FALSE: This is the latest trick by CRT advocates. CRT works through complexity of language and intentional ambiguity. But parents don’t need a masters degree in CRT in order to see what CRT’s goal is: the “problematizing” and criticizing of American systems with the aim of dismantling them. CRT does this in the name of the “oppressor-oppressed” dichotomy of Marx, which CRT practitioners call “domination-subordination.” CRT’s essential argument is that America’s laws are “systemically racist,” which has created a systemically racist society. That is to say, every institution, law and policy in America is racist to its core, only invented to oppress people of color, especially black people.

FALSE: CRT’s greatest trick, possibly, is to use words like “democracy” and “equality” to justify a top-down program of social control over our kids using government-backed institutions like universities, the media, and public schools. CRT’s founder, Derrick Bell, was part of America’s powerful legal elite in the mid-20th century. What gained him fame was his decision to adopt a Marxist Critical Theory approach to race, then to use powerful government-backed legal institutions like Harvard Law School and New York University School of Law to push CRT on Americans. And what brought CRT into schools was Social Emotional Learning (SEL): a direct inheritance of early 20th century progressives who saw themselves as “enlightened elites” whose duty was to instruct Americans. CRT and its trojan horse SEL are 180 degrees away from how true democracy and equality work in a constitutional republic: citizens petitioning their school board and city councils, state legislatures and political parties, to advance their interests. It’s certainly the opposite of how Civil Rights happened—through Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which has much more of a resemblance to groups like Moms for Liberty than it does to SEL and CRT.

FALSE. First of all, teaching history accurately, not impartially, should be the goal. Students, of course, must learn the good and the bad of American history. But CRT is an inaccurate telling of history that roots it in racial domination and subordination. It influenced and has incorporated The 1619 Project, which has received strong criticism from even Liberal historians over its misrepresentation that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. CRT’s for-profit spinoffs, like Great Minds’ Wit and Wisdom, echo these claims. These and other CRT vehicles encourage children to define themselves the way powerful universities and federally-funded schools want them to: by their degree of oppression.

FALSE:  Critical Race Theory is a subset of Critical Theory, born in Europe of neo-Marxists György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci. It was transferred to the subject of race thanks to the American professor Derrick Bell’s reading of the Marxist Critical Theorist Paolo Freire. The goal of CRT is the goal of Marxism: the division and then fundamental change of a society by a small group working through elite institutions. The Soviets worked this way, too; and the Chinese Communist Party.  CRT is not about educating us about our past, or social justice, or healing or unity, or democracy, or teaching us how to advance our interests within our Constitutional system. CRT is about placing our past in the framework of domination and subordination. Starting with the law and moving to society, it delegitimizes America’s founding structures in the eyes of its rising generations.  Examine the roots of it and you’ll see that it is all about sowing permanent division, and sadly, it has been accomplishing this goal very well so far.

FALSE: CRT imposed through DEI and curriculums, like Wit and Wisdom, turns every subject matter – from Math and Science, to English and Music—into a discussion about oppression, social justice and politics. Indeed, CRT/DEI’s very logic is that, for actual learning to take place, the trauma caused by oppression must be discussed and eradicated. Learning in this environment is impossible, and the last thing taxpayers should do is fully fund schools which put a barrier of SEL/CRT/DEI in front of students being able to learn actual subjects. 

What’s more, CRT/DEI does not even accomplish its stated goal of freeing kids from racial “trauma.” There are no metrics to indicate when someone has overcome trauma, or when someone is “wounded” by a racial comment. Instead, CRT/DEI encourages kids to dig deeper into their supposed pain, distancing them further from learning actual hard subjects. Stopping this poisonous ideology from further entering schools isn’t a distraction from learning. It’s absolutely essential for allowing learning to occur.

FALSE: A rational, everyday parent is all for including every kid in learning. A rational, everyday parent also knows that emphasizing differences in identity is a distraction when teachers are trying to equip kids with skills in math, reading, or writing. But DEI firms, using CRT theory run through Social Emotional Learning’s emphasis on trauma, only focus on identity. DEI firms’ “logic” is that, for children to properly learn, schools need to first focus on their mental health, thanks to the “traumatic” effects of everyday social problems as well as racial, gender, and sexual discrimination. 

Applied to race, gender, and sexual identity, this creates a situation where kids aren’t included in learning because learning isn’t taking place. Instead, “inclusion” is used as a screen for emphasizing “identity” differences which have been defined by the national government. “Mother’s Day” becomes “Birth People’s Day”; pronoun announcements for gender identity become a part of the classroom. The bottom line: “Inclusion” as implemented by DEI policies results in forced speech codes.  It results in a classroom where your child is afraid to raise his or her hand for fear of asking the wrong question or using a forbidden word. It stifles honest questions, debate, free speech and, perversely, will be used to exclude anyone who dissents. And it makes actual learning impossible.

FALSE: “Diversity”, as defined by DEI programs, will result in government-backed social engineering, which means quotas, determined by administrators. This is 180 degrees away from genuine difference, which is very alive in American society and has always expressed itself naturally through our constitutional system and in our schools. For example, Williamson County, TN, home of one of the most active chapters of Moms for Liberty, is 80% White, 25% Hispanic, 8% Asian, 7% black.  There is no policy or law that excludes people from moving to Williamson County or attending its schools—that is the result of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in turn is the result of the kind of on-the-ground (d)emocratic action led by Martin Luther King, Jr. that has aways defined America.  

Thanks to the Civil Rights Act, people of all ethnicities are already welcome in American schools. To “increase diversity” means you want to use the national government to artificially influence those numbers. It also means government mandates to treat students of a certain ethnicity differently based on CRT’s line that racism is so embedded in our laws that students of color are automatically discriminated against. (For an example of such a mandate, see the 2014 Department of Education and Department of Justice “Dear Colleague” letter on ‘Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline’ that brought Restorative Justice into schools.) That means quotas. That means discriminating by race. No parent wants their child to be a number on either side of a quota. That strips us of our individualism. It also strips us of our social identity provided to us by families, neighborhoods, churches, and associations—all those things which parents choose for their kids. Instead it reduces us to classification by administrators in schools funded and controlled by Washington, D.C. 

FALSE: Even in theory, CRT and DEI don’t want to be accepted in small doses; they want to reorient our view of law, which structures our society and our interactions, so that we see law as a tool of “subordination” that affects every interaction we have. In practice, CRT is presented in conjunction with psychology, particularly SEL, which argues that before any kind of learning can take place, trauma, particularly race-based trauma, has to be overcome. This means that, thanks to SEL, CRT isn’t becoming a part of the discussion, it’s hijacking it.

FALSE: DEI is the management vehicle through which CRT enters institutions. Begun as a Human Resources tool in corporations and universities looking to avoid liability from race-based discrimination lawsuits encouraged by CRT theorists, it’s the “enforcement arm” of CRT. This means DEI is actually more dangerous. CRT alone is just Marxist-inspired academic theory and should only be discussed as one of many theoretical ways to view the world. But DEI insists CRT’s claims are fact – not theory – and then cloaks its poisonous ideology in innocuous, feel good language. 

DEI is designed to inject CRT into an institution, to indoctrinate individuals and ultimately impose a caste system. People with white skin will be labeled “privileged” and “oppressors”. Meanwhile, people of color, especially black people, will be labeled “victims” and “oppressed.” In other words, DEI will introduce systemic racism into the school, rather than remove it. If individuals reject any of DEI’s CRT-based claims, they will be told it’s proof they have not “done the work”, they are exhibiting “white fragility” or, yes, they are a racist.

TRUE: There is an important distinction here:  Equity is not Equality. 

Equity is the idea that all racial groups must achieve equal outcomes based on policies set by government-funded institutions. That’s Marxism built on a bed of bureaucracy. Equity also insists that disparate outcomes are automatic proof of America’s systemic racism. This assertion must be accepted on faith. Once Equity is adopted as the goal, an institution will be required to boost certain “marginalized” groups, while holding back so-called “privileged” groups. How? Through reparations and government-compelled redistribution of resources. In other words, institutional and government-sponsored discrimination will become the norm in order to achieve so-called Equity. 

On the other hand, Equality before the law is the American idea. Equality in America has always meant Americans mobilizing through popular politics and using our Constitutional system to create equal opportunity. It has also always meant accepting that there will be disparate outcomes in America – as is true in all societies where government doesn’t rule tyrannically.