Surely, the breadth of critical race theory’s pretensions, its vigorous self-importance, is part of what provokes a visceral reaction from parents. Critical race theory may be taught as a stand-alone topic, but advocates insert it, albeit awkwardly, into every subject, even the hard sciences, where the attempted applications seem most absurd. The foundation’s guide notes several of the anodyne headings-social justice, implicit bias, anti-racism, etc.-under which critical race theory appears in classroom materials. While critical race theory’s core axioms are revolutionary, it has somewhat subtler presentations. Rather, it is a self-consciously revolutionary ideology that inspires its adherents to view much of the society in which they live with open contempt.
That principle, incendiary as it is, is perfectly at home in the media musings of critical race theory’s most prominent practitioners. It is a bracing reminder that critical race theory is not a program of reform and reconciliation, nor is it a project to promote historical awareness. Black Americans do not hold enough power, though, and that’s one of the primary reasons, theorists say, that America is not to be reformed, but remade. In a strange twist, however, theorists believe that discrimination is still necessary today. But what is transmitted to younger students comes from the core areas of agreement, which the Southeastern Legal Foundation summarizes as follows: “CRT holds that America was founded on white supremacy and oppression, and that racism is embedded in America’s legal system, government policy, and the Constitution.” Their views vary in the particulars, and their jargoned texts go mostly unread outside of academia. The foundation’s “Parent’s Guide” begins by briefly engaging the threshold question: What is critical race theory? It’s a broad heading, covering the writings of legal activists who have wedged racial antagonisms into Marxism’s framework for class warfare. Yet for all the legitimate concern parents feel when they find this racialist thinking in their child’s homework, there is often a gap between their desire to oppose critical race theory-based instruction and their ability to advocate effectively for that outcome. The foundation’s guide is meant to bridge that gap with introductions to the core legal concepts in play when a public school introduces a critical race theory-based curriculum. After all, critical race theory-based impulses led the Smithsonian to opine that “ objective, rational linear thinking” was only an “assumption of whiteness.”
To others, critical race theory is just a time- and resource-intensive distraction from their schools’ persistent failure to bring students somewhere near a grade-level competence in reading and mathematics.įair-minded parents can and should be skeptical of the pedagogic value in a theory that dismisses “ legal reasoning” and “ rationalism” as mere instruments of white supremacy. Why should any parent feel they’ve had enough of critical race theory? To many parents, the theory’s doctrines of “white supremacy” and black/brown victimhood are anathema to their civic or religious convictions on the nature of the person, his or her agency, and the sources of his or her goodness, guilt, and redemption. That’s the audience the Southeastern Legal Foundation addresses in its guide-those who “have had enough.” Renewed interest in curricular content is not coming from conservative quarters alone-parents of various political stripes have been galvanized by their children’s encounters with critical race theory-based lessons to oppose its dominance in classrooms.
And her foundation, a national nonprofit law firm that has litigated numerous cases arising in public schools and universities, is ready to persuade anyone else who will listen. Hermann’s outlook is increasingly common among anyone taking stock of the proliferation of lessons on critical race theory (a radical worldview that advocates for the primacy of racial identity) in public school curriculums.
So says Kimberly Hermann, general counsel at the Southeastern Legal Foundation, in the introduction to the foundation’s guide for parents, “ Your Child’s Rights and What to Do About Them: A Parent’s Guide to Saving America’s Public Schools.” “The most important battleground in the fight to save our American republic is the public schools.”
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