Fight Over Critical Race Theory Hits the Statehouse

A group of Republican attorneys general from 20 states this week sent the Biden administration a 10-page letter chastising federal officials for using two grant programs as “a thinly veiled attempt at bringing into our states’ classrooms the deeply flawed and controversial teachings of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project.”

Meanwhile, conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which provides right-wing lawmakers with what’s known as ‘model legislation’ that they can use in their own states, also have stepped up pressure on conservative state lawmakers to rein in the teaching of critical race theory.

Lawrence Paska, the executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies, a group that represents social studies teachers, told Policy Watch that he worries about the amount of control lawmakers are trying to exert over teachers’ classrooms.

“We’re concerned with this notion of … limiting discussion about things like racism, sexism and discrimination, that we can’t talk about those things. That’s both against what we do in social education but more importantly, it’s against the very definition of First Amendment freedoms and academic freedom for both teachers and students,” Paska told Policy Watch.

Paska said the goal of teaching the faults of the country is to help make students better citizens, not to shame them.

That the bills are coming at a time of heightened awareness of racial and class disparities laid bare by the pandemic is hardly coincidental.

And one Black lawmaker from Pennsylvania says he believes it’s a “dereliction of duty” for the Pennsylvania Legislature to waste time — and the taxpayers’ money — on distractions at a time when so many are in need.

“Critical Race Theory is not taught in k-12 schools. It’s an analytical approach to understanding inequality and how the law might address persistent inequalities,” Rep. Chris Rabb, a Philadelphia Democrat, told me.

“It is taught in some law schools and graduate schools of education. All across the country peddlers of racial division are spreading misinformation to justify creating a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” Rabb continued. “What does exist is structural inequality and deep racial disparities. Analyzing their root causes is not controversial. Continuing to deny racial justice, however, is nothing less than cowardly and reckless.”

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An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.Copyright 2021 John L. Micek, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.