Kerby Anderson

Critical race theory is coming to a school district near you. First, it was being promoted through a bill in Congress. Now it looks like it will be funded through President Biden’s Department of Education.

Critical race theory rests upon a Marxist foundation but with a significant difference. Karl Marx focused on class conflict between capitalists and workers. The newer form of Marxism substituted race for class and sought a coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.

Stanley Kurtz has been warning that the Civics Secures Democracy Act would be used by activists and educators to promote critical race theory. Now the Department of Education proposed a regulation that directs grant money to prioritize applications that “support the development of culturally responsive teaching and learning.” I might mention that phrases like “equity” and “culturally responsive” are key buzzwords for critical race theory.

Christopher Rufo has been documenting how critical race theory is already arriving in the schools. A California elementary school forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and then rank themselves according to their power and privilege. A middle school in Missouri forced teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” based on the idea that white, Christian males were members of an oppressor class. Although he is just one investigative journalist, he has put together a database of more than 1,000 stories already.

Last year, President Trump issued an executive order banning critical race theory training in the federal government. President Biden rescinded the order on his first day and now appears to be promoting it in schools across the country.