Tackling CRT and the Great Divide

On the series of tubes known as the internet, much chatter is being created in response to this New York Times op-ed by Kmele Foster, David French, Jason Stanley and Thomas Chatterton Williams. In large part, the chatter from the right comes from those who do not like David French and amounts to, “A ha! I knew he wasn’t one of us.” Full disclosure: David French is a friend of mine. I took him to dinner two weeks ago in Texas and hope to get him down to my house soon for bourbon and cigar night. I thought it was ridiculous yesterday to see a critic of David’s denounce him as not a Christian and quite possibly possessed by the devil. Good grief.

All the people attacking David for not standing up for Christians and conservatives have paid no attention to his long legal career wherein he led several major lawsuits defending Christians and conservatives against progressives in academia and the workplace. David’s long career has been in defense of academic freedom and free speech.

I am not surprised David would oppose legislation tackling critical race theory. Likewise, he has some good points not easily dismissed. For example, in some states, the language in legislation banning critical race theory from schools is so vague as to introduce too much ambiguity and probably is constitutional.

In the New York Times op-ed, the authors highlight Tennessee’s language.

Tennessee House Bill SB 0623, for example, bans any teaching that could lead an individual to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.” In addition to this vague proscription, it restricts teaching that leads to “division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class or class of people.”

That probably is too broad and too vague.

But they also tackle Texas’s law, which I actually think is a sound, reasonable approach. My friend Patterico counters them on this one and points out Texas’s law is pretty precise without a lot of ambiguity. In fact, arguably the authors of the Times op-ed are more ambiguous and vague than Texas’s law, which itself seems straightforward and constitutional.

From Patterico, here is the law with his emphasis on language:

No teacher, administrator, or other employee in any state agency, school district, campus, open-enrollment charter school, or school administration shall shall [sic] require, or make part of a course the following concepts: (1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (3) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (4) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (5) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (6) 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; (7) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (8) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a members [sic] of a particular race to oppress members of another race.

I personally think the states have to be cautious in how they approach pushback on CRT. I am not a fan of some of the laws because I do think they are too broad and vague. But not every state has gone in that direction, including Texas.

Ultimately, though, my bottom line is this — our tax dollars pay for public school education and public schools set out a curriculum and themes to be taught to our kids with our money. Progressives have long used that process to steer conversations and topics and have now sought to use that process to push critical race theory.

They should not be surprised by the rest of the country standing up and pushing back. Yesterday, I noted how the left has gone further left than the right has gone right. In fact, progressives have rapidly radicalized and are attempting to radicalize our children in schools. Just 36% of young people are proud to be American after coming through the academic institutions now overwhelmingly infested with progressives. Classical education at the collegiate level is so dominated by progressive voices our kids are not getting educated but indoctrinated by a group of people who increasingly do blame the world’s problems on the United States.

There is no reason for parents and their duly elected legislators to sit back and let the left capture elementary and secondary education with a radicalizing program of critical race theory. Liberal and conservative parents alike are increasingly pushing back against it and they should have the power to ban use of their money to spread it.

That’s where I fundamentally have to disagree with the op-ed writers.

Boards of Education, taking guidance from parents and legislatures, have always sought to form curricula for the instruction of children’s minds by including and excluding topics and frameworks for education. The left has also played an outsized role in shaping that curricula and their bellyaching, in large part, has to do with parents and legislators now pushing back.

While I think the laws must be precise, I think the democratic process of citizens and their elected representatives can and should step in to bar what amounts to the indoctrination of a controversial viewpoint inside taxpayer-funded classrooms.

Critical race theory is a post-modern concept derived from Marxism. The rubric of critical theory itself comes from the mind of an atheist French philosopher we now know was a serial child rapist. The law professors who took his concept of power and critical theory to apply it to race are radical progressives who believe people, because of their skin color, can never relate to one another or understand each other’s world. They believe there is no objective truth and that language itself must be reshaped and censored in order to alter reality. We absolutely should not want adherents of this philosophy educating our children.