A Trump-era commission tasked with combating “false narratives about the American Founding” has urged the Biden administration to drop its proposal to fund history and civics programs that promote critical race theory or related curricula “under the misleading name of ‘anti-racism.’”
“We are concerned that the U.S. Department of Education’s Proposed Rule defining priorities for the American History and Civics Education programs, whether as Critical Race Theory or under the misleading name of ‘anti- racism,’ actually encourages and seeks to direct federal funds to the teaching of racial discrimination in America’s elementary and secondary school systems,” the group wrote.
“This Proposed Rule should be withdrawn, and individual states should oppose any such race-based pedagogy as part of their curricula, especially if that curricula is imposed by the federal government,” it added.
In the proposed rule, released on April 19, the Education Department outlined new priority criteria for a $5.3 million American History and Civics Education grant, as well as exemplary materials for K-12 educators to use. Specifically, the department cited the “1619 Project,” and critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi’s “antiracist idea” as leading examples of the kind of content it wants to use taxpayer dollars to promote in history and civics classrooms across the country.
The Biden administration’s proposal, which was open for public comment until May 19, praises “growing acknowledgement of the importance of including, in the teaching and learning of our country’s history, both the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society,” but makes clear that such an “acknowledgement” would be “reflected […] in the New York Times’ landmark ‘1619 Project’“ and in Kendi’s ”antiracist” ideas. The proposal cites Kendi, noting that “antiracist ideas argue that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities,” which is essentially the highly contentious argument that differences in outcomes among different racial groups can be reduced to a single variable—racist policies.
The “1619 Project,” inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, attempts to cast the Atlantic slave trade as the dominant factor in the founding of America instead of ideals such as individual liberty and natural rights. The initiative has been widely panned by historians and political scientists, with some critics calling it a bid to rewrite U.S. history through a left-wing lens.
“When we start going about dividing people by groups, by social identities, and especially by identities that deal with race, and we’re starting to make those kinds of divisions, all Americans should get very nervous,” Spalding told the outlet. “It’s a departure away from the historic grounding of civil rights in America, which is that we all are equal.”
“Current arguments about identity politics and critical race theory that … present themselves as merely responding to perceptions of their current assessment of American society, but do so by introducing as their principle that we should look at people based on the color of their skin, strikes us as a fundamental denial of the idea that all men are created equal,” Spalding said. “And that’s a problem for politics. That’s a problem intellectually and historically.”
The commission’s meeting comes as Republicans across the nation are trying to prevent the teaching of critical race theory and related ideas in the nation’s classrooms.
Proponents of critical race theory have argued that it’s needed to demonstrate what they say is “pervasive systemic racism” and to facilitate rooting it out.
Critics have noted critical race theory’s roots in Marxism, arguing that the concept advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market economy, and orthodox religions, demanding that they be replaced with institutions compliant with the critical race theory ideology.
