Why teachers unions are standing up against right-wing panic on ‘critical race theory’

GOP lawmakers in at least 26 states have filed legislation to prohibit teaching on racism and ‘divisive issues,’ while conservative activists and media campaigns take aim at local school board races, writes Alex Woodward

Angry parents and community members shut down a school board meeting to in Loudon County, Virginia, on the frontline of a right-wing culture war against discussions of race and gender in classrooms. (REUTERS)

The chief of the nation’s second-largest teachers union has condemned right-wing attacks and Republican-backed legislation to restrict how schools teach about race and racism, while a coordinated campaign fuelled by culture war grievances is taking aim at local school boards and state legislatures across the US.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, stressed that the decades-old academic framework of “critical race theory” is not a part of the curriculum in elementary, middle or high schools, but the term has emerged as a catch-all phrase to condemn lessons on race and gender, as well as diversity training and equity initiatives.

It is a “method of examination taught in law school and in college that helps analyse whether systemic racism exists ... and whether that has an effect on law and on policy,” she explained in remarks during a conference on 6 July.

“But culture warriors are labelling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as [critical race theory] to try to make it toxic,” she said. “They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history.”

As of 7 July, at least 26 states have introduced legislation to ban “critical race theory” in school or to limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism.

Many of the measures specifically ban mention of The 1619 Project, the Pulitzer-winning New York Times effort that recognises the legacy of slavery in the US and centres Black Americans in the national narrative.

At least six states have signed bills into law.

In Arizona, lawmakers proposed a bill to fine teachers $5,000 for teaching “controversial issues.” In Iowa, the state’s governor signed a law banning discussion of “divisive topics” including systemic racism in public schools and universities. Similar legislation has been proposed across the US, with Republican governors issuing orders forbidding “critical race theory” altogether.

In Tennessee, one parent group has opposed a school curriculum that includes a book about six-year-old Ruby Bridges and her experience as one of the first African American students to integrate New Orleans’ all-white public school system – written by Ms Bridges herself.

“The approach of some Republican-led state legislatures is a method for continuing to roll back racial progress regarding everything from voting rights to police reform,” according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution.

The think tank argues that laws prohibiting teachers from discussing race or gender “would put a chilling effect on what educators are willing to discuss in the classroom and provide cover for those who are not comfortable hearing or telling the truth about the history and state of race relations in the United States.”

Ms Weingarten has pledged legal action to protect teachers and schools that get “in trouble for teaching honest history.”

The union has also established a legal defence fund that is “ready to go” to assist them, she said.

“Teaching the truth is not radical or wrong. Distorting history and threatening educators for teaching the truth is what is truly radical and wrong,” she said.

Her remarks follow a resolution from the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, that urged members to “fight back” against right-wing critical race theory rhetoric.

“To deny opportunities to teach truth about Black, Brown, and other marginalised races minimalises the necessity for students to build efficacy,” the organisation said.

Conservative activists – as well as QAnon proponents – have launched a Tea Party-style assault on local school board races in the wake of antiracist uprisings across the US and pledges from educators to address systemic racism in their institutions.

The campaign has been amplified by right-wing media and aided by dozens of newly formed local and national groups, conservative think tanks, law firms and GOP lawmakers leveraging outrage over “critical race theory” into a political vehicle for Republican candidates.

None of the school districts targeted by those efforts are teaching “critical race theory,” according to an analysis from NBC News.

Nevertheless, Fox News has mentioned critical race theory nearly 1,300 times within the past few months, Media Matters found.

“It’s important to distinguish between a debate and a panic. Robust debates about scholarship, curriculum [and] pedagogy are routine in the academy and in American society more generally,” said Princeton University and Pomona College politics professor Omar Wasow.

“The ‘CRT’ discussed in GOP legislatures and on right-wing talk shows, though, is a bogeyman. It’s politically useful hysteria,” he said.

The culture war has found a frontline in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the school board flipped to hold a Democratic majority in 2019, and a racial discrimination complaint from the NAACP prompted county officials to implement a plan to combat racial disparities in its school system, among one of the last in the nation to desegregate.

Following waves of protests from parent groups over Covid-19 restrictions, which forced parents to proctor at-home learning in the middle of the public health crisis, igniting a separate right-wing protest campaign, parents and opponents of “critical race theory” are no longer stewing online and in Facebook groups.

The meetings make frequent appearances on Fox News. The network mentioned critical race theory fewer than 200 times in 2020.

Host Tucker Carlson, one of the most-watched TV personalities in the US, even proposed putting “cameras in the classroom, as we put them on the chests of police officers.”

In a lengthy column in RealClearPolitics last month, Donald Trump called critical race theory a “program for national suicide” and accused Joe Biden’s administration of “indoctrinating America’s schoolchildren with some of the most toxic and anti-American theories ever conceived.”

“We want our kids to have an education that imparts honesty about who we are,” Ms Weingarten said in her remarks this week. “We want to raise young people who can understand facts, study the truth, examine diverse perspectives and draw their own conclusions.”