oversight and public education are examples of

But others worry that these bans are being broadly interpreted to curb any discussion about the nation’s complicated past or the ongoing effects of racism in the present day. Some teachers have said that they don’t think the laws will affect their lessons, because they don’t teach the banned concepts. With this fuzziness around terminology, teachers and school leaders in states where these laws have passed have reported widespread confusion about what kind of instruction is and is not allowed. Several of the state bills proposed in the 2021 legislative session describe Trump’s list of “divisive concepts” as critical race theory, even though scholars of the framework maintain that it doesn’t teach that certain races are better than others, or that individuals are inherently racist. But over the past two years, the phrase has been warped from its original meaning, used by opponents of diversity training as a catch-all to refer to anything that makes race or gender salient in conversations about power and oppression. Even laws and policies that appear race-neutral on their face can bring about disparate outcomes, the theory asserts. The term refers to a decades-old academic theory that holds that racism is systemic, perpetrated by structural forces rather than individual acts of bias. They labeled these kinds of activities “critical race theory.” They argued that some of the exercises that asked white Americans to reflect on their privilege were racist and divisive, teaching children to view themselves as either oppressors or the oppressed. Pundits, advocacy groups, and parents-mostly conservative, but some across the political spectrum-pushed back against these changes, especially diversity trainings. In K-12 districts, this took a few different forms: standing up equity committees, mandating diversity training for staff, incorporating more lessons on systemic racism in social studies classes or more books by Black authors in English.

These prohibitions emerged in response to a specific kind of diversity training that many organizations started to undertake in summer 2020.Īfter the murder of George Floyd in May of that year, many workplaces-including schools-began initiatives aimed at countering racism and bias.

Oversight and public education are examples of