Henry Gamble, News Editor—
Every time I check the news, there seems to be a new story about legislation targeting educational requirements and teachings, almost always regarding the restructuring of curriculums.
I am no stranger to these educational alterations, they are not new by any standards. In fact, as a high school student from Wooster Ohio, I was assigned an American History textbook published by Pearson Education in 2008 that read, “Whites were also harmed by slavery,” and “Slavery caused basically decent people to commit countless petty cruelties.”
Unfortunately, the omissions and historical alterations I encountered are minor compared to those which are now pushed by the radical conservative political agenda in states such as Florida and Texas.
Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, is one of the figureheads of this movement. Last April he signed into law one of the many bills which limit educators’ ability to teach about race in any capacity.
The bill came to be known as the “Individual Freedoms Bill,” a seemingly ironic name. The bill specifically prohibited the teaching that, “one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex.”
Grouping terms such as Critical Race Theory and indoctrination, these conservative politicians attempt to incite fears of ‘woke’ agendas being impressed on children everywhere.
What is typically lacking however, is a comprehensive definition of Critical Race Theory. The wording of the “Individual Freedoms Bill,” confirms these suspicions, as Critical Race Theory is definitely not attempting to create moral superiority.
Critical Race Theory does not have a narrow definition. One of its most prominent theorists, Charles Mills, equates its breadth to a movement such as feminism, which is often misconstrued itself. In the context of the United States, a facet of Critical Race Theory posits that inequalities and injustices faced by African Americans and other ethnoracial minorities in the United States are a result of the construction of race and the systems that enforce it, which they have labeled “white supremacy.”
With these broad definitions in mind, bills such as the “Individual Freedoms Bill” become much more frightening. These pieces of legislation attempt to block the teachings of hundreds of years of history, ranging from the ongoing systematic disenfranchisement of Black voters since the Jim Crow era, to understanding that the Flint Water Crisis was a direct repercussion of budget cuts and underfunding of a majority Black community.
Opponents of CRT will claim it is un-American. If anything, an analysis and understanding of American history that encompasses more than just the white-dominant narrative is one of the most American things possible – it serves to benefit all of its citizens. Restricting critical approaches to our country’s history and open dialogues about race within classrooms would serve to perpetuate cycles of misinformation in the United States and keep institutions of inequality firmly in place.