What Is Your Reaction to Efforts to Limit Teaching on Race in Schools?

In an article from June, “Disputing Racism’s Reach, Republicans Rattle American Schools,” Trip Gabriel and Dana Goldstein describe how a culture-war brawl has spilled into the country’s educational system, and how Republicans at the local, state and national levels are trying to block curriculums that emphasize systemic racism:

In Loudoun County, Va., a group of parents led by a former Trump appointee are pushing to recall school board members after the school district called for mandatory teacher training in “systemic oppression and implicit bias.”

In Washington, 39 Republican senators called history education that focuses on systemic racism a form of “activist indoctrination.”

And across the country, Republican-led legislatures have passed bills recently to ban or limit schools from teaching that racism is infused in American institutions. After Oklahoma’s G.O.P. governor signed his state’s version in early May, he was ousted from the centennial commission for the 1921 Race Massacre in Tulsa, which President Biden visited on Tuesday to memorialize one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history.

From school boards to the halls of Congress, Republicans are mounting an energetic campaign aiming to dictate how historical and modern racism in America are taught, meeting pushback from Democrats and educators in a politically thorny clash that has deep ramifications for how children learn about their country.

However, in “Scholarly Groups Condemn Laws Limiting Teaching on Race,” Jennifer Schuessler reports that many groups are challenging the new legislation restricting explorations of racism and race:

A coalition of more than six dozen scholarly and educational groups has signed onto a statement decrying the spread of proposed legislation limiting classroom discussion of race, racism and other so-called “divisive concepts,” calling such laws an infringement on “the right of faculty to teach and of students to learn” and a broader threat to civic life.

“The clear goal of these efforts is to suppress teaching and learning about the role of racism in the history of the United States,” says the statement, whose signatories include the American Historical Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American Federation of Teachers and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Students, read one or both of the articles in their entirety, and then tell us:

• What do you think of efforts to restrict how schools teach race and racism? What do you see as the possible benefits or dangers of this legislation?

• Do you agree with Republican senators that the focus on systemic racism is a form of “activist indoctrination”? Or are you persuaded by scholars who charge that laws limiting classroom discussion of race, racism and other “divisive concepts” are an infringement on “the right of faculty to teach and of students to learn” and a broader threat to civic life?

• What have you studied or learned about race or racism in school, whether in the context of a history or literature class, in an advisory or homeroom, or in any other context? Looking back, how often in your school experience has race or racism been studied or discussed? Do you think the discussions you have had have been productive, informative or enlightening? Do you feel that classroom discussions on these topics have ever been avoided, silenced or marginalized?

• How comfortable do you feel discussing race in school? Would you like to see the topic addressed more fully, accurately and honestly in schools? Or, do you feel that race and racism have already been explored enough — or even too much? Have you ever felt singled out, criticized or in any other way made to feel uncomfortable in a classroom because of your race or ethnicity?

• A recent Tennessee House bill bans any teaching that could lead an individual to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.” A Texas House bill forbids teaching that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States.” What impact do you think restrictions like these will have on teachers, students and classrooms? Do you think they will help or hinder a safe, healthy and productive learning environment? Will they ensure an accurate understanding of race and American history, or have the opposite effect and deny it?

• What’s really going on here? How much of the debate really has to do with the tenets of critical race theory or the writing of The 1619 Project? Are public schools, according to an article by Christopher F. Rufo in The New York Post, “being devoured by a hostile ideology that seeks to divide the country by race and undermine the core principle of democratic control.” Or is legislation to restrict or prohibit critical race theory and related ideas really an attempt to “whitewash U.S. history” and “deny students and scholars the chance to understand the past,” as Kimberlé Crenshaw argues in The Washington Post? How founded are the fears on each side? Do you think there is room for common ground in the debate?

For more background on the issue as well as additional activities, see our related Lesson of the Day: “Critical Race Theory: A Brief History.”