that people see discrimination where it does not exist, rather than ignoring discrimination that really does exist. Only 9 percent of liberals agreed.

Some Democratic strategists said the issue was a political liability for their party. Ruy Teixeira, a longtime political scientist and the co-editor of a Substack newsletter called The Liberal Patriot, recently wrote, "The steady march of 'anti-racist' ideology" into school curriculums "will generate a backlash among normie parents."

In an interview, he criticized leading Democrats for not calling out critical race theory because of their fear that "it will bring down the wrath of the woker elements of the party."

In Loudoun County, Va., dueling parent groups are squaring off, one that calls itself "anti-racist" and the other opposed to what it sees as the creep of critical race theory in the school district, which enrolls 81,000 students from a rapidly diversifying region outside Washington.

After a 2019 report found a racial achievement gap, disproportionate discipline meted out to Black and Hispanic students, and the common use of racial slurs in schools, administrators adopted a " plan to combat systemic racism." It calls for mandatory teacher training in "systemic oppression and implicit bias."

But what the school district called "equity work," some parents perceived as the advance of critical race theory into classrooms.

A parent group began a petition drive in April to recall six of nine school board members. The effort is led by Ian Prior, a former political appointee in the Trump administration, who created a political action committee that he said had raised about $50,000 in small donations. It gathered signatures in May at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va.

"What we're seeing is a focus less on individuals, who they are and their unique experiences, but more about identity groups and putting everybody into an identity box," Mr. Prior said.

The district's interim superintendent, Scott A. Ziegler, denied that critical race theory was part of the curriculum or teacher training.

"Unfortunately, our efforts to provide an excellent education in a place of caring, safety and affirmation for our students has gotten swept away in a controversy about critical race theory," he said. "We are not teaching critical race theory. We are not indoctrinating students or staff into critical race theory."

"We are making a better environment for our students."

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Disputing Racism's Reach, Republicans Rattle American Schools (Published 2021)

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President Biden in Philadelphia In a culture-war brawl that has spilled into the country's educational system, Republicans at the local, state and national levels are trying to block curriculums that emphasize systemic racism. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month.

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Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About ‘Critical Race Theory’ Come From? Follow the Money! by Isaac Kamola, Inside Higher Ed (June 3, 2021)

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Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About ‘Critical Race Theory’ Come From? Follow the Money! by Isaac Kamola, Inside Higher Ed (June 3, 2021)

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This raises the obvious question: Why are so many members of the 1776 Commission — and the anti-CRT onslaught more generally — so closely tied to Koch network think tanks and political organizations?

Answer: because academic, journalistic and movement efforts to critically interrogate the lasting impact of slavery and American racism fundamentally challenge the free market fundamentalist ideology this network has mass-produced for decades. Koch network libertarians have propagated the fantasy that we all do (or should) live in a radically free market, populated by unraced and ungendered free individuals, all pulling ourselves up by our proverbial bootstraps.

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Guest Blog: Where Does the Bizarre Hysteria About 'Critical Race Theory' Come From? Follow the Money! | Just Visiting

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There are now numerous well-documented examples of wealthy right-wing and libertarian donors using their wealth to transform higher education in their own image. Between 2005 and 2019, for example, the Charles Koch Foundation has spent over $485 million at more than 550 universities.

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Mass Black Lives Matter protests - June 6, 2020 

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Mass Black Lives Matter protests - June 6, 2020 

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By Larry Buchanan, Quoctrung Bui and Jugal K. Patel

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Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History (Published 2020)

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Recent polls suggest that about 15 million to 26 million people in the U.S. have participated in recent protests.

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The War Over Teaching America’s Racist History in Schools | The Daily Show (May 5, 2021)

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The War Over Teaching America’s Racist History in Schools | The Daily Show (May 5, 2021)

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Most students in America are only taught about a handful of important Black Americans in history class. Here’s a look at why schools should teach students about race and why certain parents are opposed to that shift. #DailyShow #TrevorNoah #School

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The War Over Teaching America’s Racist History in Schools | The Daily Show

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Why the panic over “critical race theory” is the perfect right-wing troll: Trying to debunk the lies about “critical race theory” is a distraction — but the hysterics have huge implications by Amanda Marcotte, Salon (June 15, 2021)

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Why the panic over “critical race theory” is the perfect right-wing troll: Trying to debunk the lies about “critical race theory” is a distraction — but the hysterics have huge implications by Amanda Marcotte, Salon (June 15, 2021)

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It is important to note that the fabricated fury over “critical race theory” is a cleverly constructed right-wing troll. Liberals who want to respond with a quick, easily digested rebuttal are instead boxed into a frustrating corner. Because pointing out that critical race theory is not being taught in public schools is a trap, as it could be construed to imply that there’s something wrong with critical race theory. And any straightforward defense of critical race theory implies that schoolchildren are somehow expected to understand graduate school-level academic theories. But in fact, the real issue at hand is that conservatives don’t want white kids to learn even the most basic truths about American history.

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The American right is currently in an utter panic over " critical race theory" being taught in public schools.

On Fox News, there's been an explosion of hysterical coverage, complete with contradictory segments where hosts claim they "don't see people for skin color" before whining that "the United States of America elected an African-American as president of the United States" and "the biggest entertainers, the biggest sports stars are African-Americans." Republicans who otherwise claim to be defenders of free speech are busy trying to pass laws canceling any kind of talk they deem "critical race theory," which, in practice, amounts to bans on talking about historical facts. Across the nation, white parents are crowding school board meetings, melting down over this "critical race theory" thing they've heard so much about.

Yet with so many white people across the country in a total freak out over "critical race theory," it appears few, if any, of them could even explain what it actually is. That's because, despite what Fox News is telling them, critical race theory - the actual academic framework that was developed in law schools to understand the historical reasons our legal system perpetuates racial inequalities - is not, in fact, being taught to 3rd graders or even 11th graders. Claims otherwise are a complete lie, ginned up by right-wing propagandists who are desperate to keep the GOP base whipped into a racist frenzy.

But even though the whole panic is built on a foundation of sand, it would be unwise of liberals to shrug and dismiss this particular bit of agitprop.
Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.
It is important to note that the fabricated fury over "critical race theory" is a cleverly constructed right-wing troll. Liberals who want to respond with a quick, easily digested rebuttal are instead boxed into a frustrating corner. Because pointing out that critical race theory is not being taught in public schools is a trap, as it could be construed to imply that there's something wrong with critical race theory. And any straightforward defense of critical race theory implies that schoolchildren are somehow expected to understand graduate school-level academic theories. But in fact, the real issue at hand is that conservatives don't want white kids to learn even the most basic truths about American history.

To understand what's really going on under all the scare-mongering, it's important to know that when conservatives talk about "critical race theory," they aren't talking about the actual academic framework developed by law professors. Instead, as Sean Illing at Vox explains, "conservatives have appropriated critical race theory as a convenient catchall to describe basically any serious attempt to teach the history of race and racism."

Of course, telling people that you oppose teaching the truth about American history sounds bad. So instead, conservative pundits and Republican politicians use the term "critical race theory," using the thin justification that the facts teachers are sharing have often been unearthed by people doing academic research within this framework. The word "theory," in particular, has a long history of setting off poorly educated conservative voters who think it just means "not facts" and don't know that, in academia, it is used to mean an analytical framework for developing factual information. Think of the hysterics around evolutionary theory, for instance, which many conservatives would dismiss as "just a theory," not grasping that it was empirically sound.

And that's the crux of it: Schoolchildren aren't really being taught critical race theory, but critical race theory - the actual framework, not the right-wing scare term - is a legitimate academic pursuit that has turned up important facts that white supremacists of yore have covered up. And it's those facts - things like the practice of redlining, the truth about what the Confederacy stood for, what Martin Luther King Jr. really believed, and the history of lynching and events like the Tulsa race massacre - that conservatives want to silence. That is why, for instance, they are so afraid of schools teaching the 1619 Project by the New York Times. Not because, as they falsely claim, it's inaccurate. No, the real objection underlying all the noise is that the 1619 Project is true. Conservatives want facts, the thing that all people claim they want children to learn, to be replaced with flat-out lies about American history.

That's why the feigned umbrage over "critical race theory" is such an effective troll. Responding requires nuance, an explanation of why it's both false that critical race theory is being taught in schools, but also that the real-world practice of critical race theory is not bad or scary or "anti-white." Unfortunately, our political discourse doesn't have much room for nuance, much less lengthy explanations. And so it's easy to get Republican voters, already wanting to believe that white people are under attack from "woke mobs," to get all ginned up on conspiracy theories about "critical race theory," and not look at what the real-world critical race theory actually is, much less the historical facts that Republican politicians want to cover up. While they scare white voters into a panic over their children learning too many details about Jim Crow, Republican legislators are busy passing up draconian restrictions on the right to vote reminiscent of that era of racial segregation.

Indeed, the idea that "critical race theory" was just the kind of phrase that would easily scare conservatives can be traced back to the time that Andrew Breitbart was still alive. He and the other editors at Breitbart understood that "critical," "race," and "theory" are three words their readers don't really understand well - but do fear - and smashed together, could be leveraged as a Voltron of racist paranoia. Salon reporter Alex Seitz-Wald found, in 2012, that a search for "critical race theory" on Breitbart "returns an astonishing 871 results, over 680 from the past month alone." Rarely, if ever, was the term used accurately.

So what can liberals do to fight back against the spread of conspiracy theories about "critical race theory" that misrepresent both what critical race theory is and what is actually being taught in public schools?
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Well, despite just going down the rabbit hole of explaining the history and proper meaning of the phrase in this piece, I would generally caution against doing that. "Keep it simple, stupid," is always key when rebutting or debating conservatives who are lying - or, at least, are regurgitating lies they picked up from Fox News. Instead, as with most trolls, it's wiser to go meta. Instead of getting into the weeds about what is and isn't "critical race theory," point out that it's being leveraged as a scare term to conceal what's really going on, which is a war on the right of teachers to teach basic facts about American history.

Luckily, that's just what a group of educators did on Saturday, organizing a National Day of Action in which teachers across the nation spoke out against censorship and in favor of being able to teach historical facts. The protest was organized by the Zinn Education Project, but Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, also spoke out in favor of fact-based education.

"No matter our color, background, or Zip code, we want our kids to have an education that imparts honesty about who we are, integrity in how we treat others, and courage to do what's right," she said in a statement, adding, "some lawmakers want to play politics with the truth."

Moving away from the debate about what is or isn't "critical race theory" and instead focusing on what lawmakers are actually trying to do - replace factual information with fake history - helps recenter the debate on what's really going on. After all, the only reason Republicans and right-wing pundits lie about what is and isn't in the public school curriculum is because they know they can't win the debate by being honest. The truth terrifies them, which is why they go to such lengths to conceal it both in public debate and in our public schools.

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Why the panic over "critical race theory" is the perfect right-wing troll

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The American right is currently in an utter panic over " critical race theory" being taught in public schools. On Fox News, there's been an explosion of hysterical coverage, complete with contradictory segments where hosts claim they "don't see people for skin color" before whining that "the United States of America elected an African-American as president of the United States" and "the biggest entertainers, the biggest sports stars are African-Americans."

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Scholarly Groups Condemn Laws Limiting Teaching on Race - June 16, 2021

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Scholarly Groups Condemn Laws Limiting Teaching on Race - June 16, 2021

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More than 20 states have introduced legislation restricting lessons on racism and other so-called “divisive concepts.”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j1_7f8adGV3xH3_yCxHZspePQ6y_XVLx/view?usp=sharing

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Scholarly Groups Condemn Laws Limiting Teaching on Race - The New York Times.pdf

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“This Critical Race Theory Panic Is a Chip Off the Old Block: How 20th-century curriculum controversies foreshadowed this summer’s wave of legislation” by Gillian Frank and Adam Laats, Slate (June 18, 2021)

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“This Critical Race Theory Panic Is a Chip Off the Old Block: How 20th-century curriculum controversies foreshadowed this summer’s wave of legislation” by Gillian Frank and Adam Laats, Slate (June 18, 2021)

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Earlier battles over curriculum provided the template for today’s anti-CRT, anti–1619 Project political campaigns. In the late 1930s, for instance, activists in right-leaning patriotic groups such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion warned their fellow Americans about a subversive set of textbooks. The fact that the textbooks written by Columbia professor Harold Rugg were widely popular and had been used for years in schools across America did not matter. The books, conservatives warned, represented an attempt by “radical and communistic textbook writers” to turn American children against America.

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This summer's spate of state-level bills aimed at censoring the content of history teaching in public school classrooms-bills that have made much of the supposed double threat of "critical race theory" and the New York Times' 1619 Project-might seem somewhat random. But in fact, conservative attacks like these on humanities curricula that discuss race and racism in the United States follow a long-established pattern.

First, right-wing fears are always more about a vague idea of the content of such curricula than about classroom realities. (In Indiana, suburban parents have been "angered" by the supposed presence of critical race theory, or CRT-typically a graduate-level elective offered to law students-in their schools, despite the fact that their schools do not teach it.) Second, because activists on the right view the schools as the grease that makes slopes slippery, they tend to use school curricula to talk about a host of related social issues. (Anti-CRT activists lump together everything they don't like, from Marxism to Black Lives Matter to progressive education, and call it CRT.) And third, these battles have always been waged over the stories that get told about the American past, present, and future. In that sense, the angry right wing is correct: The stakes couldn't be higher.

Earlier battles over curriculum provided the template for today's anti-CRT, anti-1619 Project political campaigns. In the late 1930s, for instance, activists in right-leaning patriotic groups such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion warned their fellow Americans about a subversive set of textbooks. The fact that the textbooks written by Columbia professor Harold Rugg were widely popular and had been used for years in schools across America did not matter. The books, conservatives warned, represented an attempt by "radical and communistic textbook writers" to turn American children against America.

In reality, the books intended no such thing. Their lead author, Harold Rugg, an engineer turned professor of pedagogy whose intellectual roots lay in the Progressive education movement of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, took pains to categorically deny his participation in any communist or socialist movement. His vision of a good education, Rugg explained, consisted of "young people confronting social conditions and issues squarely and digging to the very roots of our changing culture." Rugg hoped his books would lead students to think critically about the most difficult questions in American history, including racism and inequality. In his teachers' guides, Rugg encouraged teachers always to ask students, "What do you think?"

Rugg published a series of historical textbooks that encouraged students to confront the country's chronic problems of racism and class conflict-problems that loomed large in the collective consciousness during the Depression years, a time of great national stress. In Culture and Education in America (1931), Rugg denounced the "exploitative tradition" in American society. In a middle school textbook, Citizenship and Civic Affairs, he taught American children about "the question of equality and classes in America." It was a harsh fact of American society and history, according to the book, that some people did not receive a fair reward for their hard work, while others got rich without much work at all. Embedded in those lessons was an idea that terrified conservatives of the 1930s. American children, they feared, would hear that U.S. history was not only a story of greatness but a story of struggle.

However, once the anti-Rugg campaign gained momentum among right-wing parents, what the books actually said mattered less than opponents' stories about them. In Binghamton, New York, for instance, the school superintendent had read the books and liked them. As he told the press in 1940, "it's the kind of book I want my children to have. To say it is subversive is absurd." But the books' reputation eclipsed all chances for reasonable debate. As one opponent declared, "I haven't read the books, but-I have heard of the author, and no good about him." To avoid "controversy," the superintendent pulled them from the district's schools. Elsewhere, school boards did more than just pull the books from their shelves. In towns from New Jersey to Wisconsin, panicked patriots lit bonfires of the books. Perhaps even worse, as historian Charles Dorn has found, other textbook writers censored themselves in order to avoid Rugg's fate. The anti-Rugg crusaders, even if they did not know much about the actual Rugg textbooks, narrowed the curriculum and steered children away from any topic that might cause similar outrage.

The pattern of conservative backlash against progressive education's approach to teaching social issues was well-established by the 1950s. Self-described patriotic groups like the American Legion and National Council for American Education warned of "unpatriotic" teachers and professors and wrung their hands about the "problem of making loyal Americans out of the boys and girls." In a number of cases, these pressure groups managed to get textbooks deemed subversive pulled from schools. These groups were among many right-wing organizations that campaigned to purify American history textbooks of supposedly subversive ideas. Concepts identified as offensive included describing segregation as a problem or, in the words of one Florida legislator, touting the "superiority of the Negro race."

In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, conservative groups predictably raged against school integration. But they also campaigned against curricula that would, in their view, upend white privilege and pride. The California far-right publication American Nationalist was typical when it warned against racially egalitarian ideas polluting white children's minds. One of its pamphlets, which featured a photograph of a young white girl dancing with a Black classmate in Chicago, countered arguments, common among midcentury liberals, that children's supposedly "natural" lack of hierarchical consciousness around race meant that teachers and curricula had the power to intervene to encourage a new way of thinking in the next generation. This youthful absence of prejudice, the writers argued, proved nothing. "It is true, of course," the pamphlet explained, "that young children normally display no race consciousness until so taught by their parents, but it is also true that they have no sense of honesty, modesty, or even hygiene."

By the 1970s, backlash against supposedly progressive curriculums had ossified into predictable outcries about unpatriotic content, which often meant targeting material that dignified Black voices. Even if conservative complaints were rote, their activism was literally explosive. In Kanawha County, West Virginia, in 1974, white parents reacted with violent rage to false rumors about the contents of popular textbooks. In this case, a new series of English language arts textbooks had been approved by the state. One school board member, Alice Moore, warned that the books were full of anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-white propaganda and indoctrination.

These warnings stoked a fire that had been smoldering for decades. For weeks at the start of the 1974-75 school year, outraged parents boycotted the schools and their "dirty books." Protesters shot and vandalized school buses. They threw firebombs into empty school buildings. They exploded a dynamite bomb at the school district headquarters. Their fury, once again, was only loosely connected to reality. In this case, protesters had circulated flyers at the picket lines, warning that the books were sexually graphic. Opponents also objected to the inclusion of excerpts of work by Black authors such as Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson. By doing so, the textbooks-one conservative parent told a school board meeting-reduced the English language to "the language of the ghetto."

Outraged white parents took to the streets to defend their children from exposure to such words and ideas. The supposed excerpts about sex were nowhere to be found in the actual textbooks under review. Still, protest leaders such as Alice Moore defended their opposition to Black authors. They were tired-as Moore said-of being called "racist" merely for "insist[ing] on the traditional teaching of English." When it came to conservative outrage, the actual content of the books did not matter. As one boycott leader explained, "You don't have to read the textbooks. If you've read anything that the radicals have been putting out in the last few years, that was what was in the textbooks."

In addition to the immediate violence and destruction of the boycott, the Kanawha County campaign led to familiar long-term damage. Teachers censored themselves. As one teacher remembered, she and her colleagues were terrified by all the "chaos." Another teacher remembered checking with her principal before she taught a lesson in biology class about the asexual reproduction of mollusks. She did not want to be accused of warping young minds about sex. Teachers stopped teaching books such as 1984 and Brave New World, on the off chance that someone might find them too controversial.

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Today's backlash against the alleged teaching of critical race theory in America's schools, like these earlier flare-ups over humanities curricula, holds the same potential to curb honest reckonings with the American past and present. As with prior reactionary movements, opponents of CRT maintain that American history is not meant to be merely another set of facts for children to learn. Instead, history must be a well of inspiration, a pure source of greatness from the past. From this perspective, CRT is any dangerous drop of doubt that will contaminate comforting white fantasies about America's past, present, and future.

Classes in subjects that include the history of race and racism might be banned or canceled, due to the chilling effect of the backlash;some schools have already gone there. Even worse, teachers and students may resort to a stultifying self-censorship, avoiding topics that are vitally important precisely because they help students understand the true contours of America's troubled history. It's impossible to face history if teachers are always looking over their shoulders. And for those cynically leading the charge against CRT, that's precisely the point.

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How Past Panics Over Textbooks Set the Stage for the "Critical Race Theory" Freakout

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This summer's spate of state-level bills aimed at censoring the content of history teaching in public school classrooms-bills that have made much of the supposed double threat of "critical race theory" and the New York Times' 1619 Project-might seem somewhat random.

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General Milley pushes back on G.O.P. accusations of a ‘woke’ military. June 23, 2021

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General Milley pushes back on G.O.P. accusations of a ‘woke’ military. June 23, 2021

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Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, asked about the teaching of “critical race theory” at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and specifically a seminar called “Understanding Whiteness and White Rage.”

“This came to me from cadets, from families, from soldiers with their alarm and their concern about how divisive this type of teaching is that is rooted in Marxism,” Mr. Waltz said.

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General Milley pushes back on G.O.P. accusations of a ‘woke’ military.

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“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Republican congressman who objected to the teaching of “critical race theory.”

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Why Americans are so divided over teaching critical race theory (Jun. 24, 2021)

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Why Americans are so divided over teaching critical race theory (Jun. 24, 2021)

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Critical race theory, or CRT — often a graduate-level framework examining how the legacy of slavery and segregation in America is embedded in its legal systems and policies — has become the source of a political flashpoint across the country. The debate over its potential role in school curricula has roiled school districts and state legislatures nationwide. Amna Nawaz reports.

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Why Americans are so divided over teaching critical race theory

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'Critical Race Theory Is Simply the Latest Bogeyman.' Inside the Fight Over What Kids Learn About America's History by Olivia B. Waxman (JUNE 24, 2021)

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'Critical Race Theory Is Simply the Latest Bogeyman.' Inside the Fight Over What Kids Learn About America's History by Olivia B. Waxman (JUNE 24, 2021)

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Conservative advocacy groups, legal organizations and state legislatures have mounted a campaign to weaponize the teaching of critical race theory, driven by a belief that fighting it will be a winning electoral message. It’s hard to predict the issue’s potency at the ballot box. But a June Economist/YouGov poll showed that although only about a third of respondents had a good idea of what CRT was, most people who knew about it had an unfavorable opinion.

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During the 15-minute observation period after receiving his COVID-19 shot this March, Terry Harris pulled out his phone. There in the Vashon High School gymnasium, during a vaccination drive for St. Louis-area teachers, the executive director of student services at the suburban Rockwood school district in Missouri noticed an email addressed to himself and district superintendent Mark Miles. The subject line stood out: "Protect your people."

A parent had forwarded screenshots from a Facebook group called Concerned Parents of the Rockwood School District. Commenters called Harris, who is Black, "the most racist guy towards white people you'll ever meet" and said he "has to be the one that goes first." Harris saw a photo had been posted of him and his daughter, and the worst panic attack of his life began. "I tried to get up, and I stumbled," he says. Sitting in his St. Louis living room 2½ months later, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word LOVE, Harris, 39, recalls being so shaken that a National Guardsman came over to offer him water.

At a moment when Eastern European historians of the Holocaust are under threat from nationalist governments and countries with colonial pasts are pulling down statues and renaming streets, the debate over how to teach the history of race in America is entangling local school boards and engulfing national politics. It's a conversation that predates the tumult of 2020: the New York Times ' 1619 Project, released to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia, aimed to reframe America's origin story around the legacy of slavery; the project helped push scholarly conversations about the impact of racism on U.S. history into the mainstream.
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It has also galvanized those who worry applying that lens will teach children to hate America or divide the nation by emphasizing our differences. This viewpoint has come to the fore amid a surge of controversy over critical race theory (CRT), a decades-old academic framework that scholars use to interrogate how legal systems-as well as other elements of society-perpetuate racism and exclusion. Opponents of CRT now invoke it as a catchall term for any discussion of systemic racism. All of a sudden, this once obscure bit of pedagogy is the hottest topic in conservative politics. In recent weeks, Republican governors in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas have signed bills designed to restrict the way history is taught or ban the use of CRT. In a legally binding opinion, Montana's attorney general called critical race theory and antiracism training "discriminatory" and illegal "in many instances." On June 10, the Florida board of education approved a rule that instruction "may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." At least 25 states have proposed or taken actions designed to restrict how teachers discuss racism and sexism, according to Education Week. One group in Nevada is calling for teachers to wear body cameras; under a bill that was proposed in Arizona, teachers could have been fined $5,000 for teaching students to feel "guilt" over their race.

All this is no accident. Conservative advocacy groups, legal organizations and state legislatures have mounted a campaign to weaponize the teaching of critical race theory, driven by a belief that fighting it will be a winning electoral message. It's hard to predict the issue's potency at the ballot box. But a June Economist/YouGov poll showed that although only about a third of respondents had a good idea of what CRT was, most people who knew about it had an unfavorable opinion.

In short, "Make America Great Again" has evolved into "Teach America's Great Again." Candidates for local school boards, which tend to wield power over questions like which textbooks are used, are being grilled about where they stand on historical facts. Like nearly all controversies involving race in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, Americans are joining Team 1776 or Team 1619 along partisan lines. Last fall, the American Historical Association and Fairleigh Dickinson University, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, conducted a national survey on what Americans think about history. In preliminary results shared with TIME, they found that 70% of Democrats said the study of history should "question" the past, while 84% of Republican respondents said the goal was to celebrate it.

It's a debate between people who think children shouldn't be burdened with the past, and those who want kids to learn how the legacy of that past shapes American society today. Is our national history merely a tool to inspire patriotism, or is it, as historians argue, a valuable lesson in the good, the bad and the ugly? As this new front in the culture wars shows, our understanding of the past is a key factor in how we envision our future. This is a story about the story-and the myths-America tells about itself.

Like many communities where critical race theory has been a subject of fierce debate, the Rockwood school district does not even teach it. Actual critical race theory is rarely taught below the graduate level. Yet educators like Harris are under fire for their increasing efforts to ensure schools teach a more diverse curriculum, with an emphasis on equity. That afternoon in March, the school district filed a police report and looped in the FBI. A security guard was sent to Harris' home and the nearby home of his colleague Brittany Hogan, who is also Black and served as the school district's director of educational equity and diversity, a title created for the 2020-2021 academic year. The district has since filed three police reports because of social media posts concerning staff members; at least four staff members and one incoming assistant principal-all but one of whom are Black-have received threatening voice mails, emails or social media posts.

Harris is undaunted. "We have to talk about the fact that race and racism is real, and is as much of the fabric of America as apple pie or the Fourth of July or the Second Amendment," he says. "Just because that's where we are doesn't mean that's where we have to be."

But not looking back is also an American tradition. "We have it in our power," Thomas Paine wrote in his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, "to begin the world over again." In that spirit, New England towns perpetuated a myth that Native Americans had died out, as Native American historian Jean O'Brien has tracked. John Burk's three-volume history of Virginia, published in the early 19th century, largely left out slavery. "There were no bigger revisionist historians than the founding generation themselves," argues historian Michael Hattem, author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution. Worried about children reading "long-legged Yankee lies" in textbooks written up North after the Civil War, the United Daughters of the Confederacy played a key role in propagating the "Lost Cause" myth that the South fought nobly for states' rights, not for slavery.

As history education in American K-12 schools was formalized in the late 19th century, during a period of nativism and nostalgia, the idea that such classes should inspire patriotism became more widespread. During World War I, a New York State law banned public schools from using textbooks containing material "disloyal to the United States." In the 1920s, during a rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, Oregon barred public schools from teaching from any textbook that "speaks slightingly of the founders of the republic." Amid heightened fears of communism in the 1930s and 1950s, some states required teachers to take loyalty oaths. "There's always a connection between the flare-up of conservative anger or fear of what's going on in schools and larger political unrest," says historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, author of Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture.

Since the Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that mandatory school prayer is unconstitutional, the battle has only intensified, thanks in large part to conservative activists who worry public schools are a breeding ground for societal change. In 1969, California Governor Ronald Reagan's moral-guidelines committee warned that people who conduct "sensitivity training" are "aligned with revolutionary groups" that "intend to use the schools to destroy American culture and traditions." The roar grew louder as school integration programs ramped up in the 1970s, and continued into the 21st century through fights over everything from Title IX and Common Core to bathroom bills and COVID-19 closures.

"You can trace a decades-long agenda on the part of conservative think tanks to undermine public education whether via vouchers or charter schools or attacks on teacher unions," says Sumi Cho, director of strategic initiatives at the African American Policy Forum, who taught critical race theory for over 25 years at DePaul University College of Law. "Critical race theory is simply the latest bogeyman."

But the latest round of the battle does contain a new element: Donald Trump. On Constitution Day last September, the then President announced at the Library of Congress that he was creating a "1776 Commission" to "promote patriotic education."

Trump sensed an issue gaining steam on the right. His announcement followed a Sept. 1 Tucker Carlson Tonight appearance by Christopher Rufo, 36, now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who is credited with catalyzing much of the uproar. Rufo began last summer to openly make the case that inclusion efforts at publicly funded institutions were going too far by teaching participants to apply what he called "critical race theory" to their lives. After that appearance on Carlson's show, Rufo says, Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, reached out to talk. Soon the Trump Administration banned the use of CRT in federal offices. The President's Advisory 1776 Commission came right after, and the movement against CRT began to expand its focus beyond corporate diversity trainings and into the classroom.

Released on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year-Trump's penultimate day in office-the 1776 Commission's report did not have any power to compel school districts to do anything. Nor was it especially concerned with historical accuracy; an American Historical Association statement signed by 47 academic organizations condemned it as "a simplistic interpretation that relies on falsehoods, inaccuracies, omissions, and misleading statements" and "a screed against a half-century of historical scholarship." But the document was an early peek at how the right would attempt to rally its base on the subject. It called for focusing classroom discussions of the U.S. founding era on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and not on "fashionable ideologies" like "claims of systemic racism" that threaten national unity.

The 1776 Commission was short-lived. One of President Joe Biden's first acts on Inauguration Day was to terminate it. The move only spurred conservatives on. "By abolishing the commission, I think that actually helped the contribution of this report because it brought attention to it," says Matthew Spalding, the 1776 Commission's executive director.

Less than 12 hours after Trump left office, Rufo announced he had company in his quest. "The conservative legal movement and a network of private attorneys are gearing up for war against critical race theory," he tweeted. "We will fight and we will win."

Adam Waldeck was one of the people who saw Biden's decision to nix the 1776 Commission as "a major slap in the face." Waldeck, a 36-year-old former South Carolina state director and coalitions director for Newt Gingrich, works for a new issue-advocacy group called 1776 Action. It grew out of a conservative organization called the American Legacy Center, affiliated with Ben Carson, Trump's former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. "We as conservatives are losing perhaps the most fundamental cultural battle in our nation," Carson wrote in a March 15 email to conservative donors and activists. "In classrooms in all 50 states, our kids and grandkids are the victims of a coordinated attack on our history, our heroes, and our very inheritance."

On April 6, the group released an online video and paid radio ad supporting a New Hampshire house bill prohibiting the teaching of "divisive concepts" in schools. "Last year, radicals destroyed statues and burned cities. Now in many New Hampshire schools they're brainwashing our children to hate America and each other," the narration intones. Aspects of the bill became part of the proposed New Hampshire budget, which as of June 23 says teachers can't instruct students that anyone's identity makes them inherently oppressive, even unconsciously, although they are welcome to teach the "historical existence" of that idea. (Foes of such a rule might argue that while identity does not determine whether an individual is biased, it's important for kids to understand how some groups as a whole benefit from discriminatory systems that are very much alive and well.)

The group also launched "The 1776 Pledge to Save Our Schools," asking candidates for office to vow to "restore honest, patriotic education that cultivates in our children a profound love for our country." Just as Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge has shaped conservative doctrine for decades, Waldeck hopes the oath will become a litmus test for political hopefuls. (South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who is running for re-election in 2022 and viewed as a potential presidential candidate, has announced that she backs it.) But Waldeck, who is white, also envisions a society in which 1619 vs. 1776 becomes a political issue as fundamental as gun or abortion rights. "We want it to be something that ultimately people vote on," he says.

On April 19, a public-comment period opened for an Education Department proposal that would prioritize grant funding to American History and Civics Education projects that incorporate diversity and inclusion, including curriculums that "take into account systemic marginalization, biases, inequities, and discriminatory policy and practice in American history." This relatively obscure proposal sparked a national conflagration. In Washington, D.C., Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell spoke out against it. In Idaho, on April 28, GOP governor Brad Little signed a bill designed to deter schools from applying for the grants. The next month, Idaho's Republican lieutenant governor Janice McGeachin announced her run for governor in 2022, after launching a "Task Force to Examine Indoctrination in Idaho Education Based on Critical Race Theory, Socialism, Communism, and Marxism."

Even the anti-CRT bills that have failed have served a purpose, authors say. "I think the ultimate success is making parents aware that this is something that is not just taking place on the West Coast or the East Coast," says Arkansas state Representative Mark Lowery, who introduced two bills to restrict curriculums in the state. He ended up withdrawing both, but still counts them as a PR win. "It's actually coming to your local school district."

The Concerned Parents of the Rockwood school district were swept up in this trend. Like many others worried about critical race theory, Rockwood parents reached out to two of the main organizations trying to mobilize families nationwide to speak out about diversity initiatives in school: the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) and Parents Defending Education, both of which formed in January and launched publicly in March.

Parents Defending Education invites people to anonymously submit material they find concerning, says Erika Sanzi, its director of outreach-links to slide decks from teacher trainings; screenshots of assignments; emails that suggest "activism in the classroom." The group then uses the tip line to file complaints with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, as it did based on one school district's invite to a Zoom meeting that was described, in the aftermath of the March 16 shootings at Atlanta-area spas, as "a safe space for our Asian/Asian-American and Students of Color, *not* for students who identify only as White." (The invitation noted that white students could still talk to the event's organizers.) Sanzi said the group has been "bombarded" with submissions.

Nicole Neily, the group's founder, says the goal is not to keep certain topics out of the classroom, but rather to change the way the conversation takes place. "I'm a libertarian; the word ban gives me hives," Neily says. But her grandparents met in a Japanese-American incarceration camp, she adds, and she is sensitive to exercises that emphasize the differences between people. "It's when we start to separate kids and make them feel bad and write down all the different ways that you have privilege-you're straight, you're white, you're female," she says. "To me, that's compelling speech, and you're treating children differently. It's the implementation that concerns me, not the actual content of the lesson."

FAIR, meanwhile, says it has more than 40 chapters nationwide, including one in the St. Louis area. "I don't think it's the school's place to teach our children to be race-conscious," explains FAIR co-founder Bion Bartning.

Both FAIR and Parents Defending Education are structuring themselves as a type of nonprofit that is not required to publicly disclose its donors. Because they were formed only recently, there are no tax returns available. But an analysis of public documents does provide some insight into the power behind the scenes. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who has blasted her kids' elite Manhattan schools as "far left," and Alexander Lloyd, a venture capitalist and Republican donor, sit with Rufo on FAIR's board of advisers. Neily, the founder of Parents Defending Education, is a former staffer at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank co-founded by prominent Republican donor Charles Koch, and the president of Speech First, a nonprofit organization that supports free speech on campus through litigation and advocacy. Two of that group's highest-paid independent contractors in 2018, according to tax filings, were Consovoy McCarthy, whose founding partner, William Consovoy, was Trump's attorney, and CRC Public Relations, a well-connected advocate for conservative causes.

The former President is still in on the action too. In a June 18 op-ed on RealClearPolitics,Trump called for a 1776 Commission in every state, the establishment of a patriotic-education corps à la Teach for America, and a voucher program to move kids out of schools teaching CRT.

These tactics mark a new chapter in the culture wars over education, experts say. "Conservative activists have always worried that innocent white American children might be harmed by a traumatic exposure to ideas about race, class and American exceptionalism," explains historian Adam Laats, author of The Other School Reformers: Conservative Activism in American Education. "But in the 20th century they did not accuse progressives of teaching racist ideas."

They haven't really needed to. For more than a century, patriotic education has largely prevailed. Students, for the most part, do not get an in-depth history of systemic racism unless they go to college. According to research by the Southern Poverty Law Center, only 8% of high school seniors in 2018 could identify slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War. While some educators do teach the topic in innovative or controversial ways, they are not the majority-although that may be changing, as social media enables the sharing of resources to help teachers field questions from students who are watching the news.

Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, finds the idea that classroom explorations of racism are divisive to be ironic. "If we're not teaching students that the reason why racial inequity exists is because of racism, then what are they going to conclude as to why racial inequity exists? They're going to conclude that it must be because those Black people must have less because they are less," Kendi says. "That's the only other conclusion. Not teaching our kids about racism is actually divisive."

Rockwood was ripe for a culture clash. It's suburban and 75% white, with some of the best public schools in Missouri. While most of the district is in St. Louis County, which voted overwhelmingly for Biden, it also includes parts of Jefferson County, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Nearby St. Louis regularly appears on lists of the most segregated cities in America, and Rockwood is the largest participant in the area's school-integration busing program, which is in the process of being phased out.

Lauren Pickett, 18, just graduated from Rockwood's Marquette High School and covered the school's diversity curriculum for the student newspaper over the past year. She says local divisions began to bubble up into conflict during Black Lives Matter protests last summer, which is when she perceived an unwillingness among white residents to hear about Black people's negative experiences with police. "It's actually more divisive to not want to be aware of anyone else's history that's different from your own," says Pickett, who is Black. "I was very afraid when I first heard about legislation trying to ban teaching on critical race theory and take away teaching on slavery and racism, because it seems as though it's erasing who I am and my history."

When the Concerned Parents of the Rockwood School District Facebook group formed in July 2020 to discuss COVID-19 safety protocols, its members were at first an ideologically mixed group. But the tenor turned to the right, especially after Trump lost the 2020 election. The same forces that split citizens who were for and against masks split those for and against the idea of CRT being taught in schools-regardless of whether it was actually happening.

When Shauna Poggio saw the chatter on Facebook about a bill in Missouri's legislature that would ban the 1619 Project, the 46-year-old school psychologist decided it was time to speak up. Her ninth-grade son, who attends Lafayette High School in Wildwood, Mo., had started complaining about discussions of cultural identity in his English Language Arts class. Poggio shared with TIME photos of a homework exercise that asked him to think about "assumptions that people make about people in the different groups you belong to." (In the assignment, Poggio's son described himself as being a white Republican who plays golf, and said people on the "far left" would probably assume that he is racist.) Poggio had heard about CRT in the news-she listens to Tucker Carlson's podcast-but it hadn't seemed relevant to her. Now, however, she was on alert.

On April 18, Poggio became one of at least a dozen Rockwood parents to submit a public comment in support of a 1619 Project ban, arguing that "this ideology has already infiltrated our district and created immense racial and political division." Twelve days later, she attended an info session on CRT held at Brookdale Farms, an events venue with a back the blue sign at the entrance. It was organized by Kenneth Rosa, a local activist associated with the Fathers' Rights Movement, an organization that advocates against systems the group sees as privileging mothers over fathers. Although some present spoke in favor of a curriculum that emphasizes inclusivity, a video went viral of a choked-up mother saying that "just because I do not want critical race theory taught to my children in school does not mean that I'm a racist, dammit." (It's racked up nearly a million views on Twitter since it was posted May 1.)

"My understanding of critical race theory is it kind of comes down to, 'White people founded this country for slavery, and they're the oppressors,'" Poggio says of her takeaway from that meeting. "'And if you're Black, then you're oppressed, you're the victim,' and it kind of just leaves everybody stuck in that place where that's the end of the story." Poggio starts to tear up as she considers that kids aren't learning about the national ideals that her grandfathers fought for in World War II. "I just think it disregards the idea that all people are created equal and in the image of God, and we can make our own destiny."

The 1619 Project draws attention to how white veterans of World War II got to buy homes under the GI Bill while many of their Black counterparts were denied the opportunity to do so-a fact that has contributed to the persistence of the racial wealth gap today. But Poggio says she believes it's more important to focus on teaching children that while injustice does linger-for people of all races-in America it's still possible to overcome obstacles if you work hard.

As the spring dragged on, the district grew further embroiled in a war that went beyond group texts and Facebook comments. In the local school-board race in April, candidate Jackie Koerner got multiple emails asking her where she stood on CRT. (Incumbent candidates, who were not anti-CRT, won by a slim margin.) An April 22 email from a district literacy speech coordinator, Natalie Fallert, who is white, advised teachers how to avoid drawing the attention of parents hunting for "CRT" materials. It was leaked to the conservative news site the Daily Wire. About a month later, Fallert, who no longer works for the district, received a death threat calling her "anti-American." Terry Harris, the administrator who had received the warning back in March, began switching up his work schedule as a safety precaution.

At one meeting, a white parent of three boys who attend Rockwood schools called critical race theory "psychological child abuse." Another white parent read a letter from her daughter, a senior at Eureka High School, calling for an updated history curriculum that is "not just the dramatization of white people's successes," calling it "tragic" that she had to wait until AP U.S. History "to learn the truth." When the school board met on May 6, a group of parents stood outside, holding signs thanking teachers for their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work. Joel Vanderheyden, 40, held one that said Understanding inequity is necessary to create equity.Diversity issues in schools had never been something he paid much attention to before, but now he was glued to school-board-candidate debates. "I've never voted in a school-board election in my life until this year because there wasn't the urgency," he says. Next year, Vanderheyden will be the co-coordinator of DEI at his son's elementary school.

On the very last day of the school year, a confrontation took place in the Eureka High School cafeteria. Some students had come with Trump and "thin blue line" flags; others had rainbow ones to celebrate Pride Month. The two groups began the morning merely displaying their allegiances, but before long the standoff morphed into something more confrontational. By the end of the day, Eureka High's assistant principal George Calhoun, who is Black, was receiving threatening voice mails falsely accusing him of confiscating an American flag, the district said.

While Concerned Parents of Rockwood represents those who think efforts to make the curriculum more inclusive have gone overboard, parents in groups like Rockwood REAL, Rockwood Ahead and MO Equity Education Support Group believe inclusive curriculum initiatives are exactly what's necessary for their kids to understand American society. Shemia Reese, 39, one of the leaders of Rockwood REAL, grew up being bused into a nearby school district in the 1990s, and now her own kids are as well. She's fed up with how much hasn't changed since then. Her kids still tell her that they hear the N word at school. "As a parent, I'm doing the best that I can to make sure that they get the best education, and statistics show that Rockwood is where the best education is in Missouri," she says. "As adults, if we can't have these hard conversations, how can we possibly expect our children to?"

On the first weekend of June, Rockwood parents gathered at the Pillar Foundation in Ellisville, Mo., for a meeting called "Critical Race Theory Exposed." Before the presentation, attendees took copies of handouts telling them they could identify CRT by the use of terms like racial justice and disrupt, and directing them to a site for Rufo's anti-CRT outreach efforts.

The event's organizer, Bev Ehlen, the state director for the Concerned Women for America of Missouri, opened with a prayer for the U.S. to turn back to God. Then, during a presentation that stretched over two hours, Mary Byrne of the Heartland Institute, a major conservative think tank that opposed Common Core, told more than 100 attendees that diversity trainings in educational settings are "iterations from Maoist struggle sessions" and that Black Lives Matter was a form of "Marxist indoctrination." (There is a long history of smearing Black civil rights activists as communists.) "There are very few people who are honest about history," Byrne said.

"Think of the public-school system as the Titanic going to hit an iceberg," Zina Hackworth, 56, who is Black, shouted out as the presentation ended. "Get your children off of the Titanic!"

Amy Svolopoulos, 44, of Ballwin, Mo., sat in the front row, too overwhelmed to take notes. A white parent of three, she went into the meeting believing there should be nothing controversial about the idea that Black Lives Matter. She began crying at the end as she shared her worries that people with ulterior motives are using BLM to "deceive" kids. Now she is worried, she says, that critical race theory will "divide our youth instead of unite them."

Not everyone had the same takeaway. Amy Ryan, 44, who was adopted from South Korea into a white family and experienced anti-Asian racism growing up in Indiana, watched from the back. What she heard, she said, reflected white Americans' "fear that they are going to be treated how people treat marginalized groups." After going to countless school-board meetings and community forums this year, Ryan wants to run for state office "to help slow down the madness that we're in right now."

Terry Harris remains optimistic that a divided Rockwood can come together. "I think the next steps are to really figure out where we are as a district, almost like, let's do an equity audit," he says. "How comfortable are you talking about some of these tough situations?" The students often have a better grasp of the stakes than their parents, he notes. They may not agree on everything, but they want to know the truth about how the U.S. got to where it is today.

When the students return in the fall, ready to hear America's story again, superintendent Miles won't be with them. He's resigning after just two years in the job, citing the impact of the parent uprising over critical race theory on top of running a school district during a global pandemic. "I'm concerned as a fellow citizen that some have lost the ability to truly consider the perspective of another," the 50-year-old former social-studies teacher says. "That is the mark of an educated citizenry." -With reporting by Alana Abramson/Washington, D.C., and Alejandro de la Garza/New York
Correction, July 16 The original version of this story misstated whether government-registered nonprofits are not required to publicly disclose their donors. Some types of nonprofit groups must do so.
Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.

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Inside the Fight Over What Kids Learn About America's History

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The national debate over how to teach the history of race in the U.S. is entangling local school boards and engulfing national politics.

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Derek Chauvin is sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder of George Floyd - June 25, 2020

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Derek Chauvin is sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder of George Floyd - June 25, 2020

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June 25, 2021, 3:57 p.m. ET

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Judge Sentences Derek Chauvin

Judge Peter A. Cahill of Hennepin County District Court sentenced Mr. Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer, to 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.

What the case is or what the sentence is not based on is emotion or sympathy, but at the same time, I want to acknowledge the deep and tremendous pain that all the families are feeling, especially the Floyd family. You have our sympathies. And I acknowledge and hear the pain that you are feeling. Mr. Chauvin, as to count one, based on the verdict of the jury finding you guilty of unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony under Minnesota Statute 609.19, Subdivision 2, Paren 1, it is the judgment of the court that you now stand convicted of that offense. Pursuant to Minnesota Statute Section 60904, counts two and three will remain unadjudicated as they are lesser offenses of count one. Now sentence for count one: The court commits you to the custody of the commissioner of corrections for a period of 270 months. That's two seven zero. That is a 10-year addition to the presumptive sentence of 150 months. This is based on your abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty shown to George Floyd.

Judge Peter A. Cahill of Hennepin County District Court sentenced Mr. Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer, to 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd. Credit Credit... Aaron Nesheim for The New York Times

MINNEAPOLIS - The killing of George Floyd on a Minneapolis corner led to nationwide protests, a reckoning over racial injustice touching on virtually every aspect of American life and, on Friday, a substantial prison sentence - 22 and a half years - for the former police officer, Derek Chauvin, who ignored Mr. Floyd's desperate cries for help and pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck for what seemed an eternity.

The sentence was less than the 30 years prosecutors had sought, but far more than the penalty that lawyers for Mr. Chauvin, 45, had requested: probation and the time he has already spent behind bars. The sentence means the earliest Mr. Chauvin could be eligible for release on parole, experts said, would be in 2035 or 2036, when he is close to 60 years old.

In delivering Mr. Chauvin's sentence on Friday, Judge Peter A. Cahill referred to the "particular cruelty" of the crime, which was captured in a widely shared cellphone video, as Mr. Chauvin held Mr. Floyd down for more than nine minutes in May 2020. Mr. Floyd could be heard crying out more than 20 times that he could not breathe.

Shortly after reading the sentence from the bench, Judge Cahill issued a 22-page memorandum about his decision, writing, "Part of the mission of the Minneapolis Police Department is to give citizens 'voice and respect.'" But Mr. Chauvin, the judge wrote, had instead "treated Mr. Floyd without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings and which he certainly would have extended to a friend or neighbor."

Relatives of Mr. Floyd expressed relief that Mr. Chauvin was facing prison, even as they said they believed he deserved a longer term. In the hearing, they described their anguish and loss in tearful terms. "Why?" said Terrence Floyd, Mr. Floyd's brother. "What were you thinking? What was going through your head when you had your knee on my brother's neck?"

Gianna Floyd, Mr. Floyd's 7-year-old daughter, spoke in a prerecorded video, answering questions about her father. Asked what she would say to her father if she could, she said, "It would be I miss you and I love you."

Mr. Chauvin, dressed in a gray suit and blue face mask and with a freshly shaven head, sat quietly through much of the proceedings. Offered an opportunity to address the courtroom, Mr. Chauvin spoke only briefly, saying that "additional legal matters at hand" prevented him from saying more. "But, very briefly though," he said, "I do want to give my condolences to the Floyd family."

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Derek Chauvin gave a brief statement before his sentencing. Credit... Court TV, via Reuters

Mr. Chauvin's mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, spoke longer, urging the judge to be lenient and speaking publicly about the case for the first time. She said the news media and prosecutors had painted a distorted picture of her son.

"The public will never know the loving and caring man he is," Ms. Pawlenty said. "But his family does."

The killing of Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by Mr. Chauvin, a white officer who spent 19 years on the Minneapolis force, led to calls around the country to defund police budgets, remove statues of historical figures tied to racism and diversify predominantly white corporate boards. The sentence offered some closure to a traumatized nation. Still, activists said there was much more to be done, especially with national police reform legislation named for Mr. Floyd languishing in Washington.

Mr. Chauvin's conviction was a rare rebuke by the criminal justice system against a police officer who killed someone while on duty. Officers are often given wide latitude to use force, and juries have historically been reluctant to second-guess them, especially when they make split-second decisions under dangerous circumstances.

While police officers in America kill roughly 1,000 people each year, Mr. Chauvin is one of only 11 officers who have been convicted of murder for on-duty killings since 2005, according to research conducted by Philip M. Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University. The lightest sentence for officers has been just less than seven years in prison, while the harshest was life in prison. The average sentence was just under 22 years.

The corner in Minneapolis where Mr. Floyd was killed has become a memorial to what happened. His image has appeared on murals in cities around the world, and there is a statue of him in Brooklyn. "I can't breathe!" became a protest mantra, and when demonstrators chanted, "Say his name!" those gathered responded with "George Floyd!" followed by the names of so many others who were victims of police violence.

Mr. Floyd was a father and grandfather, and had been a rapper and star football and basketball player in high school in Houston. He had moved in recent years to Minneapolis, looking for a fresh start. In his last years of life, he worked as a security guard at a homeless shelter and a nightclub, and had struggled at times with opioid addiction, an affliction he shared with his girlfriend, Courteney Ross, who testified about it at Mr. Chauvin's trial.

Mr. Chauvin has been behind bars since his trial ended in April. The judge said Mr. Chauvin would be credited with 199 days already served toward his sentence, including a period he spent in jail before his trial. Officials said he was being kept in solitary confinement for his own safety.

The maximum sentence allowed under Minnesota law for second-degree murder, the most serious charge Mr. Chauvin was convicted of, is 40 years. The jury, which deliberated for about 10 hours following a six-week trial, also convicted Mr. Chauvin of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Under Minnesota's sentencing guidelines, though, a presumptive sentence for someone like Mr. Chauvin with no criminal history is 12 and a half years.

Understand the Civil Rights Trial Over George Floyd's Death

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Leading up to the sentencing hearing, Mr. Chauvin's lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, had pressed the court for leniency, asserting in a memorandum that Mr. Chauvin had not known he was committing a crime when he tried to arrest Mr. Floyd on a report that he had used a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Mr. Nelson also argued that placing Mr. Chauvin in prison would make him a target of other inmates.

In seeking a 30-year prison sentence for Mr. Chauvin, prosecutors had argued that the former officer's actions had "traumatized Mr. Floyd's family, the bystanders who watched Mr. Floyd die, and the community. And his conduct shocked the nation's conscience."

In the end, Judge Cahill said two "aggravating factors" had affected his decision to sentence Mr. Chauvin to more than 22 years: Mr. Chauvin had acted with particular cruelty, the judge said, and had abused his authority as an officer of the law.

As the sentence was read on Friday afternoon, people gathered before televisions and computer livestreams, while demonstrators waited outside the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis.

Brandon Williams, nephew of George Floyd, addressed the news media outside of the Hennepin County Government Center immediately after Derek Chauvin was sentenced. Credit... Aaron Nesheim for The New York Times

Members of the Floyd family, along with their lawyer Benjamin Crump and the Rev. Al Sharpton, addressed reporters on the south lawn of the courthouse grounds. Mr. Sharpton said the sentence was significant, noting that it represented the longest sentence ever given to a Minnesota officer for a killing on the job. (Mr. Chauvin was only the second officer in state history to be convicted of murder for an on-duty killing.)

But Mr. Sharpton said it was not exactly justice. "Justice is George Floyd would have been alive," he said.

Others who gathered to hear the decision, including activists who had followed the case for more than a year, said Mr. Chauvin's sentence was too low. "That's not justice," one demonstrator said. And Brandon Williams, Mr. Floyd's nephew, said: "We were served a life sentence. We can't get George back." Rodney Floyd, Mr. Floyd's brother, called the prison term a "slap on the wrist."

Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general who led the prosecution of Mr. Chauvin, said the sentence did not reflect justice but was a "moment of real accountability on the road to justice."

Mr. Chauvin's sentencing does not end the legal proceedings in Mr. Floyd's killing. Mr. Chauvin also faces criminal charges in federal court, where he is accused of violating Mr. Floyd's constitutional rights. Three other police officers who were involved face a state trial, scheduled for March, on charges that they aided and abetted second-degree murder and manslaughter. Those officers were indicted by a federal grand jury as well.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Shaila Dewan and Matt Furber contributed reporting.

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Derek Chauvin is sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder of George Floyd.

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June 25, 2021, 3:57 p.m. ET MINNEAPOLIS - The killing of George Floyd on a Minneapolis corner led to nationwide protests, a reckoning over racial injustice touching on virtually every aspect of American life and, on Friday, a substantial prison sentence - 22 and a half years - for the former police officer, Derek Chauvin, who ignored Mr. Floyd's desperate cries for help and pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck for what seemed an eternity.

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“Secretive ‘dark money’ network launches anti-critical race theory campaign” by Alyce McFadden, Open Secret (June 30, 2021)

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“Secretive ‘dark money’ network launches anti-critical race theory campaign” by Alyce McFadden, Open Secret (June 30, 2021)

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A deep-pocketed “dark money” group is spending “well over $1 million” on an ad campaign against the inclusion of racial justice topics in K-12 curricula.  The Concord Fund is a conservative dark money group better known as the Judicial Crisis Network. . . . The Concord Fund’s latest identity comes in the midst of the GOP’s furor over critical race theory, a much-discussed but little-understood academic theory that suggests the legacies of slavery and segregation influence institutional and systemic racism today. Some Republican lawmakers have said critical race theory is “anti-American” and promotes discrimination against white people.

The debate over how school children are taught about slavery, civil rights and racism has become the most recent battle in the culture war between conservatives and progressives. And Republicans are gearing up to use the controversy as political fodder during the 2022 midterms.

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(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

A deep-pocketed " dark money" group is spending " well over $1 million " on an ad campaign against the inclusion of racial justice topics in K-12 curricula.

The Concord Fund's latest identity comes in the midst of the GOP's furor over critical race theory, a much-discussed but little-understood academic theory that suggests the legacies of slavery and segregation influence institutional and systemic racism today. Some Republican lawmakers have said critical race theory is " anti-American " and promotes discrimination against white people.

The debate over how school children are taught about slavery, civil rights and racism has become the most recent battle in the culture war between conservatives and progressives. And Republicans are gearing up to use the controversy as political fodder during the 2022 midterms.

On June 24, the Republican Study Committee circulated a memo authored by Committee Chair Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) to its members urging them to "lean into the culture war."

"Because the backlash against Critical Race Theory is real," Banks wrote. "We are beginning to see an organic movement from parents across the country ... who are fed up with the lessons their kids are being taught. As House conservatives, we should be sending a signal to these concerned parents: We have your back."

While parents across the country have objected to the teaching of critical race theory in schools, a network of established dark money groups funded by secret donors are stoking the purportedly "organic" anti-CRT sentiment Banks describes.

The Virginia-focused ad highlights a headline from the conservative publication the Federalist decrying a Fairfax County school district's decision to hire social justice consultants to help build "Critical Race Theory curricula" in May.

OpenSecrets reporting revealed that the 45Committee received initial funding from the Wellspring Committee, a dark money group that contributed tens of millions of dollars to the Judicial Crisis Network over the course of several years.

The Daily Poster reported Tuesday that the Concord Fund raised more than $14 million from a single anonymous donor between July 2019 and June 2020. The fund has been credited with helping confirm Trump's slate of conservative judges, and it is closely tied to Leonard Leo, a one-time Trump adviser who served as an executive of the conservative Federalist Society.

Free to Learn isn't the only dark money group looking to keep racial justice curricula out of classrooms. A report by NBC News identified more than 165 groups involved in anti-CRT activism. Unlike Free to Learn, which is registered as a non-stock corporation, most of these groups are 501(c) nonprofits that aim to support parents who sue school districts over curricula they deem inappropriately progressive and boosting anti-CRT school board candidates. Republican lawmakers cast these groups as grassroots organizations led by concerned parents, but many of them have close ties to well-established conservative networks.

One group - SchoolhouseRights.org - helps connect disgruntled parents with legal services "in defense of students' freedom of conscience in public education and the rights of parents." It is a project of the International Organization for the Family, a nonprofit designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Another group, Parents Defending Education, is led and incorporated by Nicole Neily, a long-time conservative writer and researcher. Neily also heads Speech First Inc., a charitable nonprofit with ties to the Koch Network that promotes conservative speech on college campuses.

In late May, Axios reported that a Republican consultant and commentator founded the 1776 Project PAC, dedicated to supporting anti-CRT school board candidates across the country. The committee registered with the FEC in January but only began soliciting donations late this spring. The PAC's name refers to a conservative counterargument to the 1619 Project, a reporting project published by the New York Times Magazine in 2019 that argues America's real founding occurred in 1619 with the start of slavery in the U.S.

Read more OpenSecrets News & Analysis: Outside Money

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Secretive 'dark money' network launches anti-critical race theory campaign

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A deep-pocketed " dark money" group is spending " well over $1 million " on an ad campaign against the inclusion of racial justice topics in K-12 curricula. The Concord Fund's latest identity comes in the midst of the GOP's furor over critical race theory, a much-discussed but little-understood academic theory that suggests the legacies of slavery and segregation influence institutional and systemic racism today.

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Right-Wing Legislators Are Trying to Stop Us from Teaching for Racial Justice. We Refuse by Rethinking Schools editors (Summer 2021 issue)

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Right-Wing Legislators Are Trying to Stop Us from Teaching for Racial Justice. We Refuse by Rethinking Schools editors (Summer 2021 issue)

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“The alphabet is abolitionist.”

This powerful statement comes from an 1867 Harper’s Weekly editorial rallying its mostly Northern readers to the fight for robust public education as part of the post-Civil War reconstruction of the South. It rightly rooted this struggle in the violent denial of literacy under the slavocracy. In that context, learning — or teaching others — to read and write was indeed abolitionist.

The political project of white supremacy has always included attacks on education and those attacks continue in 2021. Today’s Republican Party is not so bold as to suggest educators be prohibited from teaching their pupils to read the alphabet, only that we be prohibited from teaching them to read the world. Continue reading.

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By Editors of Rethinking Schools

Illustrator: Boris Séméniako

"The alphabet is abolitionist."

This powerful statement comes from an 1867 Harper's Weekly editorial rallying its mostly Northern readers to the fight for robust public education as part of the post-Civil War reconstruction of the South. It rightly rooted this struggle in the violent denial of literacy under the slavocracy. In that context, learning - or teaching others - to read and write was indeed abolitionist.

The political project of white supremacy has always included attacks on education and those attacks continue in 2021. Today's Republican Party is not so bold as to suggest educators be prohibited from teaching their pupils to read the alphabet, only that we be prohibited from teaching them to read the world.

Lawmakers in a growing number of states are attempting to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the past and present. The bill introduced in the Missouri legislature exemplifies a rash of similar bills - in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and others. It bans teaching that "identifies people or groups of people, entities, or institutions in the United States as inherently, immutably, or systemically sexist, racist, anti-LGBT, bigoted, biased, privileged, or oppressed."

Since these laws seem to be written with the intent to confuse, let's focus on just a few terms from the comma-laden lists of the Missouri law: institutions, systemically, racist. Under the Missouri legislation an educator could not, without penalty, teach their students that the authors of the U.S. Constitution (establishing the institutions of the U.S. government) included multiple protections for enslavers and slavery (another institution), making white supremacy ( racism) foundational ( systemic), to the United States.

To put it another way, in 2021, when children look around at the vast inequalities apparent in every corner of their daily lives - where the wealth of a typical white family is 10 times that of a typical Black family, where a Black person is three times as likely to die in childbirth as a white person, and where African Americans are five times as likely to be in prison as their white counterparts - and ask, "Why? Why is it like this?" that child's teacher would be prohibited from answering their student's earnest and urgent question.

These laws peddle in bait-and-switch tactics, using the language of anti-discrimination to mask their perpetuation of a discriminatory and unjust status quo. Louisiana's "divisive concepts" law lists "That one race or sex is inherently superior or inferior to another race or sex" as its very first banned concept. No disagreement there. But further down the "divisive concepts" list we find "That either the United States of America or the state of Louisiana is fundamentally, institutionally, or systemically racist or sexist." Using the bait of anti-racism and anti-sexism, the law switches to demand educators repudiate the very existence of racism or sexism at all. This in a state where Black women face the worst pay gap in the country, earning a median $26,488 a year in wages, compared with $55,386 in median annual wages earned by white men there.

By banning educators from teaching about these realities, lawmakers seek to deny young people the right to understand - and so effectively act upon - the world they've been bequeathed. These bills are an attack on democracy itself.

And they are part of the larger white supremacist project of disenfranchisement and starvation of public goods. For the last decade, voter suppression has been a signature of Republican state legislators: voter ID laws to voter roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures, all of which disproportionately disenfranchise Black, Brown, poor, young, elderly, and disabled voters. The rich get richer while public schools (in which a majority are students of color and poor) literally crumble, educators scrounge to make sure students have basic supplies, and school nurses, counselors, and librarians are treated as optional. During the pandemic, U.S. billionaires increased their wealth by $1.6 trillion or 55 percent. Yet, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called any increase to the corporate tax rate (which was eviscerated under President Trump) a "red line." In the context of these policy priorities, it's worth asking what function this recent spate of anti-education bills serve.

Noting that many of these bills seek to regulate or ban educators' use of "critical race theory" and the New York Times ' "1619 Project," Dr. Greg Carr, associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University, said, "It's not about critical race theory. The numbers you must keep in mind are not 1619, nor 1776. The four numbers you need to keep in mind are 2022." Indeed, these bills are not just about a struggle over history, but an effort to seize control of politics in the present. The bill in Texas is particularly instructive as it specifically targets how teachers address "current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs." It also bans schools from providing course credit for student activism, including practicums, service learning, and internships. These bills attempt to deny our students not only an honest history of our country, but also models of activism for making it fairer today. They are a recipe not for democratic engagement, but for ignorance - and obedience to the status quo.

As dangerous as they are, we view these bills as a victory for the movements of which we are a part and with which we act in solidarity. As Benjamin Franklin is said to have remarked, "One doesn't make laws to prevent the sheep from planning insurrection." In other words, no one creates a law based on what they believe to be impossible. Republican lawmakers across the country are acting because the ground is shifting. Following the summer uprisings for racial justice in 2020, which were by some accounts the largest in U.S. history, thousands of teachers committed to learning more about the United States' long history of white supremacy and to teaching their students about the equally long struggles for justice that continue to this day. Thousands of teachers attended dozens of webinars and teach-ins, sponsored by Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project, or purchased Teaching for Black Lives and other books to help them infuse racial justice into their curricula and classrooms. Last year three times as many schools participated in the Black Lives Matter at School's week of action compared to the year before. School districts across the country voted to eliminate or suspend their policing-in-schools programs, making progress toward one of the key demands of Black Lives Matter at School: Fund counselors not cops. Young people across the country are witnessing the power of activism firsthand; as key places where they are invited to reflect, analyze, and learn more about what is happening and why, our classrooms have become the target of reactionaries.

The good news: Educators everywhere are refusing to be silenced.

But we can and will fight back. Unions at all levels should organize against these attacks on teachers' right to fulfill one of their core ethical responsibilities: to not lie to children. We welcome the opposition to these bills offered by NEA, AFT, and professional organizations like the National Council for the Social Studies. Now they must take the next step by marshaling their resources and members to coordinate robust national and local resistance.

Many teachers are already resisting. Thousands have signed a pledge, organized by the Zinn Education Project, that reads in part:

We the undersigned educators will not be bullied. We will continue our commitment to develop critical thinking that supports students to better understand problems in our society, and to develop collective solutions to those problems. We are for truth-telling and uplifting the power of organizing and solidarity that move us toward a more just society.

The bad news is that right-wing legislators across the country are attempting to reach into our classrooms to censor a curriculum that encourages students to question injustice and to see themselves as capable of making the world a better place. The good news: Educators everywhere are refusing to be silenced, refusing to let a conservative agenda dictate what they teach their students. Erin Chisholm, a high school history teacher in Glendale, Arizona, defiantly wrote in her "Pledge to Teach the Truth": "The truth is worth more than the $5,000 fine the state of Arizona wants to slap on me if I allow my students to become critical thinkers." And elementary teacher Trechiondria Lathan, from Iowa City, Iowa, wrote: "I will not simply comply with racist laws, or be disrespected, dismissed, and traumatized by administrators and political leaders who proudly inflict harm on BIPOC students, families, and educators across the nation. In the words of Angela Davis, 'I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.'"

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Right-Wing Legislators Are Trying to Stop Us from Teaching for Racial Justice. We Refuse.

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By Editors of Rethinking Schools Illustrator: Boris Séméniako "The alphabet is abolitionist." This powerful statement comes from an 1867 Harper's Weekly editorial rallying its mostly Northern readers to the fight for robust public education as part of the post-Civil War reconstruction of the South.

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Panic Over Critical Race Theory Explained by Judd Legum (Jul 22, 2021)

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Panic Over Critical Race Theory Explained by Judd Legum (Jul 22, 2021)

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Panic Over Critical Race Theory Explained by Judd Legum

10,561 views • Jul 22, 2021 • What does money and influence have to do with the sudden panic over critical race theory? Journalist Judd Legum explains.
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Panic Over Critical Race Theory Explained by Judd Legum

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As states place new limits on class discussions of race, research suggests they benefit students by Matt Barnum, Chalk Beat (July 8, 2021)

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As states place new limits on class discussions of race, research suggests they benefit students by Matt Barnum, Chalk Beat (July 8, 2021)

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A handful of recent studies have found that students are more engaged in school after taking classes that frankly discuss racism and bigotry — just as some educators like Mason fear such discussions could be threatened by a wave of broad state laws designed to limit the teaching of what some are calling “critical race theory.”

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Mackee Mason says families choose his Austin, Texas charter high school because it's safe, with little bullying or fighting. Mason, the school's principal and football coach, credits its ethnic studies courses.

The two classes, which students take in ninth and then 11th grade, feature discussion and instruction in LGBTQ history, colonialism, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, police brutality, and exclusionary immigration policies. That allows students, who are predominantly Black and Hispanic, to reflect on their own experiences and learn about others'.

"I know without a shadow of a doubt that that is the number one reason why we have such a special place," Mason said. "We have these honest conversations that at times can be uncomfortable but we push through that to make a better space."

Research backs up Mason's positive experience. A handful of recent studies have found that students are more engaged in school after taking classes that frankly discuss racism and bigotry - just as some educators like Mason fear such discussions could be threatened by a wave of broad state laws designed to limit the teaching of what some are calling "critical race theory."

"These experiences where [students] grapple head-on with issues of identity and race and racism ... does something to their level of engagement," said Emily Penner, a professor at University of California, Irvine who has studied courses that include discussions of racism. "That process is really useful to them in an academic sense, probably in a personal sense as well."

A handful of recent studies offer evidence of those benefits.

An ethnic studies course developed by the San Francisco school district increased participating ninth grade students' attendance, course completion rates, and grades, according to a 2017 study coauthored by Penner. The class focused on social justice movements and discrimination throughout U.S. history. It also pushed students "to explore their individual identity, their family history, and their community history" and required completing a service project. Researchers compared nearly 1,500 participating students at three high schools to similar students who didn't have the chance to participate in the class. Ninth grade GPAs increased by 1.4 points among students who took the course.

An Oakland class for Black boys decreased their chances of dropping out. The class focused on Black history and culture, and included discussions about topics like how to challenge negative stereotypes about Black males. It also features college and career advising. A study of six Oakland high schools found that the program reduced dropout rates among Black boys from 8.5% to 4.9%.

Tucson's Mexican American studies course appeared to boost test scores and high school graduation rates, according to a 2014 paper. The class focused on social justice and patterns of oppression in society. (This became a political controversy and Arizona's legislature eventually banned the class, but the law was later struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional because it was motivated by racism.) Students who took the class were several percentage points more likely to pass state exams and to graduate high school, compared to similar students who didn't take the course, according to the study.

A history lesson focusing on Black and Hispanic contributions to history improved political engagement. In this narrower study, a researcher provided history lessons about either the abolition of slavery or Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers to several hundred students in a few Chicago-area high schools. One group received a lesson based on a commonly used history textbook. Another group's lesson on the same topic put a greater emphasis on the role of women and people of color in creating broad social movements. The study found that after the assignment, Black and Latino students in the second group were more likely to say they intended to do things like vote when they became eligible or join a protest.

The research on this topic has some limitations. Each of these studies focuses on a relatively small program, and it's generally seen as easier to get good results from pilot programs than with large-scale initiatives.

Still, these findings are increasingly relevant because there appears to have been a meaningful uptick in efforts to acknowledge race and racism in schools. One recent study found that in the four months after George Floyd's murder, there was a large increase on the crowdfunding website Donors Choose in donations to teachers for books featuring Black authors or protagonists - $3.4 million worth overall.

But some shifts have prompted a backlash under the banner of "critical race theory," a term being used to refer to everything from teaching elementary school students about desegregation to separating students into "affinity groups" by race. Critics say that such efforts overstate the role of racism in American society and stoke division between people of different races.

In response, a number of states have recently passed laws attempting to ban "critical race theory." The laws vary in scope. Texas' law, for instance, bars schools from promoting the idea that racism is "anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States" or that an individual "should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish" based on their race or gender.

"At a time when racial tensions are at a boiling point, we don't need to burden our kids with guilt for racial crimes they had nothing to do with," said Texas Rep. Steve Toth, the bill's author.

Notably, the legislation does say that Texas students should learn about the "accomplishments of marginalized populations" and the "history of white supremacy." It also says that conversations between students should not be limited as a result of the law.

It's not yet clear what such laws will mean for educators like Mason, since so much depends on how the legislation is interpreted and enforced. He has no plans to scrap his school's equity initiatives, and he doesn't think they violate the new law, though its broad language concerns him.

"We're not saying 'white people, you are to blame,'" said Mason. "That's what I'm worried about: If we're talking about factual things and somebody feels hurt by that, they can try to twist it."

A number of other commentators, including some conservatives, have raised similar concerns about the potential chilling effect of these laws. Some legal scholars say that the laws could face legal challenges as unconstitutionally vague.

Penner fears that it's become even more challenging for educators to take these issues on.

"The current climate is going to make it hard for teachers to have the time and space needed to develop that skill set," she said. "And that means students might miss out on the chance to have important conversations."

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Research suggests students benefit from discussing racism

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Mackee Mason says families choose his Austin, Texas charter high school because it's safe, with little bullying or fighting. Mason, the school's principal and football coach, credits its ethnic studies courses. The two classes, which students take in ninth and then 11th grade, feature discussion and instruction in LGBTQ history, colonialism, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, police brutality, and exclusionary immigration policies.

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Texas Senate Votes to Remove Required Lessons on Civil Rights (July 16, 2021)

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Texas Senate Votes to Remove Required Lessons on Civil Rights (July 16, 2021)

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The Texas Senate on Friday passed legislation that would end requirements that public schools include writings on women's suffrage and the civil rights movement in social studies classes.

Among the figures whose works would be dropped: Susan B. Anthony, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King Jr., whose "I Have a Dream"speech and "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" would no longer make the curriculum cut.

The bill ( S.B. 3), which was passed on a vote of 18 to 4, now is stalled because the House can't achieve a quorum while a breakaway group of Democrats is out of the state. The special session is set to end on Aug. 6.

It would remove more than two dozen teaching requirements from a new law ( H.B 3979) that bars the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework exploring racism's shaping of the country.

That law included a list of historic figures, events and documents required for inclusion in social studies classes. The Senate-passed bill would remove most mentions of people of color and women from those requirements, along with a requirement that students be taught about the history of white supremacy and "the ways in which it is morally wrong."

The measure also would bar the teaching of the 1619 Project - a New York Times initiative exploring U.S. history starting at the date enslaved people arrived in the English colonies.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who presides over the Senate, said in a statement after the vote that "Senate Bill 3 will make certain that critical race philosophies including the debunked 1619 founding myth, are removed from our school curriculums statewide."

"Parents want their students to learn how to think critically, not be indoctrinated by the ridiculous leftist narrative that America and our Constitution are rooted in racism," Patrick said.

"What we're doing with this bill, we're saying that specific reading list doesn't belong in statute," said the bill's author, state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R).

Instead, such requirements should be in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS, standards developed by the State Board of Education, he said.

"Not just politicians but teachers and parents and administrators have a say in that process," he said.

The bill would prohibit teachers from being compelled to talk about current events or controversial issues, instructing those choosing to engage with students to discuss without "giving deference to any one perspective."

Speaking on the chamber floor, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D) said the legislation amounts to "tying the hands of our teachers."

"How could a teacher possibly discuss slavery, the Holocaust, or the mass shootings at the Walmart in El Paso or at the Sutherland Springs church in my district without giving deference to any one perspective?," she said.

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Texas Senate Votes to Remove Required Lessons on Civil Rights

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The Texas Senate on Friday passed legislation that would end requirements that public schools include writings on women's suffrage and the civil rights movement in social studies classes. Among the figures whose works would be dropped: Susan B.

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Karin Chenoweth and director of practice Tanji Reed Marshall are discussing the concerted propaganda effort that contends that schools have been taken over by a cabal of teachers intent on humiliating and shaming White children as part of a project to foster division throughout the country.

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In season 1, Ed Trust's writer-in-residence Karin Chenoweth and director of practice Tanji Reed Marshall are discussing the concerted...

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Outlawing the Truth: Republicans want students to learn a mythological version of U.S. history because the reality of the past threatens their power in the present by Adam Sanchez, The Progressive (Aug. 9, 2021)

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Outlawing the Truth: Republicans want students to learn a mythological version of U.S. history because the reality of the past threatens their power in the present by Adam Sanchez, The Progressive (Aug. 9, 2021)

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What Republican politicians pushing these bills want taught is the version of history found in the corporate textbooks shaped by Texan conservatives, where the three-fifths clause is characterized as a “compromise” among the founding fathers (about half of whom enslaved people), where Martin Luther King Jr. is played on a loop repeating his famous line about judging people based on “the content of their character,” and where debates about unequal and segregated schools ended decades ago.

This is the educational equivalent of the “Big Lie” that Trump won the election, occasioning and the wave of voter suppression laws promoted by the same political forces.

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Here are three things that could become illegal in my Philadelphia classroom if Pennsylvania House Bill 1532 becomes law: analyzing the original text of the U.S. Constitution, reading Martin Luther King Jr.'s writing, and discussing inequitable school funding.

The Pennsylvania bill, introduced by Republican state lawmakers in June, is similar to many of the bills proposed in more than twenty states to ban "critical race theory." HB 1532 bars teachers from teaching or using materials that describe the United States as "fundamentally racist," that say "merit-based systems are either racist or sexist," or that suggest an individual "bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by members of the individual's race or sex."

The expansive language of these bills, if passed, will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on the classroom; forcing teachers to exclude lessons on each of these three points would, in effect, amount to them having to hide the truth of racism-past and present-in the United States.

As a teacher of African American history, I find it impossible to look at this country's founding without acknowledging that the U.S. Constitution originally counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a human being for the purpose of taxation and representation. And in terms of rights for enslaved people, the important number was not three-fifths, but zero.

As Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote for the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, Black people were "inferior" and therefore "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Many students might rightly conclude from this that the United States is "fundamentally racist," given that for decades the highest law and court of the land regarded Black people as less than fully human.

While no one would argue that people living today are responsible for actions in the past, many prominent anti-racists-including Martin Luther King Jr.-have argued that white people have a responsibility to address the consequences of past actions by other white people. In his 1964 book, Why We Can't Wait, for example, King made the case for reparations: "No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries," he wrote. "Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages [and this] should be made to apply for American Negroes."

Elsewhere, in his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, King argued that the average white person also has a responsibility to "rise up with indignation against his own municipal, state, and national governments to demand that the necessary reforms be instituted" to provide social justice and economic progress for Black people.

Reading these words, it's not hard to see how students may reasonably conclude that King-a national hero with his own federal holiday-believed that individual white people do, in fact, "bear responsibility for actions committed in the past" by other white people.

This fall, a lawsuit aiming to hold the Pennsylvania General Assembly accountable for decades of inequitable funding will go to trial. It documents how Pennsylvania spends, on average, $4,800 less per student in poorer districts that serve predominantly Black and brown populations than in wealthier, whiter districts.

If I discuss this lawsuit in class-a compelling subject given that the outcome will have a direct effect on the quality of my students' educational experience-students might conclude that the "merit-based system" is a myth. They might come to regard the fiction they are told that individuals get ahead based primarily on talent and effort masks deep racist inequities where wealthy white kids are given more resources to succeed.

Under HB 1532, these justifiable conclusions that students draw from engaging with the real history of the Constitution, Martin Luther King Jr., and school funding inequities could put my job and my school's funding in jeopardy. And that's the point.

Bills similar to HB 1532 have already passed in Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas; others are working their way through more than a dozen other state legislatures. Georgia, Montana, and Utah have been able to enact similar bans through state boards of education or state superintendents, bypassing the legislative process altogether. While this is certainly alarming, rightwing operatives are also mobilizing white parents to demand local school boards ban "teaching critical race theory."

These bills-and the Tea Party-like movement they've stirred up-have little to do with critical race theory, which is an academic framework created to analyze how racism is perpetuated through the legal system. Few K-12 teachers have even studied critical race theory, much less taught it. But, largely due to Black Lives Matter protests, teachers are increasingly discussing systemic racism with their students, and it's these discussions that the right is attempting to silence.

What Republican politicians pushing these bills want taught is the version of history found in the corporate textbooks shaped by Texan conservatives, where the three-fifths clause is characterized as a "compromise" among the founding fathers (about half of whom enslaved people), where Martin Luther King Jr. is played on a loop repeating his famous line about judging people based on "the content of their character," and where debates about unequal and segregated schools ended decades ago.

This is the educational equivalent of the "Big Lie" that Trump won the election, occasioning and the wave of voter suppression laws promoted by the same political forces. Denying the depth of our racist past makes it easier for rightwing politicians to implement racist policies today. For example, the Republican Party in Pennsylvania-including the sponsors of HB 1532-have presided over one of the most inequitable and racist public school budgets in the country.

In 1992, Pennsylvania implemented a "hold harmless" policy that ensured that school districts could not receive less funding than they did the previous year. This means that districts with declining enrollments are given millions of dollars every year tied to students they no longer educate, while districts like Philadelphia, with growing student populations, struggle to receive adequate funding.

According to research conducted by Public Citizens for Children and Youth, "Black and Hispanic students bear the brunt of the systemic underfunding. More than 80 percent of the state's Black and Hispanic students attend growing school districts."

There are currently thirty sponsors of HB 1532. According to 2010 census data, only three of the bill's sponsors represent districts with a Black population of more than 5 percent and twenty-one sponsors represent districts that are more than 90 percent white. The Republican-led house has continually blocked fair funding legislation in Pennsylvania and pushed hard for the privatization of public schools, which has exacerbated segregation.

After decades of denying Black and brown children the funding they need, Republican legislators are now trying to deny them the right to discuss this robbery in their classrooms. And after decades of denying the resources Black and brown communities need to repair the harm of this country's racist past, these lawmakers are now trying to deny children the right to talk about that racist past in school.

While Republicans have long feared educated and anti-racist Black and brown children, they now have an additional concern: In the face of inescapable evidence and ongoing police killings like the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, anti-racist discussions are seeping into majority white school districts.

"Black Lives Matter protests have even emerged in smaller and whiter suburbs and towns in deeply conservative counties," scholars Lara Putnam and Jeremy Pressman wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. "This is compatible with evidence that young people in outer suburbs and small towns are becoming less conservative . . . . Even the very smallest cities-which tend to have more educated, more diverse, and younger populations than their surrounding regions-have shifted leftward in recent years, while the surrounding regions have often shifted rightward."

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Because good teaching means bringing the world your students witness and experience into the classroom, more and more educators are rightly joining the debates and discussions this country is having about race and racism.

The Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, brought to Philadelphia by educators in 2017 to promote the teaching of racial justice in the classroom, tripled in size this year. The Zinn Education Project, where I am a teacher leader, is a project of Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change that offers free anti-racist curriculum to teachers. In the months following last summer's Black Lives Matter protests, the number of visitors and new registrations at the Zinn Education Project website shot up to more than double previous months.

There is a growing group of teachers dedicated to teaching racial justice who refuse to allow Republican legislators to hide the truth about this country from our students. The Zinn Education Project launched a " Pledge to Teach the Truth," and within a few weeks more than 5,000 educators have committed to help students understand the roots of U.S. racism "regardless of the law."

Partnering with Black Lives Matter at School, the Zinn Education Project also called a national day of action on June 12 to "raise public awareness about the danger of these bills" and encourage educators to make their pledge public in gatherings nationwide. After two weeks of organizing, hundreds gathered in more than twenty-five states and territories.

Many actions took place at historical sites that legislation might bar teachers from discussing in class. In San Bruno, California, educators gathered at Tanforan Racetrack, where 8,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated before being sent to internment camps during World War II. In Waterloo, Iowa, educators spoke out at several sites where Black Iowans experienced segregation and employment discrimination in the 1950s and 1960s. In Memphis, Tennessee, protestors also walked to several historical sites; Alex Iberg, a teacher at Memphis's Grizzlies Prep, which was built on the same block as the site of a former slave market, wondered: "Are we even allowed to talk with our students about our own school?"

In Philadelphia, high school teacher Kristin Luebbert declared, "We are at the site of the house of our first President, the very site where a talented Black seamstress named Ona Judge-one of many people enslaved by the Washingtons-declared her freedom and fled north . . . . Ona refused to be treated like a candlestick or an heirloom vase-as a human being, she had a right to her freedom-and she took it! She lived as a free person for the rest of her life. We will teach this truth!"

By gathering at historic sites that would be legislated off limits for classroom discussion, educators not only exposed the rightwing agenda, but continued to highlight the racist past in their communities that needed to be reckoned with.

At a rally in Philadelphia, Jordan Henry, a twelve-year-old Black student, cut through the conservative frenzy about critical race theory, when she said: "Up until this point in my education, most of my teachers have taught me how to count, rather than teaching me what counts."

The truth is that the canned-corporate curriculum that perpetuates racist myths is still dominant in K-12 classrooms-even in predominantly Black and brown communities. The right wing is committed to maintaining its power by mobilizing its shrinking electoral base around a mythological past and delusional present.

The racial reckoning that began over the protests of George Floyd's murder is pushing teachers to infuse racial justice into their curriculums. At a rally in Seattle, teacher Jesse Hagopian pointed out that last summer's Black Lives Matter protests were "led by youth."

He continued: "The media likes to talk about learning loss from summer break or from remote schooling, but the truth is the students have learned-and taught-the nation so much about the nature of structural racism. These youth who can think for themselves and challenge injustice really scare racists . . . . You can tell a scared racist because when they can't win a debate, they just try to make it illegal for you to say-or teach-anything that challenges them."

The fact that more educators are challenging racism in their classrooms and more young people are confronting racism in the streets is what is scaring the right into action. Republican lawmakers have thrown teachers into the frontlines of the battle against white supremacy and as the June 12 actions showed, we are stepping up to the challenge. We need all the support we can get.

As Jordan Henry stated at the Philadelphia rally, "We need education that empowers students, not controls them. We need to be honest about our past, so that we can create a better future. We need to learn how to organize and fight for change so that I can grow up in a world where I and people like me can thrive instead of merely hoping to survive."

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Here are three things that could become illegal in my Philadelphia classroom if Pennsylvania House Bill 1532 becomes law: analyzing the original text of the U.S. Constitution, reading Martin Luther King Jr.'s writing, and discussing inequitable school funding.

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Southlake, Texas, seems to have it all: stately homes, intense civic pride, and above all, terrific schools. So when a video surfaced in 2018 showing Southlake high school students chanting the N-word — and when Black residents came forward to share stories of racist harassment and bullying — the school board vowed to make changes. But the unveiling of a Cultural Competence Action Plan set off a backlash that’s consumed Southlake, fueled by a growing national crusade against critical race theory. Hosted by NBC News national reporter Mike Hixenbaugh (host of the hit podcast “Do No Harm”) and NBC News correspondent Antonia Hylton, “Southlake” tells the story of how this idyllic city, and its local school board election, became the poster child for a new political strategy with national repercussions.

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Southlake is known for its top-ranked public schools. But a heated fight over a diversity plan has some parents questioning their future in the city.
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Families and school officials in Southlake, Texas developed diversity and inclusion programs after a racist video went viral. The plan was halted after pushback from parents. NBC News' Antonia Hylton talks to community members about the ongoing controversy.
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Listen for free to your favorite shows and original podcasts from NBC News and MSNBC: Dateline, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Thing About Pam, Morning Joe, Bag Man, NBC Nightly News, and more.
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Southlake podcast: Inside a critical race theory battle - NBC News

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The "Southlake" podcast hosted by Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton tells the story of how a Texas suburb became the center of a critical race theory battle.

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Code Switch: The Folk Devil Made Me Do It (Sep. 1, 2021)

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Code Switch: The Folk Devil Made Me Do It (Sep. 1, 2021)

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So this week, we're taking a look at what moral panics can teach us about the critical race theory freakout. And buckle up, kids, because as it turns out, the history of moral panics is long and windy.

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subscribe to Code Switch podcast

subscribe to Code Switch podcast

Can you remember another fall when back-to-school season was so contentious? Right now, all over the country, parents and politicians and school administrators are fighting over how to run their schools, whether students should even come back to the classrooms, and if they do, whether they should be forced to where masks. And that's all before we get into the fights over what's being taught in schools.

That's right: We're talking about critical race theory. The fight over CRT has been raging for months now, and it's gotten contentious. But all the anger and anxiety and fear about a "dangerous curriculum" that few people can even define - all that seemed kind of familiar. Like, we've been here before.

So this week, we're taking a look at what moral panics can teach us about the critical race theory freakout. And buckle up, kids, because as it turns out, the history of moral panics is long and windy.
Sam Yellowhorse Kesler contributed to this report.

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The Folk Devil Made Me Do It : Code Switch

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subscribe to Code Switch podcast subscribe to Code Switch podcast Can you remember another fall when back-to-school season was so contentious? Right now, all over the country, parents and politicians and school administrators are fighting over how to run their schools, whether students should even come back to the classrooms, and if they do, whether they should be forced to where masks.

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Critical Race Theory: A Brief History: How a complicated and expansive academic theory developed during the 1980s has become a hot-button political issue 40 years later. (Nov 8, 2021)

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Critical Race Theory: A Brief History: How a complicated and expansive academic theory developed during the 1980s has become a hot-button political issue 40 years later. (Nov 8, 2021)

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PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vctUYxfrEXwpl5OlZMtJV-RGuu-ENwS2/view?usp=sharing

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How a complicated and expansive academic theory developed during the 1980s has become a hot-button political issue 40 years later.

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Cult of Pedagogy: Teachers are being silenced. What can be done about it? (November 26, 2021)

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Cult of Pedagogy: Teachers are being silenced. What can be done about it? (November 26, 2021)

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In this episode, we’ll start by looking at how things got to this point. Then we’ll look at the ways this movement is harming and silencing teachers, and what damage it will ultimately do to students if it continues to spread unchecked. Finally, I’ll share a list of things that can be done to fight back.

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Teachers are being silenced. What can be done about it? | Cult of Pedagogy

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How is the anti-CRT movement harming and silencing teachers, what damage will it ultimately do to students, and what can be done to fight it?

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Teachers are being silenced. What can be done about it?

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The Conflict Campaign: Exploring Local Experiences of the Campaign to Ban “Critical Race Theory” in Public K–12 Education in the U.S., 2020–2021 (January 2022)

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The Conflict Campaign: Exploring Local Experiences of the Campaign to Ban “Critical Race Theory” in Public K–12 Education in the U.S., 2020–2021 (January 2022)

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Report by Mica Pollock and John Rogerswith Alexander Kwako, Andrew Matschiner, Reed Kendall, Cicely Bingener, Erika Reece, Benjamin Kennedy, and Jaleel Howard

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NEW HAMPSHIRE COMMISSION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: PUBLIC EDUCATION INTAKE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR RSA 354-A:29-34

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NEW HAMPSHIRE COMMISSION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: PUBLIC EDUCATION INTAKE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR RSA 354-A:29-34

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This is how you report a teacher in NH.

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As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Back by Rachel Cohen, Rethinking Schools (Jan. 3, 2022)

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As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Back by Rachel Cohen, Rethinking Schools (Jan. 3, 2022)

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"Recognizing the danger this sort of censorship poses to students and society, teachers nationwide have been standing up to register their resistance and solidarity, organizing rallies, supporting school board candidates who reject these bills, and doubling down on their own efforts to learn and teach about race."

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By Rachel M. Cohen

Illustrator: Brian Stauffer

January 3, 2022

Heather Smith is a middle school technology teacher in Youngstown, Ohio. In late May she watched in horror as Republicans introduced House Bill 322, legislation that would restrict how educators like her could teach about racism.

"No teacher or school administrator . . . shall approve for use, make use of, or carry out standards, curricula, lesson plans, textbooks [or] instructional materials" that suggest "slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States," the bill read.

Backed by national conservative organizations, more than 25 other states have introduced similar bills that would require educators to pare down or even eliminate their lessons around systemic racism. As of December, nine of those states - Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Arizona, and South Carolina - had enacted their bills into law. In other states, including Florida, Georgia, and Utah, state education boards have introduced guidelines and resolutions to restrict teaching about racism in schools.

The advent of legislation and rumblings of more to come have created an intimidating environment for educators, who already felt embattled after a year of pandemic teaching. Threats of legal retribution abound. In New Hampshire, the conservative group Moms for Liberty pledged in November to pay $500 to the first person who could catch a public school educator "breaking" their new state law. In December, Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a bill to allow parents to sue school districts that teach lessons about race they object to.

In response to the new rules and guidelines, district administrators have started pulling books from school libraries and reconsidering what educators can permissibly say in their classrooms. In October, one Florida school district ordered the removal of a 5 th-grade reading text that depicted a child and father attending a Black Lives Matter protest in Atlanta in 2020. The school district required it be replaced with a narrative that was similarly constructed but that took place in 1963 instead, during a Civil Rights Movement march. The contemporary anecdote "contained content that may be controversial and in conflict with [Florida Department of Education] requirements," the school district wrote in a letter to parents. The problem with the text, in other words, was the suggestion that racism is not confined to the past.

Recognizing the danger this sort of censorship poses to students and society, teachers nationwide have been standing up to register their resistance and solidarity, organizing rallies, supporting school board candidates who reject these bills, and doubling down on their own efforts to learn and teach about race.

Pledging to "Teach Truth" Across the Country
When Smith heard about the national day of action educators were organizing on June 12 in response to these types of bills, she felt relief, and looked to find something local she could attend. But when she realized that no one was planning anything in Youngstown, she thought, "Well, why don't I just try to do it myself?"

She reached out to Penny Wells, the director of the Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, which takes high school students on immersion trips to southern Civil Rights Movement landmarks. The Zinn Education Project (coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change) had called for the day of action, and was encouraging organizers to hold events at the kinds of historic sites that teachers would have to lie about or omit entirely from their curriculum if the oppressive bills became law. So in Youngstown, Smith and Wells invited activists to gather at a local swimming pool that was segregated throughout the 1940s. At the rally, they explored the history of segregated pools and an Ohio State Board of Education member, despite what the state legislature was doing, read the board's official resolution against racism and hate.

Smith is not alone in feeling the pull of action and responsibility. In Providence, Rhode Island, 3rd-grade teacher Lindsay Paiva felt worried as Republicans introduced House Bill 6070 in her state legislature - to ban teaching so-called "divisive topics" in public schools. Although the bill ultimately died in committee, conservative groups have continued to organize for its reintroduction. So when Paiva saw the call to action for educators in June, she too felt compelled to organize. They held their local rally at the DeWolf Tavern in Bristol, which formerly held enslaved people between auctions. Michael Rebne, a teacher in Kansas City, Kansas, heeded the call too, and with his chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice helped organize a roughly three-mile march of educators from a historically Black high school to the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, Missouri. "We wanted our rally to be a message to push back against all the white parents and community members in the suburbs who have been protesting CRT [critical race theory] at school board meetings," he explained.

Rebecca Coven and Ari Abraham, two Chicago educators, teamed up to plan a local rally in late August with the support of the Chicago Teachers Union. Their city has a strong community of anti-racist activists, and Illinois is doing far better than most states in encouraging inclusive curriculum. In 2019, Democratic Gov. J. B. Pritzker signed the first law in the nation requiring public schools to teach Asian American history, and a month later he signed another bill to ensure that contributions of LGBTQ+ people are represented in classrooms. Still, Coven said, there is not always enough time and resources for educators looking to teach about systemic racism.

"In Chicago, what we wanted to do was stand in solidarity with fellow educators who live in states that are fighting bans on teaching truth, and we also wanted to create a community of educators here who are committed publicly to teaching truth and empowering our students," Coven explained. They gathered together at the 1919 Chicago Race Riot marker, near where Eugene Williams, a Black teenager, was stoned to death by a white man while he was swimming in Lake Michigan. Coven herself made a pledge that day to not only teach the difficult parts of U.S. history, but also to teach more about joy and resistance among Black people, Indigenous communities, and other individuals of color. "Education can be a tool for liberation by centering our shared humanity," she said. "But our schools don't spend as much time as they should uplifting our students and the contributions of people who look like them."

Like Coven and Abraham in Chicago, Lena Amick, a high school teacher in Maryland, also felt it was necessary to help organize an event in a blue state. "Not because there's a huge threat of those anti-CRT laws happening in Maryland but because the rhetoric behind those laws is what's dangerous in this area," Amick said. "The rhetoric is just one more tool used to undermine public education and undercut teacher autonomy." About 70 people attended the local Teach Truth rally she co-organized, where they gathered near the historic East Towson neighborhood, a community founded by formerly enslaved peoples in the 1850s.

Fighting Back Against a History of Classroom Censorship
The contemporary wave of bills attacking teaching about systemic racism and so-called "divisive topics" is not, by any means, the first time that educators committed to social justice have had to battle efforts to censor content in the classroom.

Back in the 1930s, conservative groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution ginned up opposition to leading school textbooks that encouraged exploration of American racism, exploitation, and inequality. (Anti-capitalist critiques had grown more prevalent and pronounced following the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression.) In the 1950s, conservative groups like the American Legion and National Council for American Education targeted so-called "unpatriotic" textbooks and teachers, accusing educators throughout the McCarthy era of teaching students disloyalty. Fights around textbooks and appropriate curriculum grew even more contentious in the years following desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement.

But educators don't have to look back decades to find antecedents to the most recent backlash. More recently has been the wars around ethnic studies, which sparked major resistance beginning in 2010, when conservative Arizona lawmakers banned the Mexican American ethnic studies program in Tucson public schools. (The Rethinking Schools publication Rethinking Columbus was one of the banned books.) The lawmakers claimed the program had "radicalized" and "indoctrinated" students. In fact, the objections to ethnic studies then sounded almost identical to critiques leveled at "critical race theory" today: that the curriculum makes white students feel bad about themselves, that the lessons are too focused on race, that the material should be taught only at the college level.

The Tucson ethnic studies program launched in 1998, and efforts to shut it down ended up galvanizing new efforts to promote similar programs across the country. In 2020, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1010, which will require every public school student in California to take an ethnic studies course before graduating.

Momentum to diversify teaching, pursue equity initiatives, and push ethnic studies further accelerated during the Trump era, when immigrants faced heightened threats of deportation and the movement to end police brutality against Black Americans picked up steam.

Many teachers point to September 2020 as a turning point, when Trump attacked the New York Times' 1619 Project, calling it a "crusade against American history" that "will destroy our country." He kept up his public criticisms, and shortly before he left office in January 2021, he established a commission to counter the idea that "the United States is not an exceptional country but an evil one."

Following his lead, state lawmakers began introducing their bills targeting educators last spring. More than 7,500 educators responded in turn by signing the Zinn Education Project's Pledge to Teach the Truth. The pledge endorses Martin Luther King Jr.'s declaration that one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Pledge signers also promise to "refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events."

Signing that pledge carried consequences for some teachers. The Daily Wire, a conservative news outlet, reported on the pledge and call for action, and numerous educators who signed publicly said they were subjected to harassment, intimidation, and physical threats. Other teachers and administrators have resigned or been threatened with firing over the last year due to their classroom lessons and public advocacy.

Jennifer Lee, a high school educator in Killeen, Texas, worked to support teachers in her state who faced threats from The Daily Wire 's attention. Lee spoke with educators facing retribution and encouraged them to contact the Texas State Teachers Association, her teacher organization and the state affiliate of the National Education Association. "One Texas teacher got a letter from her superintendent saying that they did not appreciate her signing the Teach Truth pledge, and so we talked through the process to join TSTA," Lee said. The organization, as well as its parent union and the American Federation of Teachers, have all promised to defend educators who face punishment for doing their fundamental jobs.

Lee herself has also been organizing local rallies in defense of teaching un-sanitized history. She describes her community as "very Republican" and "passionate about certain kinds of history" - namely Confederate history. In her town of Killeen, there have been multiple protests dedicated to keeping Confederate statutes up.

Given this local context, Lee and her colleagues decided to organize a Teach Truth rally in front of their county courthouse, where a Confederate monument still stands on the lawn. Lee acknowledged that those in favor of Confederate memorabilia also use the "teach truth" language in their advocacy. "They would say they also want history to be taught but correctly," she said. "Correctly to them means that you don't bash slave owners."

As summer break transitioned into the fall, some activist teachers acknowledged that the new school year brought about barriers to organizing against attacks on anti-racist teaching, especially as educators contended with new staff shortages and shoddy COVID-19 safety protocols.

"When our governor put a mask mandate ban in place - even as COVID cases were skyrocketing - our organizing energy shifted to that," said Lee. Still, the group of Texas activists who came together over the summer to organize their rally has not dissolved. "We now have a Facebook page, we have Zoom meetings, a group text, and we can pivot again [after COVID-19] to other things," Lee said.

Paiva, in Rhode Island, also said educators have had to slow their work down since the new school year started. "There's a lot of school-based organizing that pops back up and union organizing also resumes," she said. Amick in Maryland highlighted the additional barrier of burnout. "Our staffing shortage has forced us all into enormous stress this year," she said. "When you literally do not have enough adults to put into the classrooms with the students, you start to lose valuable time and energy."

Study Groups and School Boards
Yet another avenue educators have embraced to register their resistance has been through study groups. Teachers are joining new study groups and attending online classes and professional development focused on deepening their commitments to racial justice.

Rebne from Kansas is involved with one of the Zinn Education Project's Teaching for Black Lives study groups, which explore anti-racist perspectives to teaching. His cohort is using the associated readings to plan the first Black Lives Matter Week of Action at their high school, organized in collaboration with student groups and the student council.

Rebne says his own learning has made him a more conscious educator during periods like Thanksgiving. "Even in physics class, we spend some time dispelling these myths and featuring Indigenous mathematicians and scientists," he said, adding there's also now a greater focus on connections between racism and the underrepresentation of people of color in STEM fields.

With Chaplain Cole Knapper, Amelia Haynes Wheeler, a former public school teacher who is now a graduate student in the Social Studies Education program at the University of Georgia, helped plan a new series of professional development modules this year for teachers called "Teach the Truth Thursdays." The sessions consisted of eight weekly workshops hosted by the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, a civil rights nonprofit, and Haynes Wheeler helped design the curriculum. Their goal, she said, is to support classroom teachers "in whatever place they are in their journey to become anti-racist educators." A similar series is being planned for the spring.

School board elections are another ripe domain for organizing. Earlier this year the 1776 Project PAC, a right-wing national group, formed to elect school board members who oppose critical race theory, racial justice teaching, and lessons that could make white students feel uncomfortable. Any endorsee from this group must agree to restore "honest, patriotic education that cultivates in our children a profound love for our country." Rebne and his colleagues have been working to support school board challengers who reject these ideas, though it's been something of an uphill climb. In November, seven of the 10 Kansas candidates the 1776 Project PAC backed won their elections.

In New York, Vanessa Spiegel has also been keeping her pulse on upcoming school board elections. Like many educators, Spiegel reflected during the pandemic about what role she could play in the movement for racial justice. "As a teacher in a New York City Title I school, it was easy to think I was doing enough just by showing up at work," she said. "But I realized that I needed to be more affirming and purposeful in my efforts to fight racism."

In her home community of Westchester, Spiegel began organizing other parents to counter the rhetoric coming from Save Our Schools for Westchester Children - a parent group formed to fight lessons about systemic racism. Spiegel is a founding member of Teach the Truth - Westchester, which helps mobilize parents to support diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in local schools. "In Westchester it really runs the gamut of very liberal and very conservative school districts, and I think I was living in a bubble before that these attacks [on anti-racist teaching] couldn't happen here," she said.

Pushing Forward for Students
Anthony Downer, a teacher in Atlanta, is optimistic about the future of educator and student organizing for racial justice, but acknowledged the consequences for teachers doing so right now are real. Downer, who emerged as a leader in his former school district in Gwinnett County, Georgia, advocating for initiatives like more culturally responsive courses, anti-racist professional development, and restorative justice training, was not invited back to teach this year. He's happy now in Atlanta Public Schools but was discouraged by what he felt was the message the Gwinnett leadership sent.

"I've been hesitant to share my story because I don't want educators to be scared off, and my story is the ultimate fear," he said. "This is why teachers worry about getting involved. We need more assurances that we won't lose our jobs." Downer says he remains hopeful nonetheless, because "so many teachers are saying 'I'm going to organize anyway, come hell or high water.'" Activists in Georgia are now looking to push local school boards to pass more job protections for educators like Downer, and they have their eyes long term on the state level to push new requirements around multicultural curriculum.

Georgia so far has not passed a law restricting the teaching of racism and other "divisive" topics, but Republican Gov. Brian Kemp urged the Georgia Department of Education to get involved. In response, in June 2021 the state board passed a non-binding resolution declaring that the United States and Georgia are not racist. The resolution also says students should not be taught that racism or slavery are anything but exceptions to the country's "authentic founding principles" - language echoed in other statutes, including Ohio's House Bill 322.

Haynes Wheeler said the Georgia resolution has had a chilling effect on her friends teaching in predominantly white, affluent school districts. "Though the resolution is not law, the discourse they're hearing from administrators is very much emphasizing that so-called 'neutrality' is the gold standard for teaching," she said. "Parents have a tremendous amount of influence and teachers are told no one should know their own political beliefs. All it would take is for one kid to go home and say a teacher made them feel uncomfortable and it then blow up and the teacher receive very little support."

In other Georgia school districts though, Haynes Wheeler says there's been "a doubling down" of teaching about racism in the face of the state resolution. Dawn Bolton, a middle school teacher in Decatur, is one such Georgia educator doubling down. She says even with the state board resolution, she's not afraid to lead real conversations about racism in her classroom. "I feel fortunate that in the city schools of Decatur, we are given a certain amount of autonomy to teach the truth," she said. "I know that's a rarity, for teachers in other districts."

A critical role Bolton sees for herself in this moment is helping young people learn how to effectively fight for their rights and for change. "It's important to me to teach students how to identify issues and have the courage to address them in an intelligent and informed way," she said. "Because this orbit of discrimination and inequity and racial bias is just picking up velocity - it's just spiraling - and I think as adults we even sometimes forget that."

Ultimately these efforts of resistance and solidarity by teachers are in the service of students, who see the daily battles around racism and history reflected in their own lives. Bolton and Downer both say they've noticed new energy in their classrooms, with students asking new kinds of urgent questions about race and equity. "Students are standing up independently of us educators," said Downer.

Bolton's goal, she stressed, is to let students know that adults are here to support them as they navigate an unjust world. "The thing is, we adults need them as well," she said. "But students need to know they don't have to stand alone."

***
If you want to get more articles like this one - and to support independent journalism - subscribe now to Rethinking Schools magazine.

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As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Back

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By Rachel M. Cohen Illustrator: Brian Stauffer January 3, 2022 Heather Smith is a middle school technology teacher in Youngstown, Ohio. In late May she watched in horror as Republicans introduced House Bill 322, legislation that would restrict how educators like her could teach about racism. "No teacher or school administrator .

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This American Life: Talking While Black (Jan. 7, 2022)

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This American Life: Talking While Black (Jan. 7, 2022)

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Think back to two summers ago, the summer of 2020, when a series of violent, highly-publicized killings of Black Americans sparked outrage and a national movement to eradicate racism and its evils. That movement gave way to a newer, reactionary one, a backlash that is playing out in schools and school board meetings across America. Host Emanuele Berry shares stories about Black people who got tangled up in this current backlash in both extreme and very personal ways.

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Illustration by Trevor Davis. Photos from Getty Images.

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People tangled up in our current racial backlash in both extreme and very personal ways.

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“Anti-Critical Race Theory” Education Legislation, Passed and Pending, is Unconstitutional Censorship by Jamie Gregory (Jan. 12, 2022)

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“Anti-Critical Race Theory” Education Legislation, Passed and Pending, is Unconstitutional Censorship by Jamie Gregory (Jan. 12, 2022)

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Turns out, extreme book censorship originating this past fall in Texas, fueled by outrage and unfounded educational hysteria, was just the beginning.

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Turns out, extreme book censorship originating this past fall in Texas, fueled by outrage and unfounded educational hysteria, was just the beginning.

According to this news article, a new Tennessee law bans the teaching of "critical race theory," and the state is now "pursuing plans to strip teaching licenses from instructors and cut state funding to schools that persistently teach taboo material." However, if anything related to racial injustice is now banned, does that mean educators cannot include historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks in the curriculum? After all, education "involves basic American history about slavery, post-slavery segregation and the long struggle for racial equality." One grassroots parent organization gaining national attention is Moms of Liberty (other groups include 603 Alliance and No Left Turn). Moms of Liberty argues that these topics are divisive, give the impression that all white people are bad, and ignore all of the good that has happened in recent decades.

A complaint was indeed filed soon after by a representative from the Moms of Liberty Williamson County chapter. The complaint alleges that a unit being taught in Williamson County Schools second grade classrooms using books such as Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington by Frances E. Ruffin violates the new law. Specifically, pictures in Ruffin's book showing "white firemen blasting black children to the point of 'bruising their bodies and ripping off their clothes make children hate their country, each other, and/or themselves." However, the Tennessee Department of Education declined to investigate because the incident occured in the school year before the new legislation was passed and before a procedure was established for complaints. That does not bode well for future complaints.

According to this article from Forbes, New Hampshire has passed new legislation, the "Right to Freedom From Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education," NH HB2, which "Establishes and describes a right to freedom from certain types of discrimination based on age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, creed, color, marital status, familial status, mental or physical disability, religion, or national origin in public workplaces and education." This law is based on disinformation that studying the effects of racism teaches white students to feel badly about themselves, which the GOP-controlled legislature interprets as discrimination. I had to do a good bit of mind gymnastics to work out that logic.

The New Hampshire Department of Education went one step further, creating a website for parents to report suspected violations of the new law, and if the educator is found to have been in violation, the teaching license can be revoked. After perusing the bill and the FAQ, the wording is so vague that I'm not even sure what would be acceptable and what would be considered a violation. One possible effect of this unconstitutional censorship will be self-censorship as teachers decide the risk to their careers is not worth the effort to create robust, well-rounded educational experiences, limiting other students' rights to education.

NH public education intake questionnaire for RSA 354-A:29-34

A Texas librarian and blogger shared an example of an opt-out form being circulated among Ohio parents by the organization Protect Ohio Children Coalition. It includes anything related to ethnic studies, action civics, antiracism, and Brain Pop along with grossly misrepresented sexual education topics. Given recent statistics related to bullying and safety among LGBTQ+ students in public schools (32.7% of LGBTQ students missed at least one entire day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable), it is particularly disturbing to read this point on the opt-out form: "any group, organization, club, entity or activity that discusses or addresses sexual activity, sexual orientation or gender identity, under the guise of "bullying." It also targets the use of databases which have long been established as excellent sources of information: "Any obscene or harmful to minors materials whether in print or online databases like Galileo, Gale and EBSCO."

Protect Ohio Children Coalition opt-out form on website

Does this mean that a teacher saying, "We should not bully LGBTQ+ students because of their sexuality" could be reported if a child opted out of such "indoctrination?"

While a lot of this is theatrics, simply trying to be the loudest, most hysterical voice, we are seeing real-world consequences.

Some parents tried to make it a criminal offense to include certain books in school libraries. In Flagler County, Florida, "Flagler County School Board member Jill Woolbright of District 1 filed a criminal complaint with the Sheriff's Office on Tuesday over a book that is on school library shelves," All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson, a memoir in which Johnson relates lived experiences growing up Black and non-binary.

The Flagler Sheriff's Office concluded that public school libraries did not commit a criminal offense by having it on shelves, further stating that the issue should have been resolved by the local school board instead of being brought as a criminal complaint. This is a positive step toward public school library book selection remaining within the local jurisdiction and not labeling diverse books as pornography or obscene.

Another criminal complaint was filed in Wyoming at Campbell County Public Libraries. According to this AP News report, 35 complaints have been filed recently about 18 books, one of which is the sex education book Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg, which is no stranger to attempted censorship. A complaint was filed with the sheriff's office which was deciding whether or not to pursue charges. The complaint seeks "to charge the library with disseminating obscene material, in violation of local child-sex laws."

In late October 2021, Weston County Attorney Michael Stulken declined to pursue charges, in part by including the 3-part test of obscenity which he determined did not apply to the books in question:

1. when applying contemporary community standards, taken as a whole, the material appeals to the prurient interest;

2. when applying contemporary community standards, the material depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and

3. taken as a whole, the material lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

For a more comprehensive analysis, read this recent OIF blog post.

The common argument used as evidence for these charges is simply that the books are pornography, which has become synonymous with "books I don't like." As librarians and educators know, flimsy arguments supporting unconstitutional censorship have no place in classrooms and libraries.

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"Anti-Critical Race Theory" Education Legislation, Passed and Pending, is Unconstitutional Censorship

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Turns out, extreme book censorship originating this past fall in Texas, fueled by outrage and unfounded educational hysteria, was just the beginning. According to this news article, a new Tennessee law bans the teaching of "critical race theory," and the state is now "pursuing plans to strip teaching licenses from instructors and cut state funding to schools that persistently teach taboo material."

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Steep Rise in Gag Orders, Many Sloppily Drafted by Jeffrey Sachs, PEN America (Jan. 24, 2022)

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Steep Rise in Gag Orders, Many Sloppily Drafted by Jeffrey Sachs, PEN America (Jan. 24, 2022)

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It has been an extraordinary month for educational gag orders. Over the last three weeks, 71 bills have been introduced or prefiled in state legislatures across the country, a rate of roughly three bills per day. For over a year now, PEN America has been tracking these and similar bills. This is where things stand today.

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This post is part of a blog series from PEN America tracking the progress of educational gag orders and censorious legislative efforts against educational institutions nationwide. These bills are tracked in our Index, updated monthly.

It has been an extraordinary month for educational gag orders. Over the last three weeks, 71 bills have been introduced or prefiled in state legislatures across the country, a rate of roughly three bills per day. For over a year now, PEN America has been tracking these and similar bills. This is where things stand today.

Since January 2021, 122 educational gag order bills have been introduced or prefiled in 33 different states

12 have become law in 10 states

88 are currently live

Of those currently live:

84 target K-12 schools

38 target higher education

48 include a mandatory punishment for those found in violation

A closer look at bills introduced or prefiled so far in 2022 reveals a significant escalation in both scale and severity. Forty-six percent of this year's bills explicitly target speech in higher education (versus 26 percent in 2021) and 55 percent include some kind of mandatory punishment for violators (versus 37 percent in 2021). Fifteen also include a private right of action. This provision, which we analyzed in an earlier post, gives students, parents, or even ordinary citizens the right to sue schools and recover damages in court.

One final feature that is increasingly common to 2022's bills is how sloppily many are written. Legislators, in their haste to get these bills out the door and into the headlines, are making basic factual errors, introducing contradictory language, and leaving important terms undefined. Given the stakes, the result will be more than mere confusion. It will be fear.

To appreciate the nature of this new crop of bills, it is helpful to focus on legislation from a single state: Indiana. With eight bills currently under consideration, only Missouri (at 19) has made a greater contribution. Of the eight in Indiana, all target public K-12 schools, two target private K-12 as well, six would regulate speech in public colleges and universities, four affect various state agencies, and two threaten public libraries. All are sweeping, all are draconian, and few make any kind of sense.

HB 1362 is a good example. Co-sponsored by Representative Bob Behning, who chairs the House Education Committee, the bill would prohibit public school teachers and college faculty from including or promoting in their instruction certain ideas about "sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation." The inclusion of "political affiliation", which we wrote about last month in relation to a South Carolina bill, is meant to discourage educators from favoring one political group or ideology over another. But in virtually the same breath, the bill also prohibits teachers and professors from including in their instruction any "anti-American ideologies." What this means is never explained, but violators may be sued in court.

HB 1040 is even more confusing. After rattling off a similar list of prohibited ideas, it mandates that teachers adopt a posture of impartiality in any conversation about controversial historical events. But it then goes on to state that in the run-up to a general election, students must be taught that:

[S]ocialism, Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems are incompatible with and in conflict with the principles of freedom upon which the United States was founded. In addition, students must be instructed that if any of these political systems were to replace the current form of government, the government of the United States would be overthrown and existing freedoms under the Constitution of the United States would no longer exist. As such, socialism, Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems are detrimental to the people of the United States.

Such a mandate for a public school teacher is alarming enough in its own right. But requiring that teachers deliver these lessons while also maintaining a posture of impartiality is positively farcical. Or at least it would be, if the consequences of failure - in this case, civil suits, loss of state funding and accreditation, and professional discipline up to and including termination - were not so dire.

Many of Indiana's bills feature such extreme penalties. In addition to HB 1040, two others threaten teachers with termination. Six include a private right of action. And three would punish schools by cutting them off from all state tuition dollars and levying a fine of up to $10,000 per student subject to the violation.

And then there's HB 1231. Sponsored by Representative John Jacob, who came under fire last year for Facebook posts that critics say were anti-Muslim and anti-Catholic, the bill is possibly one of the most outlandish in the entire educational gag order landscape.

First, it prohibits teachers from "introducing any controversial subject matter or current event germane to the subject matter being taught," (emphasis added). This is likely a typo, as all other bills with such language prohibit the introduction of topics nongermane to a class's subject matter. Other problems, however, are less easily dismissed. Under the bill, schools would be prohibited from urging students to join a particular "political affiliation, ideology, sectarian [sic], or religion." That may sound uncontroversial, but the way this bill is written, that prohibition wouldn't just apply to public schools. It would apply to state-accredited parochial schools as well.

In other words, if Jacob's bill becomes law, schools in his district like Calvary Lutheran, Faith Community Christian, and St. Barnabas would be unable to promote Christianity to their students or encourage them to join their church. It is an absurd outcome and no doubt an unintentional one, but such mistakes are a persistent feature of this year's bills.

There is one final aspect to Jacob's bill worthy of comment. One far darker and unquestionably purposeful. HB 1231, like many other educational gag orders, includes a section on "school transparency." These sections, which appear in dozens of bills across the country, package potentially censorious provisions in the language of transparency and accountability. Though PEN America's does not currently track "school transparency" legislation, Educational Gag Orders Index such bills have begun to appear with remarkable frequency.

For the most part, these bills mandate that schools post the titles and authors of all curricular materials on a or publicly accessible . Some also require schools to provide copies of those materials and to allow parents to opt their children out of any assignment or lesson they find objectionable, creating a kind of à la carte public education. Still others would impose on teachers a duty to inform parents if their child displays signs of "gender nonconformity" With these bills, parental control expands to the point where teachers' discretion disappears. seeks to join a student club "involving sexuality, gender or gender identity."

Other bills seek to achieve transparency through on-the-job surveillance. I n Florida , one lawmaker recently introduced legislation that would allow parents to Another in Mississippi wants to scrutinize video recordings of their children's classrooms for signs of "critical race theory." . And at least two bills in Missouri propose letting members of the public attend teachers' professional development workshops. The entire effort seems designed more to intimidate teachers than ensure they deliver a quality education. stream them live over the internet

Yet even compared to all the foregoing, Indiana's HB 1231 is special. In addition to the website, it would also require schools to permit a taxpayer (not parent, but taxpayer) to "observe classroom instruction at any time requested by the taxpayer." Schools may limit the number of observers present in a classroom, but only if "the number of taxpayers present to observe the class exceeds five." Even at the best of times, this provision would be grounds for concern. These are not .

It is unclear how this ends. Nevertheless, just three weeks into 2022, some facts are already coming into focus. This year's crop of educational gag orders will be even more censorious than 2021's. They will target more institutions, regulate a wider array of speech, and impose harsher penalties. If current trends continue, they will also suffer from numerous internal defects and inconsistencies, the product of both a rushed drafting process and ideological zealotry. Their impact on the educational process may be severe.
Note: the number of bills that have become law has been updated as of 1/28/22.
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Steep Rise in Gag Orders, Many Sloppily Drafted

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This post is part of a blog series from PEN America tracking the progress of educational gag orders and censorious legislative efforts against educational institutions nationwide. These bills are tracked in our Index , updated monthly. It has been an extraordinary month for educational gag orders.

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Weekend Update: President Biden Works to Prevent Russia/Ukraine War - SNL (Jan. 30, 2022) 

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Weekend Update: President Biden Works to Prevent Russia/Ukraine War - SNL (Jan. 30, 2022) 

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CRT sketch 2:00-2:20

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Weekend Update: President Biden Works to Prevent Russia/Ukraine War - SNL

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Gov. Desantis invoking MLK Jr. (Jan. 30, 2022)

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Gov. Desantis invoking MLK Jr. (Jan. 30, 2022)

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jonathan Harris (@artyougifted)

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Teachers Could Face Penalties For Lessons On Race, Gender, Politics from the Fresh Air podcast on National Public Radio (Feb. 3, 2022)

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Teachers Could Face Penalties For Lessons On Race, Gender, Politics from the Fresh Air podcast on National Public Radio (Feb. 3, 2022)

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Across the U.S., educators are being censored for broaching controversial topics. Since January 2021, researcher Jeffrey Sachs says that 35 different states have introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identity. One proposed law in South Carolina, for instance, prohibits teachers from discussing any topic that creates “discomfort, guilt or anguish” on the basis of political belief. We talk about these bills and laws and their implications.

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Across the U.S., educators are being censored for broaching controversial topics. Since January 2021, researcher Jeffrey Sachs says that 35 different states have introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identity. One proposed law in South Carolina, for instance, prohibits teachers from discussing any topic that creates "discomfort, guilt or anguish" on the basis of political belief. We talk about these bills and laws and their implications.

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teachers could face penalties for lessons on race

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‎Fresh Air: Teachers Could Face Penalties For Lessons On Race, Gender, Politics on Apple Podcasts

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Across the U.S., educators are being censored for broaching controversial topics. Since January 2021, researcher Jeffrey Sachs says that 35 different states have introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identi...

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This dynamic African American Policy Forum #TruthBeTold flipbook toolkit provides resources on how to challenge the anti-history education legislation sweeping across the United States.

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A broad bipartisan majority of Americans agree:
for students to create a better society, schools need to provide a thorough, accurate, and fact-based history education and teach students to reject racism and respect the equal value of every person.

Unfortunately, rampant misinformation about what is taught in schools is forcing teachers to omit difficult parts of our history and not teach students that racism is wrong and is adding yet another stressor for teachers at the worst possible time.

That is why respected organizations collectively representing millions of parents, educators, students, and other Americans of goodwill have come together to form the Learn from History Coalition.

Download the toolkit that’s right for you and help ensure that schools can continue teaching fact-based history.

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A broad bipartisan majority of Americans agree:
for students to create a better society, schools need to provide a thorough, accurate, and fact-based history education and teach students to reject racism and respect the equal value of every person.

Unfortunately, rampant misinformation about what is taught in schools is forcing teachers to omit difficult parts of our history and not teach students that racism is wrong and is adding yet another stressor for teachers at the worst possible time.

That is why respected organizations collectively representing millions of parents, educators, students, and other Americans of goodwill have come together to form the Learn from History Coalition.

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A coalition of parents, educators, students and people of goodwill standing up to stop the rampant misinformation about what is being taught in our schools.

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Education Weeks' Critical Race Theory Articles

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Education Weeks' Critical Race Theory Articles

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Education news, analysis, and opinion about the roiling debate over, and the politicization of, the term "critical race theory" and what that means for schools