RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/critical_race_theory_wrong_for_k12_education.html

Critical Race Theory (CRT), a relatively young legal theory that has been circulating in legal academic circles since the 1980s, suddenly burst on the scene of public consciousness in the past year.  It continues to be a topic of controversy due to its being advocated for inclusion in K-12 instruction. As with other subjects that become political footballs, CRT elicits very strong views — especially among those with minimal understanding of the theory. Unless a person has taken the time to earnestly read source materials from CRT’s original authors, it is all too easy to fall into one camp or the other — while still remaining in the dark about its meaning.

Here I would like to provide some insights about CRT and encourage reading original source materials by authors such as Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado. A great start would be Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement by Crenshaw, et al. What you will find is that CRT writings are not light reading by any means, but scholarly and heavily academic, as the expected audience is other legal scholars and academics. Yet grappling with these works is a necessary investment if you truly want to have an informed perspective regarding CRT.  You will likely come away with a conclusion that what has been labeled and promoted as “CRT” in K-12 education has virtually nothing to do with the theory as put forward in the key writings of its authors.

Last year we heard the continual refrain, even from the highest levels of government, that CRT is needed for K-12 students because it teaches about slavery and racism in our history.  The problem with this assertion is CRT is not something you would look for in a history book because it is not an account of specific events of the dark history of slavery and Jim Crow in America. Rather, CRT is based on legal theory from the perspective of the role of law in the treatment of people of color. Specifically, CRT examines how the law, since the founding of the country, has been both central and complicit in upholding white supremacy throughout its history in terms of social domination and subordination of people of color.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-win-for-parents-a-loss-for-aztec-worship-in-schools/?utm_source=

Earlier today, conservative education activist Chris Rufo reported: “Following a lawsuit from parents, the State of California has permanently removed the ‘In Lak Ech Affirmation’ from the state curriculum, which would have forced students to chant to the Aztec god of human sacrifice in order to become ‘warriors’ for ‘social justice.’”

Yes, in case you’ve forgotten (or were unaware in the first place): The state of California wanted to make kids sing ditties to Tezkatlipoka. For those who aren’t familiar with the Aztec deity, he’s the literal god of human sacrifice. Oh, and cannibalism. Just to give you a sense of what kind of culture the California Board of Education is revering, here’s Cameron Hilditch on the history of Aztec ritual human sacrifice:

The remains of more than 40 boys and girls were discovered at the excavation site of the great pyramid, most bearing the marks of severe and prolonged torture. This was to be expected given that the Aztec pictorial codices that have come down to us invariably show the children crying before being sacrificed. The priests of Tlaloc believed the tears of innocent children to be particularly pleasing to the god, and they took great care to ensure that their little victims were crying before and throughout the ceremony so that the smoke of the sacrificial fire would carry their tears up to the god above at the moment of death. The ritual began with the bones of the children being broken, their hands or their feet burned, and carvings etched into their flesh. They were then paraded before the celebrants of the ritual while crying. Insufficient tears from the children were believed to result in insufficient rains for the crops that year, so no brutality was spared. At the end of it all, the mutilated victims were burned alive.

All in the name of multicultural education, of course. Just think of the chants as the Aztec version of Christmas carols.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/exposed_the_selective_bigotry_of_the_campus_diversity_industry.html

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – or “DEI” – is now big business across American campuses.  A 2021 Heritage Foundation study found that the average American college employs 45 full-time DEI administrators.  With a reported average salary of $79,400 per DEI staffer, the average college DEI budget exceeds $3.57 million.  Hence across more than 4,000 colleges nationally, America’s total college DEI bill tops $14 billion.

One would hope that such massive investments yield tangible gains in the DEI bureaucracies’ self-described mission, namely, assuring an inclusive campus environment for all students.  Unfortunately, a new study shows that the campus DEI industry not only fails this test, but also – at least towards one minority group – actively subverts its stated goal.

The study, released by Heritage just a month ago, examined the public social media statements of over 700 diversity administrators from 65 colleges.  It revealed a tsunami of extreme and false denunciations of Israel and its supporters.  Of the DEI staffers’ frequent mentions of Israel, 96 percent consisted of libelous indictments, “[f]requently accusing Israel of engaging in genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and other extreme crimes.”

One diversity administrator “liked” and re-tweeted this message: “Wtf is a liberal Zionist? What’s next? Liberal Nazi? Liberal colonizer? Liberal murderer?”  Another tweeted, in an echo of the medieval blood libels that incited bloody violence against Jews, “israel has a particular loathing for children. they target them with violence specifically and intentionally every single day.”

Many DEI staffers’ tweets called for Israel’s outright elimination, “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”  Apparently, those falsely charged with genocide must themselves be targeted for genocide.  Other DEI tweets denounced U.S. supporters of Israel, including a conspiratorial indictment of a “vast philanthropic-lobbying complex in the US that works tirelessly to present Israelis as benevolent [and] peace-loving . . . [while] in actual Israel no one bothers with the pretense.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/jews-dont-count-richard-l-cravatts/

In 1978, the significant Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case brought the term “diversity” into the lexicon of higher education. Although the Court found that the medical school at the University of California at Davis had used an unconstitutional quota system in denying Alan Bakke admission, Justice Lewis Powell made his now-famous observation that, notwithstanding the inherent defect of such a quota system, universities could likely enhance the quality of their enrollments by striving to create a “diverse student body” engaging in “a robust exchange of ideas,” and that there was “a compelling state interest” in trying to achieve such a goal and in promoting the inclusion of historically underrepresented groups on campus.

Rather than helping students adapt to the real diversity of society outside the campus walls, however, the campaign to increase diversity has served to create balkanized campuses where victims of the moment segregate themselves into distinct and inward-looking racial and cultural groups—exactly the opposite intention of the university diversocrats and their bloated fiefdoms with which they promote this theology of victimization, racial justice, and inclusion.

It seems, though, that not all ethnic groups warrant the concern of woke campus social justice warriors. Jews, a tiny but highly visible and influential minority group, are regularly ignored when victim groups compete for recognition on the sensitivity scale. More than that, the very individuals whose role it is to ensure that all people are recognized and all groups protected have been shown to harbor a particular animus towards Jews and the Jewish state, Israel.

In the rarified atmosphere of racial equity and discussion about oppression and victimhood, Jews are now considered to be white and enjoy “white privilege,” that even though they have long been a maligned and hated minority, Jews are now excluded from victim classification and have themselves become targets for condemnation, criticism, and censure—even from those diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) professionals whose primary role it is to create campus environments free from bigotry, hatred, and bias.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2022/01/12/money-for-indoctrination-n154

Glenn Youngkin recently was elected Virginia’s governor partly because he promised to ban teaching of CRT.

CRT stands for critical race theory, which argues that every American institution upholds white supremacy.

Before Youngkin’s surprise victory, the media mocked him for complaining about CRT.

NBC’s Nicolle Wallace said it isn’t even taught in public schools. “That is like us banning the ghosts!” she laughed.

She is wrong.

In my new video, journalist Asra Nomani reveals some rather creepy CRT lessons that are taught in many schools.

Nomani filed Freedom of Information Act requests that forced school districts to reveal how they pay consultants to spread critical race theory.

“We found 300-plus contracts,” says Nomani. “Every day, I’m getting a new contract. For them to deny it is just part of their campaign.”

A CNN guest, history teacher Keziah Ridgeway, admits that CRT influences how some teachers teach. “That’s a good thing, right?” she says. “Because race and racism is literally the building blocks of this country.”

Really? The building block?

No!

https://humanevents.com/2022/01/10/report-more-than-230-colleges-universities-include-some-form-of-critical-race-theory-training/

More than 230 colleges and universities in the United States have some form of mandatory student training or coursework on ideas related to critical race theory. 

As reported by Fox News, at least 236 colleges or universities have some form of student training on critical race theory. Of those are 149 institutions that have some kind of mandatory faculty or staff training, with 138 mandating school-wide curricular requirements. 

CriticalRace.org, which compiles research from more than 500 institutions, told Fox News that these programs focus on things like “anti-racism,” “equity,” “implicit bias” and critical race theory. 

“Our database shows how race has become a pervasive focus in higher education with a near universal insistence that racism is systemic in the United States,” William A. Jacobson, a Cornell law professor who founded the database, said. 

He added that “higher ed is focused on what divides people, exacerbating rather than solving problems.” 

The critical race theory-associated content appears within curriculum, staff training and sometimes within training related to hiring. 

Some colleges and universities even have required diversity-related content as part of students’ coursework. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/reading-between-the-lines-in-the-washington-post-on-anti-asian-discrimination-in-schools/

It’s barely even concealed anymore that ‘more diverse’ means ‘fewer Asians’ in the context of academics.

Northern Virginia resident Alex Godofsky tweets:

Utterly fascinating, indeed.

“TJ” here refers to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the Fairfax County, Va., magnet school that’s one of the best high schools in the country. Godofsky’s screenshot is from this story in the Washington Post. You’ll note that one major racial group goes unmentioned explicitly in that paragraph: Asians. Of course, Asians are mentioned implicitly by process of elimination. All percentages must add to 100. If the percentage of black students increased, the percentage of Hispanic students increased, and the percentage of white students stayed the same, then the percentage of Asian students must have declined. You don’t have to have gone to TJ to figure that one out.

It’s barely even concealed anymore that “more diverse” means “fewer Asians” in the context of academics. TJ’s new application process sounds a lot like the “holistic” process at Harvard that rated Asian students lower based on their personalities. From the Post story:

TJ adopted a “holistic review” process that asks admissions officers to weigh four “experience factors” including whether English is an applicant’s first language, whether the applicant has a disability, whether the applicant’s family qualifies for free or reduced-price meals at school and if the applicant attends a middle school that has historically sent a small number of students to TJ. Only qualified eighth-graders — those who possess a 3.5 GPA while taking certain high-level math and honors courses — can go through the “holistic” review, and must also submit a math or science problem-solving essay as well as a “Student Portrait Sheet.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/where-critical-race-theory-comes-from/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in&utm_term=third

Critical pedagogy is the anti-Enlightenment wellspring from which CRT and other suspect activist ideologies flow.

T here is a fundamental change occurring in American education. You have likely heard from some that it is critical race theory, a fringe understanding of race in America, and from others that this is just a bogeyman. Neither assertion is correct. Rather, critical pedagogy — a politicized theory of education of which CRT is but one branch — has become the prevailing theory in American colleges of education, influencing curriculum, instruction, and policies across the country.

In place of academic skills and a worldview grounded in Enlightenment thinking, critical pedagogy teaches students political activism and a worldview of oppression. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the results of such a pedagogy leave students angry but with a paucity of literary, mathematical, and historical knowledge — the very things they need to live a fulfilled, thoughtful, successful life.

While showing every shortcoming of critical pedagogy is beyond the bounds of one essay, conservatives need to understand that this problem extends far beyond a few racialized, politicized lessons in coastal schools. One English curriculum, the Units of Study, which thousands of schools use, bases its work on critical theories, including CRT, but also postcolonial, feminist, and other radical ideologies. The curriculum cites Kimeberlé Crenshaw, a founding scholar of CRT, as well as other progressive activists such as Angela Davis, a Marxist scholar, and Judith Butler, a gender theorist.

Effective propaganda can be as subtle as it is insidious. When it’s obvious, loud, and galling, it’s easy to identify and reject. When it’s no more noticeable than a few mold spores, it can go on spreading until it has rotted entire institutions. We must absolutely confront the media-grabbing practices such as privilege walks, but picking such battles is akin to wiping away a few mold spots from rotting floorboards.

Traditional conceptions of education trace back to the Greeks and the Romantics, and comparing these ideas to critical pedagogy can isolate exactly what this philosophy is and, perhaps more importantly, isn’t. In his Republic, Plato portrays education as the process of extracting individuals from a cave of shadows into the light of reality. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the goal of education is the forming of virtuous habits. In both cases, education directs us beyond ourselves — discovering the world as it is and aligning our characters to an objective law from without.

These beliefs dominated European thought up until and through the Enlightenment; medieval universities built themselves upon the liberal arts, and Loyola attempted to systematize education for the youth in his Ratio Studiorum. Then, romantics such as Rousseau suggested that children follow their natural inclinations, that any ascription to outside influence is only corrupting, and John Dewey popularized this vision in the 20th century. Dewey went so far as to say that no content had inherent value in learning. Rather, what interests the child ought to lead the way. Education came to focus on the self.

Both Greek and Romantic theories manifest today in classical and project-based learning, respectively. We can debate their relative efficacy, but in both cases, the focus remains primarily on academics and moral formation. If traditional education asks us to step into our backyard to explore the world, and romantic education asks us to explore what’s inside, critical pedagogy would have us burn down the house and trench the garden.