The College Fix

Progressive educators are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to figure out what to do about the fact that conservatives — and even just everyday apolitical Americans — are fighting back against the noxious critical race theory.

American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten this week denied that CRT is taught at the K-12 level, and accused CRT opponents of “bullying teachers” and trying to prevent the teaching of “accurate history.”

“These culture warriors want to deprive students of a robust understanding of our common history,” Weingarten said. “This will put students at a disadvantage in life by knocking a big hole in their understanding of our country and the world.”

The AFT chief might want to check with her National Education Association counterpart, Becky Pringle, about that first claim. At the NEA’s recent Representative Assembly, it passed several pro-CRT resolutions including one which calls for the union to support “ ‘reasonable and appropriate’ that lessons and curricula make use of ‘academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.’”

That same item requests the NEA put together a team of unionists to “fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric.”

What’s weird is that a couple of days after the NEA’s annual powwow, it memory-holed CRT-related items into the internet ether. (But the internet is forever, of course.) Now, why would it do that? We asked. We never got an answer.

MORE: The Left wanted a culture war. It got one. Now it’s upset.

Clear-thinking people know the reason: The teachers unions are lying to you. CRT’s most outspoken nemesis, Chris Rufo, has (yet another) example as to why:

SCOOP: At least 25 public school districts in 12 states are now teaching "Not My Idea," a book that claims "whiteness" is the devil, luring children with the promise of "stolen land [and] stolen riches."

Critical race theory is driving public education—and must be stopped. pic.twitter.com/FRzpxywwbj

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) July 8, 2021

Rufo has since updated this tweet thread; some 30 school districts across 15 states are teaching this garbage at the K-8 level. And let’s face it, these are just the ones we know about. This is what CRT has wrought, and it’s no mistake:

Not to sound like a broken record (as I’ve mentioned it numerous times re: CRT in these pages), but this is precisely what Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner warned us about a quarter century ago:

Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories — fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal—designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today. By repudiating reasoned argumentation, the storytellers reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites.

Which circles us back to the unions’ claims about teaching an “accurate” and “robust understanding” of American history: Is that what the material above is — white people referred to as devils, who’ve always been a “bad deal” because they “mess endlessly” with others’ lives?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg of CRT insanity. For (a lot) more, check The College Fix archives with searches under “whiteness,” “critical race theory,” “white privilege” and the like. You might want to have a barf bag handy.

MORE: It doesn’t matter how nicely one sells it. CRT is terrible.

IMAGES: BlueSkyImage / Shutterstock.com; Chris Rufo, MicaBmazing / Twitter screencaps

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