Should Critical Race Theory Be Taught in Schools?

This piece was originally published on Divided We Fall, which AllSides rates as mixed. It was written by Johnatan Feingold, Associate Professor at Boston University School of Law, and Erec Smith, Associate Professor of Retoric at York College of Pennsylvania and Co-founder of Free Black Thought.

Is Opposition to CRT Legitimate Criticism or an Assault on Social Progress?

It’s Time to Reframe Critical Race Theory Discourse

By Jonathan Feingold – Associate Professor, Boston University School of Law

In the summer of 2020, we witnessed a global uprising for racial justice. Across the United States, a multi-racial and cross-class coalition responded with demands for anti-racist reform. The insight was simple: only by seeing and attending to racism—in all its forms—could we reckon with national legacies of racial subordination, white supremacy, and anti-blackness.   

The Right-Wing Assault on Racial Progress

The backlash was swift. Two years later, right-wing think tanks, donors, and activists continue to target critical race theory (“CRT”)—and other sites of anti-racist organizing—through a well-funded and coordinated smear campaign. This assault shows no signs of slowing. To the contrary, GOP officials continue to invoke anti-CRT rhetoric to justify repressive efforts to chill conversations about race and racism, stigmatize LGBTQ identities, and “lay siege” to our public institutions. 

The consequences are alarming. Since January 2020, right-wing operatives have proposed over 500 anti-CRT measures at the local, state, and federal level. Just since June 2021, related campaigns have spawned over 2,500 book bans—over 80% of which involve books that include LGBTQ themes, address race or racism, or have LGBTQ characters or characters of color. Beyond the numbers, anti-CRT campaigns have greenlit the intimidation, harassment, and discipline of educators who undertake even modest efforts to reckon with racism in their schools, communities, or classrooms. The toll has been particularly high for educators of color.

As recently as last week, a federal district court invalidated part of a Florida law that “muzzle[d] its professors in the name of ‘freedom.’” The district court did not mince words. After invoking George Orwell’s 1984, the court described the law, which Governor Ron DeSantis heralded as the “Stop WOKE Act,” as “positively dystopian.” 

Asking the Right Questions

This decision should serve as a wake-up call. With limited exception, the media has not framed the war on CRT as an assault on free speech and other pillars of multi-racial democracy. Instead, the mainstream press has responded with a set of now well-worn questions: What is CRT? Do we teach CRT in our schools? Should we teach CRT in our schools? I understand the allure of these questions and I’m on the record answering them (e.g. few schools teach CRT and that’s a problem). But these were never the right questions. They recast bad faith political opportunism as good faith pedagogical engagement. They also placed anti-racism on the defensive—thereby repeating our country’s all-too-common impulse to prioritize the comfort of students and parents from privileged and mainstream communities. 

We Need to Ask Better Questions

We might start with some of the following:

• Why does the media treat a self-described disinformation campaign as legitimate political discourse?
• Why do critics of Critical Race Theory feel threatened by schools that teach students an honest and comprehensive American history?
• Who is seeding the funding, infrastructure, and talking points for anti-CRT campaigns?
• Why do right-wing operatives rehearse factually bereft talking points that distort and caricature CRT?
• How does anti-CRT rhetoric buttress related right-wing efforts to erode faith in public education, discredit anti-racist reforms, and stigmatize basic civil rights remedies? 
• Why hasn’t the media decried anti-CRT campaigns as a threat to free speech? 
• Why are the individuals and entities targeting CRT also targeting the LGBTQ community, reproductive freedom, voting rights, and public education?
• Why doesn’t the media highlight the hypocrisy of right-wing officials who outlaw conversations about structural racism yet defend educators who gratuitously use racial slurs or dead name students?

My point is not that we should avoid good faith conversations about how best to teach complex and emotionally fraught topics like race and racism. I would gladly take part in those conversations, and often do. As noted above, I strongly believe that we need to invest in racial literacy; our national racial illiteracy compromises multi-racial democracy’s very foundation. But anti-CRT rhetoric has never come in good faith. As I and others have highlighted, the right-wing assault on CRT has buttressed longstanding campaigns to, for example, stigmatize anti-racist reform, dismantle public schools, legitimize existing racial inequalities, and gut voting rights. The assault on critical race theory is an assault on multi-racial democracy. The media needs to treat it as such. 

Don’t Be so Quick to Assume Bad Faith

By Erec Smith – Associate Professor of Rhetoric, York College of Pennsylvania and Co-Founder of Free Black Thought

Professor Jonathan Feingold’s scholarship explores the relationship between race, law, and psychology. Mr. Feingold has authored academic and public-facing work that examines how right-wing networks have leveraged state power to chill honest conversations about race and racism in the classroom and beyond.

In his opening piece, Mr. Feingold leaves much to unpack. Fortunately, Mr. Feingold wrapped up his thesis—that any opposition to CRT was a veiled attempt from the right to perpetuate racism and white supremacy—in a series of “better questions,” he provides to conclude the essay. Although I have responses to each question, for brevity’s sake, I’ve only chosen to omit several.

Understanding Opposition to Critical Race Theory

Why does the media treat a self-described disinformation campaign as legitimate political discourse?

First, only Christopher Rufo describes his crusade as a blatant disinformation campaign. Projecting Rufo onto all who oppose CRT-based initiatives is inherently fallacious. This misleading generalization of the opposition proves problematic. Yes, many right-of-center conservatives have used this issue as a political cudgel and an opportunity to dismiss the topic of racism in general. However, those who fight racism in ways not CRT-based—many of whom identify as left-of-center and rejected CRT-based initiatives long before they ever heard of Chris Rufo—are being demonized just the same. 

Then there is the issue of media representation. Mr. Feingold believes the media favors, or at least tolerates, the anti-CRT position, but besides outlets like Fox News, what networks are doing this? Most of the media see anti-CRT sentiment as Mr. Feingold does: a bad faith movement. Where does MSNBC, CNN, or NPR champion anti-CRT sentiment? How about papers like the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Los Angeles Times? Who would conclude that most television programming around characters of color does not lean “woke”? More often, CRT-based discourse is treated as the only legitimate discourse of racial justice. All else, even from people of color, it is seen as misguided at best and traitorous at worst.

Why do CRT critics feel threatened by schools that teach students an honest and comprehensive American history?

Through my own research, I’ve encountered few critics who are actually against teaching accurate history. Many embrace the social reality of the 1619 Project while others are quick to point out its historical inaccuracies. People across the political spectrum want accurate history, but who defines “accurate”? For example, would those demanding accurate racial history welcome discussion of the African kingdoms that sold Africans into slavery or the several Black slave owners of the Antebellum South? 

Why do right-wing operatives rehearse factually bereft talking points that distort and caricature CRT? 

This may be the most ironic of Mr. Feingold’s questions. Why doesn’t Mr. Feingold notice the “factually bereft talking points” that derive from the left? Why are Black people who oppose CRT-based anti-racism considered dupes at best and “Toms” at worst? Why are so many defenses of CRT-based activism logically fallacious in nature? And what about the ideas not discussed? Why is gang violence not addressed? Why do they ignore people in downtrodden neighborhoods begging for more police involvement to squelch the aforementioned violence? Labeling these valid questions as “factually bereft” right-wing talking points is always an attempt to silence opposition, nothing more.

Countering Misleading Generalizations

How does anti-CRT rhetoric buttress related right-wing efforts to erode faith in public education, discredit anti-racist reforms, and stigmatize basic civil rights remedies?

What is gained from eroding faith in public schools? What anti-racist reforms? What civil rights remedies? Is Mr. Feingold referring to opposition to incidents like what happened at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School in California, where third-graders were told to see themselves as either oppressor or oppressed? Is he accusing Ndona Muboyayi—a Black mother who is pushing back on her children’s school for teaching helplessness? Is he referring to opposition to a new math curriculum stigmatizing as racist the expectation that Black students should discover the correct answers? Has he considered the legitimacy of the many issues inherent in anti-racist pedagogy?

Why hasn’t the media decried anti-CRT campaigns as a threat to free speech?

I believe it has. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression recently won a lawsuit against the “Stop Woke Act” for this very reason. Secondly, and critically, proponents of CRT-based initiatives are infamously intolerant of viewpoint diversity. The self-censorship of people in schools and workplaces is well known. What’s more, certain beliefs, many quite innocuous, are stigmatized like the idea that the most qualified person should get the job or that one shouldn’t be judged based on skin color.

To conclude, I want to be clear that I sincerely believe that many CRT-based initiatives do more harm than good. Being a Black American myself, I resent such initiatives for the erroneous assessments and assumptions Mr. Feingold and others make. We cannot improve our shared reality if we refuse to acknowledge reality in the first place, and to think that CRT-based initiatives are extensions of race egalitarianism only opposed by right-wing bigots is to not acknowledge reality.

Without Critical Race Theory, We Cannot Fully Confront Racial Inequality

By Jonathan Feingold – Associate Professor, Boston University School of Law

I appreciate Dr. Smith’s engagement with my opening remarks. A year ago, I launched #RaceClass, a monthly discussion to explore a basic question: How does race matter? There is no single or simple answer. Nor should we expect one. Race is a complex social phenomenon that shapes countless aspects of our public and private lives. Over the past year, we have discussed how race is a tool (that benefits societal elites); a story (that justifies inequality); and a weapon (to defuse cross-racial coalitions). We also examined how affirmative action is often necessary to reduce the relevance of race and racial advantage within university admissions and on university campuses.

We started #RaceClass for three reasons. First, we were witnessing the first wave of right-wing backlash bills. Even then, these “anti-literacy laws” had begun to affect significant numbers of students and educators. In the year since, that impact has only intensified. Second, most Americans lack basic racial literacy. This shouldn’t be surprising; we rarely treat race as a subject in need of instruction. Third, our lack of racial literacy has compromised our ability to understand and counter these regressive and anti-democratic efforts. This includes identifying what any of this has to do with critical race theory. 

The “war on CRT” has everything and nothing to do with critical race theory. We can start with the nothing. Many have rightly identified CRT as a “bogeyman” conjured by right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Manhattan Institute as part of a broader campaign to defund and dismantle public education. 

But opposition to anti-racism also has everything to do with critical race theory. At its core, CRT confronts a key question: Why does racial inequality persist decades after the country prohibited racial discrimination? Part of the answer is that racism is structural. This is a modest insight. But it troubles the notion that enduring inequalities derive from neutral market forces that simply reward the most deserving. So for those invested in the status quo, CRT poses a threat because it offers tools to more clearly see (and therefore critique and remedy) the many drivers of racial and economic inequality in America.

We Must not Misrepresent or Ignore Legitimate Criticism  

By Erec Smith – Associate Professor of Rhetoric, York College of Pennsylvania and Co-Founder of Free Black Thought

I appreciate Mr. Feingold’s response and hope I’ve interpreted it correctly. We both agree racism is a complicated problem. But, Mr. Feingold doesn’t address my points: that much pushback on CRT-based pedagogy comes from those who identify as liberals, the mostly pro-CRT media representation, the constitution of  “accurate history,” etc. If I were to guess, Mr. Feingold neglects these points because of a Catch-22 plaguing many CRT-based activists: a white person critiquing the knowledge and “lived experience” of a Black man is deemed inherently racist by CRT-based activists themselves. His only recourse is to emulate many such activists when they encounter scrutiny: ignore or misrepresent it, lest their own rule be used against them.

Secondly, I will address Mr. Feingold’s most salient statement: “The ‘war on CRT’ has everything and nothing to do with critical race theory.” This position fuels a motte and bailey fallacy, which plays on the fact that a word can have several meanings, so if one meaning isn’t working you can shift to another. For example, when people complain about CRT, they can be accused of creating a “bogeyman” to trick citizens into thinking that CRT is in schools. Yet, when CRT is pointed out clearly in a program’s pedagogy, the response is that we need to ask, “Why does racial inequality persist decades after the country prohibited racial discrimination?” So, is it a bogeyman or a needed pedagogy? That depends on which definition will win the argument.

Lastly, Mr. Feingold is right that racial literacy should be an educational goal, but we need not use CRT-based pedagogy. Other ways exist for carrying out ethnic studies. The Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies juxtaposes two: one aligning with classical liberalism, another with a clear illiberalism often used in CRT-based pedagogy. The Catch-22, motte and bailey fallacy, and false dilemma of racial literacy (i.e., CRT is the only pedagogy) are common manifestations in much DEI-centered activism and pedagogy. Mr. Feingold’s perspective is no exception.