November 15, 2021

In Brief: Banning CRT Isn’t Going to Stop It

Declining to publicly fund certain speech is not censorship, but it’s also not enough.

Yes, Critical Race Theory is taught in schools, despite Leftmedia and Democrat attempts to deny reality. Joy Pullmann, political analyst and mother of six says it’s time to fight back, including against those who object to banning CRT in schools.

On the latest “The Fifth Column” episode, cohost Kmele Foster reiterates his argument, previously expressed in a coauthored New York Times op-ed, that banning critical race theory in schools is bad. While discussing to what extent public opposition to this form of racism fueled Republican success in [Virginia’s] elections, Foster again claimed “there is zero evidence that this particular strategy [of banning CRT in schools] is working.”

Foster’s argument boils down to confusion over curriculum that could expand into other topics, along with warnings about slippery slopes leading to book bans and so forth. Pullmann isn’t buying it:

[Lawmakers] may refuse to expend public resources on certain books, but that is not banning them. Actual book bans, actual censorship, would mean what happens with successful full-bore cancel operations from the left: The person with the book is unable to publicly publish or distribute it, even on his own time and dime.

It’s a bit like what Twitter and Facebook do to presidents and members of Congress, which libertarians and classical liberals (like Foster claims to be) are always telling us is totally fine because Facebook and Twitter are private companies and they should not be forced to publish and distribute speech they don’t agree with.

Well, fine, then, let’s spread this libertarian goose sauce around equally. If Twitter shouldn’t be forced to platform Donald Trump and Republican Rep. Jim Banks, the good taxpayers of Texas also shouldn’t be forced to pay for, distribute, and platform speech they don’t agree with through the government institutions they are supposed to democratically control.

Where she agrees with Foster and others is when they say banning CRT won’t win the culture war once and for all.

Setting aside the absurd reductionism — I know of nobody who thinks CRT, yet alone all the culture wars, will be instantly solved by a state ban — Foster is right that CRT bans are not enough. One proof is in those very teachers who are resisting the will of the voters who fund their salaries and supply children to their classrooms.

Critical race theory’s hold on the U.S. education and corporate systems is the poisonous fruit of a poisoned tree. To root it out will require a lot more than state and local bans. It requires of the right exactly what the far-left is doing: Systemic thinking. …

It means making a comprehensive, holistic assessment of how so much of American local, regional, state, and even national leaders participate in and even condone open, government-supported racism.

She concludes:

The very existence and widespread use of CRT is an indictment on the entire system. As such, it requires not merely a one-off response like a ban. It demands a comprehensive evaluation of the entire education system and a total reorientation of its priorities and methods. …

If it is law, it can be changed. And it should be, because racism is evil. So, yes, ban teachers from preaching racism on the taxpayers’ dime. But don’t stop there, because government-sponsored racism doesn’t stop there, either. Not even close.

Read the whole thing here.

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