Motives behind attacks on Critical Race Theory must be exposed as part of the defense of truth-telling and academic freedom in schools

Several dozen Oregon educators and community members participated in the "Teach the Truth" Day of Action on June 12 held at the waterfront downtown Portland. The event was part of a National Day of Action, sponsored by the Zinn Education Project and Black Lives Matter at School to educate the public about revisionist legislative campaigns and attacks on anti-racist and anti-bias educators in order to silence discussion in schools about race, racism, gender, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression. This post, however, argues that a deeper analysis of these attacks must be pursued to understand the true motives behind them and to be able to formulate a strategy to combat and prevent the assaults.

Educators drove in from as far as Eugene and Southern Oregon to support the cause. Those in attendance were urged to sign a pledge, committing to continuing to teach the hard truth about U.S. history and current events despite the gag order legislation being introduced, and in a few cases passed, in at least 21 states.

Speeches by students and teachers at the rally emphasized the importance of providing young people opportunities to honestly, critically and deeply examine U.S. history and society from multiple perspectives rather than settle for the sanitized, one-sided heteronormative, Eurocentric version many conservatives, including Donald Trump, would prefer be taught. Such efforts to curtail how schools teach about the past have a long history in this country. As Olivia B. Waxman writes in the Time Magazine,

"a group of powerful people decided to go right to the root of what they saw as the problem: American students, they believed, were being taught a skewed version of their own history that was designed to weaken patriotism. To stop the corrosion, someone would have to intervene.

This scenario may sound familiar, but it didn’t take place just last (September), when President Trump threatened the funding of California schools that teach the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which reframes the country’s origins around the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia. . . But in fact, that scenario could have taken place in the aftermath of the Civil War. Or in 1917. Or in 1948."

For the past several months, scores of media outlets have been using the catchall term, Critical Race Theory, as shorthand for curriculum and pedagogy investigating the impact of racism and white supremacy on all areas of U.S. society. Right-wing influencers have selected the term strategically--and have said as much--to stoke fear and anger in the populace which they want directed at educators, unions, and public schools, to detract attention from those in power and to pit the American public against public schools which, in general, the majority of Americans--at least prior to the pandemic--has supported. The aim is to sow discontent with public education, render it as a corrupting influence, and thus increase the flight from public schools into privately run charter or religious schools. The same powerful groups behind the think tanks and networks funding these conservative bills have a vested interest in dismantling labor unions and privatizing public assets, including schools through tax voucher initiatives and school reforms such as George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind, Obama's Race to the Top, or the various billionaire-funded turnaround initiatives. 

The right-wing strategy to associate disgust and fear with the term CRT and thus each time it is uttered activate the public's reptilian brain is being used by disseminating nearly identical talking points through conservative think tank publications and pundits, political training institutions such as Leadership Institute which trains conservatives "how to succeed in politics, government, and the media," and billionaire-funded front groups such as Parents Defending Education which wage attacks on anti-racist educators.

University World News correspondent, Nathan M Greenfield, in his insightful analysis of the motives for the right-wing attacks on CRT writes:

"Taking their cue from conservative activists like Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, and Cornell University Professor William Jacobson, founder of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, thousands of Republican legislators from Vermont and Rhode Island in liberal New England, to solid Republican states like South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Iowa, Idaho and 11 other states, had voted for bills banning Critical Race Theory (CRT) in primary and secondary schools and-or colleges and universities, because it ‘undermines American values’. . .

(Rufo's) 1 September 2020 appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight is credited with spurring then US president, Donald Trump, to issue an executive order banning the use of CRT by US government agencies or those funded by the US government."

The template for these bills is prepared and distributed to Republican lawmakers around the country by right-wing groups such as Citizens for Renewing America, founded by a Trump administration alum, Russ Vought.

A common talking point is the concern that critically examining race and racism causes students (the implication being white students) discomfort, and should therefore be avoided. In fact, one of the many bills, House Bill 580 in Tennessee, designed to curtail frank discussion about difficult subjects in schools, states that Local Education Agencies or public charter schools "shall not include or promote" materials or concepts which cause individuals "discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual's race or sex."

If educators do not conform to the bill and are claimed to have promoted the idea that, for instance, "an individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex," funding may be withheld from the school where the educator teaches or the teacher may face a fine. The bill states that if an educator is in violation of the law, "the commissioner shall withhold state funds, in an amount determined by the commissioner, from the LEA or public charter school until the LEA or public charter school provides evidence to the commissioner that the LEA or public charter school is no longer in violation of this section." 

Building into the bill such a subjective concept as causing a student discomfort is problematic by design, because such a bill opens up the opportunity for the state to withhold funds from schools indefinitely, thus starving them of resources until the school must either close or be taken over by a non-governmental entity such as a private charter school company. Such a strategy of holding schools to an arbitrary, and in this case unquantifiable standard, taking away funding when the schools cannot meet the standard, and then forcing a closure or a takeover has been employed for years in places such as Philadelphia and Chicago. 

What most media outlets seem to miss is that the sections of the bills such as this one from Tennessee which spells out the type of concepts educators may not discuss are only a small portion of the entire bill, just a little over two pages of the 14 pages that make up HB580. Other sections of the bill receiving very little attention while CRT stays front and center are no less alarming. The bill completely rearranges how the public education system in Tennessee is structured by essentially giving the state, namely the education commissioner, the power to "take over any district that is falling short of its academic goals, potentially firing its superintendent and replacing elected school board members."

"In addition to academics," HB580 ensures, writes Marta W. Aldrich of Chalkbeat, that "the commissioner could factor in district 'competence' in meeting operational and fiscal responsibilities, as well as federal and state laws, rules, regulations, policies, and guidelines." 

Greenfield's article points out another crucial aspect of this legislation: 

"Legal scholars such as Wong and Law Professor Ronald J Krotoszynski (University of Alabama) take issue with politicians who claim these laws are necessary to prevent indoctrination of students and preserve patriotic education.

Instead, they see the flurry of bills to ban CRT as being part of the backlash against the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that followed the police murder of George Floyd in May of 2020.

'The timing,' Wong says, 'tells you they are interrelated. At a time when racial justice and specifically the BLM movement had become a majoritarian issue, when there was more cross racial support for it than ever, there is now this backlash to constrain, censor, restrict the ability to talk about racial justice both in terms of contemporary inequality but also the history of it.'"

According to Krotoszynski, the anti-CRT laws are first cousins to the anti-protest laws that have targeted BLM protests. 'We’ve seen a lot of states adopt laws targeting freedom of expression and also define a riot as including as few as three people. And taking unlawful assembly punishments from small fines or maybe a few days in jail to Class C or D felonies with multiple year sentences.'"

 The effect of this legislation on educators and activists must not be underestimated. Greenfield continues:

"Equally importantly, these laws will have a chilling effect not dissimilar to that during the McCarthy period of the 1950s. Ultimately, the Red Scare laws that banned the teaching of Marxism and communism, and required professors to swear loyalty oaths were struck down by the United States Supreme Court; something Krotoszynski expects to happen in the case of the anti-CRT laws."

The architects of this so-called war on CRT make no secret of the fact that they fear a revolution that would dismantle the hand that feeds them: capitalism. In their commentary on the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation website entitled, "Purging Whiteness To Purge Capitalism," Mike Gonzalez and Jonathan Butcher write, "It shouldn’t surprise us . . . that many of the intellectuals who originated the concepts of 'whiteness,' 'white studies,' and 'white privilege' were concerned with uniting the American working class, so that it could overthrow the capital-owning bourgeoisie."

On the same Foundation's page in his report, Ruso expresses the real fear which lies beneath the assault on CRT: "Although critical race theory has sought in some cases to distinguish itself from Marxism, the leading policy proposals from critical race theorists are focused on the race-based redistribution of wealth and power."

We must defend educators' academic freedom and fight against the attacks waged on teachers by the Right. We also must follow the money and complicate the narrative with a class analysis in lieu of analyzing this situation only through the racial lens. After all, while the public's attention is on the discourse about CRT with emotions running high about what conservatives perceive as indoctrination of children by the Left, state lawmakers are packing the very same bills with language that not only suppresses dissent, but also accelerates the privatization of public schools, diminishes educators' right to organize, and, as seen above, curtails Americans' civil rights in general.

It is time to deepen and expand our analysis beyond the narrow confines the Right has set around the discussion of Critical Race Theory in classrooms as shorthand for a critical examination of oppression. We must expose the true and multi-pronged intent of the attack on educators and schools. Those orchestrating the attacks are interested in silencing educators who are positioned to build the critical consciousness of today's youth through in-depth study of history and current affairs. Additionally, there is a drive to privatize what's left of public assets while dismantling the mechanisms for working people to organize against the powers that be. In short, the true motive is preventing a revolution that upends the hegemony of the wealthy white elites.