Well the problem is that the teachers, administrations and structures of power in this country on the left right now disallow any dissent. You can be fired for criticizing BLM or CRT. Fired outright. No one feels free to disagree with it - it is being forced as a new doctrine everyone MUST accept. I would ban it for the same reason I would ban Creationism from being taught as an alternative theory to evolution. I would ban it to separate church from state - as this has become a fundamentalist religion on the left. If there were protections for dissenters and a more free approach to the dialogue I would not have a problem with it. Any forced doctrine, any type of thinking that is being demanded over all others, that answers questions rather than asks them is something that doesn't belong in public education.
CRT was hatched in the Social Science departments of academia and was not subject to the Scientific Method, as are subjects included in core STEM curriculum. As a result, leaking CRT to society is very dangerous and it is wrong to force it upon children without their parents consent.
Ira Glasser recently did an excellent podcast with Joe Rogan about free speech. Ira was steadfast that the antidote for bad speech is more speech. I agree with him.
But children in grades K-12 are not knowledgeable enough to engage in a fair minded discussion or debate about this very complex topic, especially when many adults aren’t capable either.
This is about indoctrination, plain and simple. The left want to change America and one of their methods of affecting that change is brainwashing our children. We should resist this at every turn.
It's back to tolerance of intolerance, and where that gets us. I dare say that if those opposed insist on Marquess of Queensbury rules, Western society ---the Enlightment, falls. We're also tolerating stupidity, giving it its head with generations of students. The converted take an axe to the Enlightenment and anything Western, everything from "I Love Lucy" to the Magna Carta, probably the first time those two things have been in the same sentence.
What troubles is their arrogance -- the moral certainty that dehumanizing entire groups of people by immutable characteristics or religion, teaching hatred of the U.S., and dividing people by tribes, with some on top and the others on the bottom, is so virtuous that the noncompliant will be fired, extinguished. That's unconstititional. The joy and good cheer on that moronic, bullying teacher's face says much. We've seen this movie before.
Unfettered academic freedom got us here -- Bill Ayers, Weathermen, anarchists, Marxists teaching our kids, spineless administrators and college presidents, the Marcuses of the world making themselves comfortable on U.S. campuses -- unchallenged. That's what the leftist Free Speech Movement got us, and that's why they wanted it. CRT is a one-track mind, free of any interference. It doesn't allow debate. Critical thinking is its sworn enemy. Virtually nothing Mao wouldn't like.
My answer is yes, I think we disallow indoctrination that dehumanizes any peoples, that blocks or punishes debate or dissent or even silence as a fireable offense, that inculcates racial animus or that makes any student feel "less than." CRT is not "public policy," not by a long shot, and that's how they're forcing it in.
I think too we must stop calling it a theory -- it's simpleminded propaganda with tin-pot jargon. All it needs is costumes with epaulettes. Observe anything, any object or television show-- -choose it right now, this moment, then discover how it is a manifestation of racism or white supremacy. That's it, you're in. I read a few samples of Kendi, or Henry Rogers; he's bright but one-dimensional, a one-lane highway, rode hard. Marinated in race and white people, in college, in grad school, until that is all he sees, and I don't think he sees human beings at all. The resultant monomania is what non-interference, heads up gets you.
I'd never heard of Tulsa and was horrified. By all means let's learn. But what's happening now is a Marxist ideology digging up graves and exploiting only certain narratives to gain power, not equality. Cultist/activists are turning schools into politjcal agencies. That violates the Constitution. Or used to.
It sounds like David should be consulting on the drafting of these bills so that they meet the rigorous liberal standards that are laid out in our Constitution. That said, he sees malice where there is none. Chris clearly described the intent behind these bills. And what he describes does not fundamentally infringe on civil liberties.
Instead, as David describes, they operate as belts and suspenders for Constitutional protections. If they are too vague or they can be amended to better convey the underlying protections and the limitations, David would do well to participate in that exercise. That assumes that he really is a civil libertarian.
Instead, he has built up a straw man to argue against even though he fundamentally agrees with the underlying principles. His technical expertise has blinded him to the tactical and strategic value for what Chris is doing. He is also blind to the pernicious threat that CRT is to liberalism and to the underlying foundation of our nation.
I watched violent activists exercise an incredibly coordinated attack against American institutions and citizens last summer that shook me to my core. The question that kept going through my mind was how did these kids become radicalized. What did we, as a society, do wrong? The answer, in part, is due to a deterioration in academic standards that is inherently illiberal.
David, right or wrong, takes issue with the term, "hegemonic". Okay. Pick a term. Does the technical validity of a hyperbolic term really matter? The answer to that is no. Are corporations cloaking themselves in rhetoric? Of course they are. Does that, in any way, underscore the cultural impact on our society? No.
David would be all too happy to let these issues work themselves out in the court while children are being compelled to speak in support of a political and religious orthodoxy that casts all of us in a divisive oppressed / oppressor ideology. David doesn't seem to realize that this is no longer an academic exercise. It is very quickly turning into state sanctioned political activism.
I am a classic liberal and a civil libertarian. I oppose state sanctioned compelled speech and the teaching of state sanctioned religious orthodoxy. I support enlightenment values and I support the teaching of all ideologies and the promotion of robust debate. CRT is fundamentally at odds with those values.
David French clearly believes that he is a proponent of free speech. And in one sense of the word, he is. But in his zeal, he seems to underestimate that compelling speech with religious affirmation is another way to suppress speech and dissent. That is what these institutions are doing. His inaction is exactly why people like Chris Ruffo have had to take a stand.
Good faith critical analysis for a solution will always result in a more robust solution. I would encourage him to use his technical expertise to do that. If these laws do not address the underlying and well documented issues that they are intended to, his collaboration would ensure that they do without infringing on liberal institutions that we all value.
We don't have time to wait for this to gain even more influence while it works itself out in the courts. We need to take action in legislation specifically to ensure that CRT will be subject to the same rigorous standards of free inquiry and debate that we all value. Anything less is not acceptable and David should know that.
David French says, “There is ample opportunity to use your voice to engage in opposition to ideas that you feel are bad...”
In the current moment of tech tyranny and corporate cowardice, almost all of those opportunities will cost you your job, your reputation, and your family’s security. I wish it were as simple as filing a lawsuit or running for a seat on the local school board. If I openly questioned any aspect of my company’s expansive diversity, equity, and inclusion program, I would be fired within 72 hours. That’s not exaggeration, or hyperbole. It’s simply fact.
Uh, by your logic, public schools should be free to teach Marxism or even the principles of the German National Socialist Workers Party. As far as David French goes, he's not a conservative. He's a self-righteous hypocrite. I gave up on him a long time ago. By the way, a JAG is a military lawyer. They live in a world of their own and rarely have contact with the rest of the military.
Surely the point is that you shouldn't ban exposing students to Critical Race Theory just as you shouldn't ban exposing them to other approaches and theories. That's called education. But implementing and operationalising a theory such that all other perspectives are null and void? That's the problem.
The biggest problem students face in their education is not a legal issue relating to whether Critical Race Theory or other ideas can or can't be discussed in class or on campuses, or even whether students can be forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing The Internationale every morning. The biggest problem is that the vast preponderance of ideas taught in most public and private schools are Liberal (capital L), and that competing ideas are missing from the debate. This situation has arisen because of the self-selection of Liberals to teach in public schools and the seemingly inexorable march of Leftist ideas in the academies. "Hegemonic" is not too strong a term to describe the dominance of Liberal ideology in our schools, from Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" in high school to radicalized humanities and social science departments in universities.
Much of this reflects governance and leadership failures in both public and private institutions.
Local school boards have failed to represent the interests of their parents / constituents in key decisions about curricula, hiring practices, etc. Department chairs in many elite universities have failed to maintain balance in their faculties. And leaders at all levels have often responded to the loudest voices - e.g., union activists and anti-racist agitators - rather than represent all their constituents' interests. This Leftward movement has been aided and abetted by state boards of education and the federal Department of Education, all of which impose requirements and standards that intrude on local decision-making. After decades of one-sided, special-interest-driven "education," it is not surprising that the most educated among us are the most Liberal and fast becoming the most intolerant.
When we are talking about the indoctrination of very young children, who may not be capable of accurately relaying to their parents what is being said, how on earth does David French think lawsuits are the answer? For that matter, how do parents keep tabs on this insidious corruption going on in the classroom?
As the son of a Holocaust survivor, CRT strikes me as just one more ideology that is intended to confiscate the property & opportunities of Jews. While their primary argument is that BIPOC deserve some sort of compensation for the historical oppression they suffered, I do not see the ideology's proponents arguing for compensation for other groups who have had their property stolen or were expelled from their homes. They are the only party with a claim that shouild be recognized. In the debate, Bari asked a question about whether CRT's proponents ever ask what they want? Well what they want is clear. They want to build a political coalition large enough so that they can enact confiscatory policies. This is why they are hell bent on indoctrinating young people. It's a way of fomenting a revolution through a democratic process. However, Chris Rufo has pointed out their weak spot which is that they skipped over the process of getting approval at the local and parental level. That is why the pushback is coming from parents and state legislators and why the teachers and school boards are fighting so hard to prevent the parents from intervening.
We should never replace Critical Thought with Critical Theory. When I was in college, if we learned about any particular theory, professors emphasized both the strengths and limitations of such theory. Likewise, Critical Race Theory should be seen as only one of the many ideologies and frameworks that can be used to analyze and address issues regarding race relations. What has happened in college campuses in the last 10 or so years? My guess is that professors/administrators have been intimidated by a false dichotomy put forward by the most ardent proponents of CT and CRT (i.e., you are either with us OR against us AND against marginalized communities).
Thank you Bari! Consistent with your now-well-established standard, another compelling piece of work. Keeping score at home, I’d have to hand the narrow victory to your Mr. Rufo. But, interesting points were made on both sides.
As a person on the front lines, working in the evil-clown horror-show that is K-12 education, I have a couple of small thoughts to contribute.
By his own admission, Mr. French does live in a bubble, but I’ll suggest that he may do so in ways that he doesn’t even understand. His recommendation that parents summon some courage and get more involved, and the idea that that would be a solution, made me laugh out loud. The only possible way that someone could think that would be for them to be well-distanced from the reality of the situation and not perceive the depth, breadth, and age of the monster. Trust me… in the education world, parents mean absolutely nothing.
This mess started a long time ago, and so did the indoctrination. When I was in college, in the 1970s, this was already well underway. I was a business student, but had “liberal arts requirements” to fulfill, so I wound up in a Sociology 101 course. (Easy A, I was told.) I sat through it, it was utter nonsense, and I got myself in substantial trouble by saying so. I remember asking the hippy-ish professor, “In what way, exactly would you say this is a science or even an academic discipline?” No sensible answer was forthcoming. I didn’t know it at the time, but like the space travelers in “Alien”, I had just seen the monster as a baby.
Some 40 years later, we in the education world are surrounded by 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation ideologues: In the faculty, in accrediting bodies, in the parent body, and even among the students, who have been exposed to these ideas by “progressive” (I hate that usage of the word, it is a usurpation of the real meaning of the word) parents and have been further brainwashed starting in their pre-schools. Those who stand against something like CRT don’t just come up against the institution: They come up against their peers, their friends, their own children.
And CRT is just one tentacle of the monster. In addition to the white fragility, white privilege, and critical theory illogic being proffered, there is a laundry list of other required orthodox beliefs afloat in my world, and even the slightest dissent from them could cause immediate expulsion. They include (1) men are toxic (2) women are oppressed, and therefore superior to men (3) abortion is good (4) guns are bad (5) George Floyd is a heroic martyr (6) police are evil (7) Republicans and conservatives are really Nazis, and also idiotic hick primitive rubes (8) parents are incompetent, ignorant, and in need of our corrective action (9) the children are ours to raise as we see fit, due to item 8 (9) you are the gender and sex that you decide to be, even if you are 5 and (10) there is no empirical or objective truth, there is only your truth (unless you are a white male).
Yes, I actually watched a faculty member in the lounge pound the table with his fist and scream frantically, “Because Trump is Hitler! Trump IS Hitler!” This was ostensibly an adult.
Yes, I have had someone take me aside and say, “Why do you keep introducing rational arguments and evidence? Can’t you see we are making an irrational decision here?” With a perfectly straight face. I am not making that up.
Yes, I have seen safe spaces created, stuffed animals and juice boxes handed out, and multiple therapists brought in to help teenagers grapple with having been “traumatized” by an election result.
It’s like an alternate reality.
Lastly, I must take issue with the notion that we are dealing with a free speech issue here. I’m not so sure that’s what this is. Being fired from your job, having your means of support yanked out from under you, and even having your career permanently ruined, isn’t “speech”, it is hostile action taken against you. Being shunned, ostracized, treated unequally, and openly humiliated for your beliefs in the workplace or in the school you attend isn’t “speech”, it is people acting in hostile collaboration against you. Having the media, big tech, educators, and the deep state government collectively side with this ideology to the extent that it now guides legislative decisions, court findings, and even election outcomes, isn’t “speech”. It’s a coordinated attack. It feels like a sort of slow-moving coup, that suddenly and exponentially exploded about 7 years ago.
I’ve never been in a coup. But I have to speculate that if you are in one, and you are on the other side, you either fight back with everything you’ve got, or you stand down and just comply. I think Mr. Rufo is right to advocate for legislative action, and I also agree with Mr. French’s recommendation of taking these offenses to court. And if anybody can think of any other methods of counterattack, use those too. Do everything. They certainly are.
Listening to two lawyers debate the nuance of linguistics does not deal with the issue of indoctrinating third graders. This is the great weakness and failure of the Power Elite, fine points of self-interest while all the time ignoring consequences. To have discrimination as a policy of a public school system is not a First Amendment issue. Ideally David French will come to the realization that the expression of ideals requires an appropriate approach and methodology. What is being practiced is a failure of leadership due to a tolerance of a failed ideology (not the same thing as ideals. Ideology is far more akin to dogma than ideas). To David's point, current laws exist. If there are attorneys of substance and principle they should be lining up to provide their services to employ existing laws to address not ideals of behavior but rather methodologies which have been demonstrated to lead to failure.
In the extreme, we will end up defunding the schools. I'm fortunate to have sufficient resources that none of my grandchildren will be subject to a dysfunctional public school. I've not in the past been in favor of vouchers; however, this failure of leadership prompts me to want my money back.
I am with you, Bari, and others that shudder at the proposal to ban CRT as a topic of investigation and debate in school. I am, as I'm sure you are, will J. S. Mill, who said, "He who knows only his own side of the story knows very little of that." An open and free society can only exist when there exists an understanding and respect for dialogue, discourse, and debate. When it comes to what we engage in with children and adolescents, we must not shy away from ideas, but must engage in those ideas in developmentally appropriate ways. And, in public schools, of which I am a part of the system, we must communicate openly what we are doing and why with the public (parents, especially) and even ask them before hand if a topic or field of study is what they want for their child.
The Antiracism/Critical Social Justice movement that operationalizes extremes of CRT ideology through harmful lessons to K-12 students, is not the path forward for our country. The Evergreen State College was damaged (they struggle to find a successor president and enrollment has plummeted) by this movement in 2017. I live and work in a school district 10 miles from the campus. The movement, and I'm embarrassed to say I didn't clearly see it coming until this fall, has arrived in my schools and my union and the struggle to survive and turn back this attempt at 'social revolution' has begun.
In your last two lines. “On Wednesday, Rutgers University sent out an email condemning the rise in antisemitic attacks across the country. The very next day, following protests from Students for Justice in Palestine, the school apologized for condemning antisemitism. I wish I was kidding.” Boy I wish you were kidding too.
Bari - great job!! Superb debate. What is ironic is that they both agree on basically the same thing. The disagreement is on what is not being said. That is that there are far too many people in these instituations that are AFRAID to be approached or called out by the angry woke mob that quietly go along with the BS indoctrination elements ("affirm to everyone that you are white and of the oppressor class..."). The facts are that even our COURTS are mostly afraid to take up these cases due to the blowback they might receive from the illiberal left. Both debaters avoided getting into this - but that IS the cancel culture cancer that is the difference in these arguments, and saying that the laws already exist is NOT a reasonable answer because courts are avoiding or dismissing these lawsuits because they are afraid to rule on many of them. THUS, Mr. Rufo is correct that the answer then is to create NEW LAWS that force a different approach - to teach free speech but not allow the forcible indoctrination and affirmation that these CRT views are fact. Then we can approach the courts from standpoint that these laws are necessary to make clear the violation of students civil rights is NOT tolerable. It's basically the only way to fight back in many cases. It is an unfortunate necessity in today's tribalized hyper-political climate where tribalism has seeped into everything as has fear of cancel culture. These laws will be our way of forcing the fight back to tolerance and reason. Mr. French's arguments all presume fairness and no fear of cancellation by the judicial system that would look at these cases. The sad fact is that even that is under attack and thus these laws are necessary to force these schools to NOT teach as indoctrination but rather as opinion. That is the crux of Mr. Rufo's mission and it is absolutely on the right side of history. Neither left or right would argue with his positions based on what he stated on this debate.
Well the problem is that the teachers, administrations and structures of power in this country on the left right now disallow any dissent. You can be fired for criticizing BLM or CRT. Fired outright. No one feels free to disagree with it - it is being forced as a new doctrine everyone MUST accept. I would ban it for the same reason I would ban Creationism from being taught as an alternative theory to evolution. I would ban it to separate church from state - as this has become a fundamentalist religion on the left. If there were protections for dissenters and a more free approach to the dialogue I would not have a problem with it. Any forced doctrine, any type of thinking that is being demanded over all others, that answers questions rather than asks them is something that doesn't belong in public education.
CRT was hatched in the Social Science departments of academia and was not subject to the Scientific Method, as are subjects included in core STEM curriculum. As a result, leaking CRT to society is very dangerous and it is wrong to force it upon children without their parents consent.
Ira Glasser recently did an excellent podcast with Joe Rogan about free speech. Ira was steadfast that the antidote for bad speech is more speech. I agree with him.
But children in grades K-12 are not knowledgeable enough to engage in a fair minded discussion or debate about this very complex topic, especially when many adults aren’t capable either.
This is about indoctrination, plain and simple. The left want to change America and one of their methods of affecting that change is brainwashing our children. We should resist this at every turn.
It's back to tolerance of intolerance, and where that gets us. I dare say that if those opposed insist on Marquess of Queensbury rules, Western society ---the Enlightment, falls. We're also tolerating stupidity, giving it its head with generations of students. The converted take an axe to the Enlightenment and anything Western, everything from "I Love Lucy" to the Magna Carta, probably the first time those two things have been in the same sentence.
What troubles is their arrogance -- the moral certainty that dehumanizing entire groups of people by immutable characteristics or religion, teaching hatred of the U.S., and dividing people by tribes, with some on top and the others on the bottom, is so virtuous that the noncompliant will be fired, extinguished. That's unconstititional. The joy and good cheer on that moronic, bullying teacher's face says much. We've seen this movie before.
Unfettered academic freedom got us here -- Bill Ayers, Weathermen, anarchists, Marxists teaching our kids, spineless administrators and college presidents, the Marcuses of the world making themselves comfortable on U.S. campuses -- unchallenged. That's what the leftist Free Speech Movement got us, and that's why they wanted it. CRT is a one-track mind, free of any interference. It doesn't allow debate. Critical thinking is its sworn enemy. Virtually nothing Mao wouldn't like.
My answer is yes, I think we disallow indoctrination that dehumanizes any peoples, that blocks or punishes debate or dissent or even silence as a fireable offense, that inculcates racial animus or that makes any student feel "less than." CRT is not "public policy," not by a long shot, and that's how they're forcing it in.
I think too we must stop calling it a theory -- it's simpleminded propaganda with tin-pot jargon. All it needs is costumes with epaulettes. Observe anything, any object or television show-- -choose it right now, this moment, then discover how it is a manifestation of racism or white supremacy. That's it, you're in. I read a few samples of Kendi, or Henry Rogers; he's bright but one-dimensional, a one-lane highway, rode hard. Marinated in race and white people, in college, in grad school, until that is all he sees, and I don't think he sees human beings at all. The resultant monomania is what non-interference, heads up gets you.
I'd never heard of Tulsa and was horrified. By all means let's learn. But what's happening now is a Marxist ideology digging up graves and exploiting only certain narratives to gain power, not equality. Cultist/activists are turning schools into politjcal agencies. That violates the Constitution. Or used to.
It sounds like David should be consulting on the drafting of these bills so that they meet the rigorous liberal standards that are laid out in our Constitution. That said, he sees malice where there is none. Chris clearly described the intent behind these bills. And what he describes does not fundamentally infringe on civil liberties.
Instead, as David describes, they operate as belts and suspenders for Constitutional protections. If they are too vague or they can be amended to better convey the underlying protections and the limitations, David would do well to participate in that exercise. That assumes that he really is a civil libertarian.
Instead, he has built up a straw man to argue against even though he fundamentally agrees with the underlying principles. His technical expertise has blinded him to the tactical and strategic value for what Chris is doing. He is also blind to the pernicious threat that CRT is to liberalism and to the underlying foundation of our nation.
I watched violent activists exercise an incredibly coordinated attack against American institutions and citizens last summer that shook me to my core. The question that kept going through my mind was how did these kids become radicalized. What did we, as a society, do wrong? The answer, in part, is due to a deterioration in academic standards that is inherently illiberal.
David, right or wrong, takes issue with the term, "hegemonic". Okay. Pick a term. Does the technical validity of a hyperbolic term really matter? The answer to that is no. Are corporations cloaking themselves in rhetoric? Of course they are. Does that, in any way, underscore the cultural impact on our society? No.
David would be all too happy to let these issues work themselves out in the court while children are being compelled to speak in support of a political and religious orthodoxy that casts all of us in a divisive oppressed / oppressor ideology. David doesn't seem to realize that this is no longer an academic exercise. It is very quickly turning into state sanctioned political activism.
I am a classic liberal and a civil libertarian. I oppose state sanctioned compelled speech and the teaching of state sanctioned religious orthodoxy. I support enlightenment values and I support the teaching of all ideologies and the promotion of robust debate. CRT is fundamentally at odds with those values.
David French clearly believes that he is a proponent of free speech. And in one sense of the word, he is. But in his zeal, he seems to underestimate that compelling speech with religious affirmation is another way to suppress speech and dissent. That is what these institutions are doing. His inaction is exactly why people like Chris Ruffo have had to take a stand.
Good faith critical analysis for a solution will always result in a more robust solution. I would encourage him to use his technical expertise to do that. If these laws do not address the underlying and well documented issues that they are intended to, his collaboration would ensure that they do without infringing on liberal institutions that we all value.
We don't have time to wait for this to gain even more influence while it works itself out in the courts. We need to take action in legislation specifically to ensure that CRT will be subject to the same rigorous standards of free inquiry and debate that we all value. Anything less is not acceptable and David should know that.
David French says, “There is ample opportunity to use your voice to engage in opposition to ideas that you feel are bad...”
In the current moment of tech tyranny and corporate cowardice, almost all of those opportunities will cost you your job, your reputation, and your family’s security. I wish it were as simple as filing a lawsuit or running for a seat on the local school board. If I openly questioned any aspect of my company’s expansive diversity, equity, and inclusion program, I would be fired within 72 hours. That’s not exaggeration, or hyperbole. It’s simply fact.
Uh, by your logic, public schools should be free to teach Marxism or even the principles of the German National Socialist Workers Party. As far as David French goes, he's not a conservative. He's a self-righteous hypocrite. I gave up on him a long time ago. By the way, a JAG is a military lawyer. They live in a world of their own and rarely have contact with the rest of the military.
Surely the point is that you shouldn't ban exposing students to Critical Race Theory just as you shouldn't ban exposing them to other approaches and theories. That's called education. But implementing and operationalising a theory such that all other perspectives are null and void? That's the problem.
The biggest problem students face in their education is not a legal issue relating to whether Critical Race Theory or other ideas can or can't be discussed in class or on campuses, or even whether students can be forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing The Internationale every morning. The biggest problem is that the vast preponderance of ideas taught in most public and private schools are Liberal (capital L), and that competing ideas are missing from the debate. This situation has arisen because of the self-selection of Liberals to teach in public schools and the seemingly inexorable march of Leftist ideas in the academies. "Hegemonic" is not too strong a term to describe the dominance of Liberal ideology in our schools, from Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" in high school to radicalized humanities and social science departments in universities.
Much of this reflects governance and leadership failures in both public and private institutions.
Local school boards have failed to represent the interests of their parents / constituents in key decisions about curricula, hiring practices, etc. Department chairs in many elite universities have failed to maintain balance in their faculties. And leaders at all levels have often responded to the loudest voices - e.g., union activists and anti-racist agitators - rather than represent all their constituents' interests. This Leftward movement has been aided and abetted by state boards of education and the federal Department of Education, all of which impose requirements and standards that intrude on local decision-making. After decades of one-sided, special-interest-driven "education," it is not surprising that the most educated among us are the most Liberal and fast becoming the most intolerant.
When we are talking about the indoctrination of very young children, who may not be capable of accurately relaying to their parents what is being said, how on earth does David French think lawsuits are the answer? For that matter, how do parents keep tabs on this insidious corruption going on in the classroom?
As the son of a Holocaust survivor, CRT strikes me as just one more ideology that is intended to confiscate the property & opportunities of Jews. While their primary argument is that BIPOC deserve some sort of compensation for the historical oppression they suffered, I do not see the ideology's proponents arguing for compensation for other groups who have had their property stolen or were expelled from their homes. They are the only party with a claim that shouild be recognized. In the debate, Bari asked a question about whether CRT's proponents ever ask what they want? Well what they want is clear. They want to build a political coalition large enough so that they can enact confiscatory policies. This is why they are hell bent on indoctrinating young people. It's a way of fomenting a revolution through a democratic process. However, Chris Rufo has pointed out their weak spot which is that they skipped over the process of getting approval at the local and parental level. That is why the pushback is coming from parents and state legislators and why the teachers and school boards are fighting so hard to prevent the parents from intervening.
We should never replace Critical Thought with Critical Theory. When I was in college, if we learned about any particular theory, professors emphasized both the strengths and limitations of such theory. Likewise, Critical Race Theory should be seen as only one of the many ideologies and frameworks that can be used to analyze and address issues regarding race relations. What has happened in college campuses in the last 10 or so years? My guess is that professors/administrators have been intimidated by a false dichotomy put forward by the most ardent proponents of CT and CRT (i.e., you are either with us OR against us AND against marginalized communities).
Thank you Bari! Consistent with your now-well-established standard, another compelling piece of work. Keeping score at home, I’d have to hand the narrow victory to your Mr. Rufo. But, interesting points were made on both sides.
As a person on the front lines, working in the evil-clown horror-show that is K-12 education, I have a couple of small thoughts to contribute.
By his own admission, Mr. French does live in a bubble, but I’ll suggest that he may do so in ways that he doesn’t even understand. His recommendation that parents summon some courage and get more involved, and the idea that that would be a solution, made me laugh out loud. The only possible way that someone could think that would be for them to be well-distanced from the reality of the situation and not perceive the depth, breadth, and age of the monster. Trust me… in the education world, parents mean absolutely nothing.
This mess started a long time ago, and so did the indoctrination. When I was in college, in the 1970s, this was already well underway. I was a business student, but had “liberal arts requirements” to fulfill, so I wound up in a Sociology 101 course. (Easy A, I was told.) I sat through it, it was utter nonsense, and I got myself in substantial trouble by saying so. I remember asking the hippy-ish professor, “In what way, exactly would you say this is a science or even an academic discipline?” No sensible answer was forthcoming. I didn’t know it at the time, but like the space travelers in “Alien”, I had just seen the monster as a baby.
Some 40 years later, we in the education world are surrounded by 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation ideologues: In the faculty, in accrediting bodies, in the parent body, and even among the students, who have been exposed to these ideas by “progressive” (I hate that usage of the word, it is a usurpation of the real meaning of the word) parents and have been further brainwashed starting in their pre-schools. Those who stand against something like CRT don’t just come up against the institution: They come up against their peers, their friends, their own children.
And CRT is just one tentacle of the monster. In addition to the white fragility, white privilege, and critical theory illogic being proffered, there is a laundry list of other required orthodox beliefs afloat in my world, and even the slightest dissent from them could cause immediate expulsion. They include (1) men are toxic (2) women are oppressed, and therefore superior to men (3) abortion is good (4) guns are bad (5) George Floyd is a heroic martyr (6) police are evil (7) Republicans and conservatives are really Nazis, and also idiotic hick primitive rubes (8) parents are incompetent, ignorant, and in need of our corrective action (9) the children are ours to raise as we see fit, due to item 8 (9) you are the gender and sex that you decide to be, even if you are 5 and (10) there is no empirical or objective truth, there is only your truth (unless you are a white male).
Yes, I actually watched a faculty member in the lounge pound the table with his fist and scream frantically, “Because Trump is Hitler! Trump IS Hitler!” This was ostensibly an adult.
Yes, I have had someone take me aside and say, “Why do you keep introducing rational arguments and evidence? Can’t you see we are making an irrational decision here?” With a perfectly straight face. I am not making that up.
Yes, I have seen safe spaces created, stuffed animals and juice boxes handed out, and multiple therapists brought in to help teenagers grapple with having been “traumatized” by an election result.
It’s like an alternate reality.
Lastly, I must take issue with the notion that we are dealing with a free speech issue here. I’m not so sure that’s what this is. Being fired from your job, having your means of support yanked out from under you, and even having your career permanently ruined, isn’t “speech”, it is hostile action taken against you. Being shunned, ostracized, treated unequally, and openly humiliated for your beliefs in the workplace or in the school you attend isn’t “speech”, it is people acting in hostile collaboration against you. Having the media, big tech, educators, and the deep state government collectively side with this ideology to the extent that it now guides legislative decisions, court findings, and even election outcomes, isn’t “speech”. It’s a coordinated attack. It feels like a sort of slow-moving coup, that suddenly and exponentially exploded about 7 years ago.
I’ve never been in a coup. But I have to speculate that if you are in one, and you are on the other side, you either fight back with everything you’ve got, or you stand down and just comply. I think Mr. Rufo is right to advocate for legislative action, and I also agree with Mr. French’s recommendation of taking these offenses to court. And if anybody can think of any other methods of counterattack, use those too. Do everything. They certainly are.
Listening to two lawyers debate the nuance of linguistics does not deal with the issue of indoctrinating third graders. This is the great weakness and failure of the Power Elite, fine points of self-interest while all the time ignoring consequences. To have discrimination as a policy of a public school system is not a First Amendment issue. Ideally David French will come to the realization that the expression of ideals requires an appropriate approach and methodology. What is being practiced is a failure of leadership due to a tolerance of a failed ideology (not the same thing as ideals. Ideology is far more akin to dogma than ideas). To David's point, current laws exist. If there are attorneys of substance and principle they should be lining up to provide their services to employ existing laws to address not ideals of behavior but rather methodologies which have been demonstrated to lead to failure.
In the extreme, we will end up defunding the schools. I'm fortunate to have sufficient resources that none of my grandchildren will be subject to a dysfunctional public school. I've not in the past been in favor of vouchers; however, this failure of leadership prompts me to want my money back.
I am with you, Bari, and others that shudder at the proposal to ban CRT as a topic of investigation and debate in school. I am, as I'm sure you are, will J. S. Mill, who said, "He who knows only his own side of the story knows very little of that." An open and free society can only exist when there exists an understanding and respect for dialogue, discourse, and debate. When it comes to what we engage in with children and adolescents, we must not shy away from ideas, but must engage in those ideas in developmentally appropriate ways. And, in public schools, of which I am a part of the system, we must communicate openly what we are doing and why with the public (parents, especially) and even ask them before hand if a topic or field of study is what they want for their child.
The Antiracism/Critical Social Justice movement that operationalizes extremes of CRT ideology through harmful lessons to K-12 students, is not the path forward for our country. The Evergreen State College was damaged (they struggle to find a successor president and enrollment has plummeted) by this movement in 2017. I live and work in a school district 10 miles from the campus. The movement, and I'm embarrassed to say I didn't clearly see it coming until this fall, has arrived in my schools and my union and the struggle to survive and turn back this attempt at 'social revolution' has begun.
In your last two lines. “On Wednesday, Rutgers University sent out an email condemning the rise in antisemitic attacks across the country. The very next day, following protests from Students for Justice in Palestine, the school apologized for condemning antisemitism. I wish I was kidding.” Boy I wish you were kidding too.
Bari - great job!! Superb debate. What is ironic is that they both agree on basically the same thing. The disagreement is on what is not being said. That is that there are far too many people in these instituations that are AFRAID to be approached or called out by the angry woke mob that quietly go along with the BS indoctrination elements ("affirm to everyone that you are white and of the oppressor class..."). The facts are that even our COURTS are mostly afraid to take up these cases due to the blowback they might receive from the illiberal left. Both debaters avoided getting into this - but that IS the cancel culture cancer that is the difference in these arguments, and saying that the laws already exist is NOT a reasonable answer because courts are avoiding or dismissing these lawsuits because they are afraid to rule on many of them. THUS, Mr. Rufo is correct that the answer then is to create NEW LAWS that force a different approach - to teach free speech but not allow the forcible indoctrination and affirmation that these CRT views are fact. Then we can approach the courts from standpoint that these laws are necessary to make clear the violation of students civil rights is NOT tolerable. It's basically the only way to fight back in many cases. It is an unfortunate necessity in today's tribalized hyper-political climate where tribalism has seeped into everything as has fear of cancel culture. These laws will be our way of forcing the fight back to tolerance and reason. Mr. French's arguments all presume fairness and no fear of cancellation by the judicial system that would look at these cases. The sad fact is that even that is under attack and thus these laws are necessary to force these schools to NOT teach as indoctrination but rather as opinion. That is the crux of Mr. Rufo's mission and it is absolutely on the right side of history. Neither left or right would argue with his positions based on what he stated on this debate.