As a teacher of history and politics, I’ve been following the news about conservative objections to the teaching about race and racism in history, as well as the ensuing critical race theory panic closely. What is not so clear from the coverage about this topic is what exactly conservative forces mean by critical race theory.
Critical race theory has become a conservative talking point particularly in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s White House Conference on American History in September 2020, which was widely panned by most American historians. In a speech, although not directly defining what exactly he meant by critical race theory, President Trump argued:
This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families…
Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.
Although Trump situates critical race theory as a unified and radical literature focused on destroying America, the central insight of critical race theory, a somewhat wide and varied literature, including academics who disagree with each other on some premises, is that race and racism are deeply embedded in American law and institutions. This is uncontroversial not only among people who might consider themselves to be critical race theorists, but also among historians and academics throughout the social sciences.
And yet, states are attempting to ban instruction on this insight on the basis of a fuzzy and confusing set of criteria. For example, if we look at House Bill No 952 in Missouri, a state I’ll be moving to at the end of the month, the bill – not yet passed – defines “curriculum implementing critical race theory” as curricula that:
(1) Identifies people or groups of people, entities, or institutions in the United States as inherently, immutably, or systemically sexist, racist, anti-LGBT, bigoted, biased, privileged, or oppressed; and
(2) Employs immutable, inherited, or typically continuing characteristics such as race, income, appearance, religion, ancestry, sexual orientation, or gender identity to:
(a) Perpetuate stereotypes; and
(b) Assign blame for societal problems or ills to categories of living persons based on any such stereotypes or characteristics; or
(3) Classifies persons into groups for the purpose of targeting only certain groups for education, formation, indoctrination, or viewpoint transformation, other than separation of students by biological sex where appropriate and conducive for state-mandated sex education instruction
There’s a lot to unpack there, but functionally (among many other things) the bill seems to suggest that curricula cannot be taught if it discusses institutions in the United States as being systemically racist. You could read the “and” at the end of (1) as suggesting this must be paired with (2) and (3) or that simply satisfying one of the criteria is enough. Then the bill proceeds to single out a variety of curricula as “exemplary” of doing this, including the 1619 Project, Teaching for Change, and the Zinn Education Project. Ironically, I’m not even sure these curricula meet the criteria established above, particularly if the “and” implies (1) must be paired with (2) and/or (3). Similar laws have been passed in Idaho, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, and are clearly be driven by Trump, his supporters, and conservative media voices playing to the white fears of engaging with race and racism in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and last June’s historic global uprising.
Regardless of what you think of any of the curricula listed above, what is most problematic to me about these laws is twofold: 1) they are clearly intended to create a chilling effect on teachers so that they avoid teaching about race and racism altogether, opting instead into a sanitized and patriotic version of American history that ignores perspectives that challenge this view and 2) the whole point of teaching American history is to examine a diversity of perspectives, sources, and viewpoints to come to a deeper understanding of how our country and society came to be. If states ban instruction on certain (supposedly radical) viewpoints, it amounts to censorship.
A point I try to drive home to my students is that history is constructed through historical analysis and that it helps us to understand who we are as a society and why we are that way. Since history is the study of the past, and of change over time, history as a discipline is devoted to making sense of the past through critical analysis of a variety of source materials. This is challenging and requires a variety of important skills including particularly assessing evidence and conflicting interpretations of past events. If states outright ban perspectives – particularly ones dealing with systemic racism – they limit the scope of inquiry for students and create a history classroom where censorship rather than free inquiry reigns. For a movement so concerned about “cancel culture,” these folks sure are doing their best to “cancel” viewpoints they have a problem with.