Senate to Consider Bill Addressing Anti-Discrimination in School Curriculum

Founders of critical race theory school of thought: “Critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order”

Leading antiracism text: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”

Durham government-sanctioned report: Public schools

“must be actively and intentionally antiracist as part of the struggle…”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools: “We are called to be antiracists…we are all compelled to do our part.”

Raleigh, N.C. — Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) today released proposed legislation to address anti-discrimination in school curriculum.

Read Sen. Berger’s full remarks here on the proposal here.

What’s in the Bill

The legislation does not permit public schools to compel students “to affirm or profess belief in” several discriminatory concepts, including:

· That one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;

· An individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive;

· An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex;

· A meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist;

· Particular character traits, values, moral or ethical codes, privileges, or beliefs should be ascribed to a race or sex, or to an individual because of the individual’s race or sex.

The bill affirms the public school system’s mission to accurately teach students about North Carolina’s racial past and all of its ugliness, including the cruelties of slavery, the Wilmington riots, and the Jim Crow era. The bill explicitly protects impartial instruction “on the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race [or] ethnicity” and “assigning materials that incorporate concepts for educational purposes in contexts that make clear the public school unit does not sponsor, approve, or endorse such concepts or works.”

Sen. Berger said, “Students must not be forced to adopt an ideology that is separate and distinct from history; an ideology that attacks ‘the very foundations of the liberal order,’ and that promotes ‘present discrimination’ — so long as it’s against the right people — as ‘antiracist.’”

How Leading Adherents of the Doctrine Explain It and Some in North Carolina Apply It

Leading legal scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic helped found the critical race theory school of thought. They describe the doctrine this way in Critical Race Theory: An Introduction: “Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”

A leading text on “antiracism,” authored by Ibram X. Kendi, teaches that to be antiracist is to believe that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”

Durham’s city government authorized and endorsed a “racial equity report” that, among things, urges teachers to host “in-class conversations about…white privilege and how white people can be supportive of antiracism.” The report says public schools “must be actively and intentionally antiracist as part of the struggle to create a just society…”

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district tells its students “it is no longer enough to be passively ‘not racist.’ We are called to be antiracists…As a society and a school, we are all compelled to do our part.”

When the doctrine’s proponents say they’re not teaching about the ideology, that may well be true. However, they’re clearly teaching in the ideology.

They seek to promote in students a theology, a belief system, that is fundamentally at odds with the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It teaches children to view the world, and everyone in it, always through the lens of race — that race and power define everything.

Call the doctrine that underlies this transformation what you will: Critical Race Theory; neoracism; illiberalism; Successor Ideology. Its substance has taken root among America’s elites and institutions, and efforts are being made to incorporate it into K-12 education.