Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a roughly 40-year-old field of scholarship that analyzes political, legal and social institutions through the lens of race (See Kimberle Crenshaw and Derrick Bell).

Most research, done by law students, asks how race informs legal practice. The issues and topics addressed are not “40 years” old or limited to graduate classes (this is one of many academic fields). While we don’t see this in K-12, we do (and must) include relevant insights from this discipline. The alarm over “teaching” CRT is manufactured, though the concerns are not new and do reflect changes in historical understanding. I hope to encourage reflection on these ideas and argue that educators must be unapologetic in teaching history.

I am a social studies teacher. Today, we live in another era of “moral panic” over public schools. Before, it was anti-European xenophobia, the red scare (communism), the “save our children” campaign targeting gay teachers (echoing “parental rights” campaigns today); or the fight over “multicultural learning” in the nineties.

Discussion of CRT is usually alarmism on one side and a mocking of alarmists on the other. The concern is that public schools encourage bias and cynical attitudes about “America.” If there is bias, a better case is made for teaching classical liberalism (free markets, republicanism, individualism and anti-unionism).

Does CRT argue that “I am inherently racist?” No. CRT asks how institutions may construct bias or power differences for certain groups. And, yes, we ourselves may give way to these slights or attitudes. For example, popular texts in the ‘80s and ‘90s correlated race and IQ scores as “natural,” or that a lack of initiative is responsible for declining white working-class wages. Today, many schools adopt a similar “culture of poverty” narrative. These are popularized prejudices.

Until relatively recently, mainstream post-slavery “curriculum” and popular attitudes were informed by the Dunning School, and films like “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with The Wind.” They depicted the “lost cause” of southern values, victimhood, and “unintelligent” black leadership. Not until WEB DuBois, Eric Foner and Steven Hahn, did we see a more complex history of slavery, its legacy, and the heroism of black (and white) activists. As research becomes more broadly understood (from any field), insights move from PhD seminars to the public; and, in the past 10 years, there has been a focus on better informing K-12 students. While there has been a certain activist attitude in bridging this gap, we shouldn’t confuse teaching history with activism.

CRT considers how: “Race is a social construction.” “Class and race inequalities impact political decision making.” “Poor blacks and whites have more in common than we recognize.” “How do the intersections of our lived ‘identities’ impact us (intersectionality)?”

In testing claims, researchers provide insights into issues we already understood existed. A famous example: how and why did subsequent court cases chip away at the end of “separate but equal” in Brown v Board of Education (1954)? CRT demonstrates how race not only informed segregation, but shaped long-term competing interests in public schools. Discussing these topics is not practicing “CRT.” Conflating to the two is intellectual laziness and dishonesty.

Reasonable critics argue we may be reducing our problems to one cause: racism (race reductionism). Are trends in the history of capitalism oversimplifying the “roots” to slavery (See The 1619 Project)? Is a lens of “power” and “oppression” the best way to analyze social relations?

What about poverty? Racial discrimination is a part of this, though making policy solely from that lens does not end poverty. Ironically, some CRT thinkers may agree, arguing this may be “performative” and may rationalize the continuation upper-class status. Conversely, for questions of culture, which class demographic gets to decide if capitalizing “B” in black is a form of social justice?

What of intersectionality? Intersectionality analyzes our individual experience tied to our “identities” (Native American and white, second-generation immigrant, English speaking, professional and working-class family). Though, how helpful is this? Do those identities have varied experiences? Intersectionality can be an attempt to answer everything with one framework, not getting closer to truth.

CRT concerns are a new “red scare.” We ought to heed what insights research can provide. Teachers and academics need to face campaigns against history forthrightly and go on the offensive for free thought, free speech and academic integrity. In our democracy, we are obliged to confront the fact that embedded in the Constitution is the protection of slavery; and consider how that was overcome, and what questions have been left unanswered.

Published at Herald and News, April 7, 2023