Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced that he will introduce a bill that requires schools receiving federal funding to teach children “the basic truth” about the United States as expressed in the nation’s founding documents.
“That’s not true. This is a great nation. We’re a nation of liberators,” he told host Tucker Carlson. “It’s time to reclaim that and to teach our children who we are, who they are, and that’s why my bill would say, ‘Listen: If a school district gets federal money, you’ve got to teach the basic truth about the country—the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration [of Independence], the Pledge of Allegiance.”
“These are the things, the documents, that express the ideals that unite us as Americans,” the senator continued. “You’ve got to replace the lies with the truth, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
The idea that the United States is systemically racist is being pushed by critical race theory (CRT), a quasi-Marxist ideology that interprets society through the lens of a racial struggle between white and non-white people who are assigned the roles of “oppressors” and “oppressed,” respectively. Critical race theorists see inherent racism in the foundations of Western societies, such as legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and constitutional law, and seek to fundamentally transform those societies to end this claimed racial oppression.
An effort to incorporate CRT in American schools has been pushed by progressive politicians, activists, and major teachers’ unions. Facing backlash from parents and state governments, CRT proponents are now simultaneously claiming that CRT isn’t being taught to K-12 students, while defending the presence of the ideology in the classroom.
Earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) echoed this talking point, saying that although CRT is taught only in some law schools, teachers should be armed with CRT and become “fluent in how to dismantle racism.”
Ocasio-Cortez, the face of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, said in an interview with CNN that teachers need to be “fluent in anti-racism” so that they can train children away from racial biases, which she claimed to start accumulating since infant age.
“So your child’s teacher is anti-racist and is actually fluent in how to dismantle racism and the dynamics of racism in a classroom. That is something that teachers should know how to do and Republicans are trying to ban this, are trying to ban us from knowing our own history,” she said.
Opponents of CRT have said that the effect of teaching the ideology is an increase in racial division.
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