Suggesting a heavy discussion

One of the most recent battles in the ongoing “Culture Wars” in the United States appears to have reached Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2).

During board member comments at the May 17 meeting of the CCSD2 Board of Trustees, the subject of Critical Race Theory was raised by Boardmember Joe Gaspari as a potential topic for an upcoming board work session.

“As we are all aware, there’s great turmoil in society right now but also in the education field,” said Gaspari. “I think we need to discuss at a workshop as (to) what our standing as a board and as a school district is going to be.”

Among the reasons why Gaspari appeared to bring the subject up for discussion was, according to Gaspari, a recent mandate by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee to teach Critical Race Theory in schools. In April, the Washington state Senate passed Senate Bill 5044, which requires school personnel to receive training on “equity, diversity, inclusion and anti-racism” according to an April 23 article in the Columbia Basin Herald.

In addition to the bill signed by Inslee, Gaspari also cited The 1619 Project, a long-form journalism project from writers for both The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine. The 1619 Project was released in August 2019, which marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia. Since its release, however, The 1619 Project has been criticized on various levels with some historians pointing to what they call “ahistorical assertions” and conservative politicians claiming the project is propaganda.

In November 2020, former President Donald Trump established the 1776 Commission which released the 1776 Report in January. The report wasn’t without its critics, either. President Joe Biden terminated the 1776 Commission on January 20. 

In April, the United States Department of Education published its list of proposed priorities for American history and civics education which included “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.”

Wyoming Superintendent of Education Jillian Balow was quick to issue a response to the proposed priorities, calling it “an alarming move toward federal overreach into district curriculum” and said that it should be admonished across party lines.

“The draft rule is an attempt to normalize teaching controversial and politically trendy theories about America’s history. History and civics should not be secondary to political whim,” wrote Balow. “Instead, history and civics instruction should engage students in objective, non-partisan analyses of historical and current events. For good reason, public schools do not promote particular political ideologies or religions over others. This federal rule attempts to break from that practice and use taxpayer dollars to do just that.”

Though it may appear to be a recent trend, Critical Race Theory is hardly new. According to an article in Education Week (“What is critical race theory, and why is it under attack?” May 18, 2021), it is an academic concept more than 40 years old which began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

“The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies,” read the article. “A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.”

The article added that similar policies still exist today, though appear to be race-blind on their face. One such example is single-family zoning which often prevents the building of affordable housing in “advantaged, majority-white neighborhoods” and so prevents efforts of racial desegregation.

In a 2009 article (“Critical Race Theory”) from Middle Tennessee State University, author Chris Demaske wrote Critical Race Theory was developed primarily due to the philosophical writing of Professor Derrick Bell of the University of Washington Law School. Other legal scholars who were involved in the early development of Critical Race Theory included Alan Freeman and Richard Delgado.

“Some of the basic tenets of CRT (Critical Race Theory) rest on the belief that racism is a fundamental part of American society, not simply an aberration that can be easily corrected by law; that any given culture constructs its own social reality in its own self-interest, and in the United States this means minorities’ interests are subservient to the system’s self-interest; and that the current system, built by and for white elites, will tolerate and encourage racial progress for minorities only if this promotes the majority’s self-interest,” wrote Demaske.

As the discussion, or debate, around Critical Race Theory moves forward, many states have responded with legislation to outlaw teaching of it in schools with bills being passed in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Similar bills have been proposed in other statehouses. Currently, no such legislation has been introduced in the Wyoming Legislature.

According to Education Week, however, the bills that have either passed or been introduced in other state legislatures are vaguely written and it is unclear if they are constitutional or could restrict free speech. They also leave questions as to whether a teacher may be in violation of those laws if they decide to discuss issues such as Jim Crow Laws or the Civil Rights Movement.

The next meeting of the Carbon County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees will be at 6 p.m. on June 21 at the Central Office in Saratoga.