National Review
Critical race theory is dangerous. See how to fight it
A new orthodoxy has taken over our educational institutions with frightening speed. People who probably never heard the phrase “critical race theory” (CRT) before this summer are now receiving emails from their children’s schools about “Decentralization of whiteness at home”. They are finding that their children’s primary teacher has read to them “a book on whiteness” that teaches them how “color is important” and encourages them to confront “the painful truth” about their “own family” – that is , that they are being created by racists. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a dangerous and divisive ideology, which attributes moral value to people based on their skin color. It is inconceivable that anyone can look back on the history of mankind and not see that pointing to a particular racial or ethnic group as the cause of all social problems can quickly lead us to a very bad place. It is understandable, therefore, that the rise of CRT in our educational institutions is deeply frightening for so many people. People feel that their children are being indoctrinated. In many cases, they are right. This ideology is not being presented simply as a way of looking at the world. It is being taught as the Truth with a capital ‘T’, and you will be cast into outer darkness or punished for questioning it. Ask David Flynn, the father of two children in Dedham, Massachusetts, public schools who was fired from his job as a football coach after raising concerns about changes to his seventh-grade daughter’s history curriculum. (Flynn is suing the school district.) We need to fight against the emergence of this toxic and destructive orthodoxy if we want America to be a place where, as Martin Luther King said, our children are judged by the content of their character and not the color of theirs. skin. But we have to fight in the right way, without compromising the very freedoms we seek to preserve. Recently, several state legislatures have begun to consider bills that would prohibit or severely restrict the teaching of CRT and its analogues. The Arkansas legislature, for example, is considering a bill that would prohibit any Arkansas public school from offering “a course, class, event or activity within its instructional program that. . . promotes division, resentment or social justice for (A) Race; (B) Gender; (C) Political affiliation; (D) Social class; or (E) particular class of people. ”Anti-CRT bills are also being considered in Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia and elsewhere. However, preventing the defenders of this ideology from defending their arguments is not the answer. We know what it is like to have our right to freedom of expression suppressed, because this is happening day after day with critics of the CRT and other leftist ideologies in educational institutions across the country. I understand why it is so tempting to fight fire with fire, but it will not increase freedom and equality in the long run. As journalist and writer Jonathan Rauch has written so eloquently – as opposed to the types of hate speech bans common on campuses across the country – hate speech tolerance is critical to freedom and progress: I feel more confident than ever that the answer to prejudice and prejudice is pluralism, not purism. The answer, that is, is not to try to extinguish the existence of prejudices and prejudices or to put them in hiding, but to put prejudices and prejudices against each other and make them fight openly. That is how, in the crucible of rational criticism, superstition and moral error are burned. Rauch is right. The battle against these identity-based ideologies needs to be fought in the marketplace of ideas, not through censorship. Defenders of CRT, critical feminist theory, postcolonial theory, etc. they have every right to argue for the validity of their positions, just as we have the right to argue for the validity of ours. We must recognize their rights even when we try to convince the world of the dangers of their arguments. This does not mean, however, that they have the right to indoctrinate our children or to create a hostile environment in which students or teachers are continually treated as “less than” based on their skin color. When these things happen – and they are happening – then we must fight hard, not only in the court of public opinion, but also in the courts of justice. Most people know that the First Amendment protects freedom of expression. But it also protects freedom of conscience – that is, the right to keep our personal thoughts and beliefs free from government intrusion. Freedom of conscience is why the Supreme Court ruled that, even during the darkest days of World War II, a public school could not demand that its students salute the American flag. Judge Robert H. Jackson, writing for the majority, explained that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, tall or mean, can prescribe what should be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other issues. opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act according to their faith. “Freedom of conscience is also the reason a Nevada mother is suing a Las Vegas charter school for forcing her child to attend a mandatory class that” required students to reveal their race, gender, sexual orientation and disability and then determine whether privilege or oppression is attached to those identities. ”In the coming years, the First Amendment’s right to freedom of conscience will play a crucial role in the fight against the indoctrination of our children. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prevents discrimination, including creating a hostile environment, in public and private institutions that receive federal funding (which includes most private colleges and universities). Many of these critical running trainings, especially when mandatory, can create a hostile environment by continually pointing people to criticism based solely on skin color – such as when a Smith College employee expressed discomfort in discussing his race publicly and was scolded up front from his colleagues and said that his distress was just a “power game”, a manifestation of white supremacy. These trainings have even infiltrated the corporate world: a whistleblower recently leaked slides of diversity training for Coca-Cola employees, suggesting that they “are less white”. State legislatures can also combat indoctrination and promote diversity of views in schools without resorting to censorship. In Florida, for example, the legislature is considering a bill that would require higher education institutions to “conduct an annual assessment related to intellectual freedom and diversity of views” to ensure that students are exposed to ” a variety of perspectives. ”This could also be done at the K-12 level and would help the ideas market to function properly, rather than shut it down. The end result is that our future as a free society depends on fighting the shroud of the orthodoxy that has befallen our educational institutions, but we must resist the temptation to fight back with the traditional tools of our ideological opponents – censorship and repression – and, instead, remain faithful to the freedoms for which we fight.