The Economist July 10th 2021 25
United States
Patriotismandpolarisation
The history wars
P
arents areoutraged by a new curricu
lum. Politicians worry that educators
are indoctrinating pupils with unAmeri
can revisionist history. Progressives argue
that this updated version of the curricu
lum reflects an American reality that
should not be hidden from children. Both
sides clash at school meetings, teachers
are under fire. At issue could be the current
controversy over critical race theory in
classrooms. Or it could be one of the many
skirmishes during the past century over
history education, from whether it was
proBritish to whether it was proMarxist.
Critical race theory (crt), which has be
come the battleground this time, originat
ed in the 1970s as a legal perspective that
emphasised the role of systemic racism (as
opposed to the individual sort) in replicat
ing inequality. The Goldwater Institute, a
conservative thinktank seeking to prevent
the teaching of critical race theory in
schools, describes the set of ideas thus: a
“perspective...that believes all the events
and ideas around us...must be explained in
terms of racial identities”. Complicating
the argument is the fact that some conser
vatives use the phrase to encompass every
thing from discussions about institutional
racism to diversity training.
Twentysix states have introduced
measures that would limit critical race the
ory in public schools, according to EdWeek.
Federal legislators are also piling into the
debate. Seven Republican senators, includ
ing the minority leader, Mitch McConnell,
reintroduced the “Saving American Histo
ry Act” in June to limit federal funding to
schools that use a curriculum derived from
the 1619 Project, a set of Pulitzerprizewin
ning essays published by the New York
Times magazine that puts slavery at the
centre of the nation’s founding and devel
opment (and received mixed reviews from
professional historians). The federal bill,
originally introduced in July 2020, is most
ly symbolic: Congress has little control ov
er state and local curriculums, and the bill
is unlikely to pass when there are Demo
cratic majorities in the House and Senate.
But the politics is clear. Republicans are
convinced that a war on critical race theory
is good politics, even if attempts to ban it
might prove unconstitutional.
Tennessee’s bill, signed by the governor
in May, prohibits public schools from
teaching concepts that promote “discom
fort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psy
chological distress”. Texas’s law specifical
ly bans the 1619 Project, prevents teachers
from giving course credit for “social or
public policy advocacy”, prohibits required
training “that presents any form of race or
sex stereotyping or blame on the basis of
race or sex”, and restricts teaching that
“slavery and racism are anything other
than deviations from, betrayals of, or fail
ures to live up to, the authentic founding
principles of the United States.” Idaho’s
legislation prevents any public institution,
including colleges, from “compel[ling]
students to personally affirm, adopt, or ad
here” to the concepts that “individuals...
WASHINGTON, DC
The fight over critical race theory in schools is part of a century-long battle over
whose version of America is taught
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29 Wrestlingwiththetruth
30 Lexington: Lessons from a defeat