In the Summer of 1963, having just graduated from high school, I attended the march on Washington in which Martin Luther King gave his famous speech, saying he wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.  All of my life I have believed that we are all individuals, brothers and sisters under the skin, and that what matters about us is what we know and can do, and not what race we were born into. Students should be taught to treat everyone, regardless of race or sexual orientation, with dignity as individuals, and that race, an accident of birth, is irrelevant to anything. 

I am open minded about almost all political issues, but this belief is in the marrow of my bones and not subject to the slightest compromise.

In the Spring of 2009, to my shock, I discovered that there were powerful forces pushing the other way, treating race as primary. AS Superintendent of Schools, I became aware of ethnic studies in Tucson, including as an explicit part of the curriculum, Critical Race Theory.  I read all of their textbooks and curriculum.

 I read a curriculum from TUSD where a line is drawn down the middle of the page, one side people of color, the other side whiteness.  The whiteness side is all negative, such as "whites interrupt too much". The program specialized in racial stereotyping. 

Tucson students were taught the following definition of Critical Race Theory: “Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundation of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.” As I read books on CRT, I found this definition in an early textbook on CRT, intended for the college level, but used by TUSD with high school students. 

Why would they teach students to oppose enlightenment rationalism? My dictionary defines the enlightenment as “a movement of late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition.” The founders of the American republic were children of the 18th century enlightenment.

What is the psychology here?  Is the individualism and reason of modern society too much of a burden, and reverting to primitive tribalism, more comfortable for some? 

For about 10 years I was a lonely warrior against CRT.  Then, as CRT spread, the rest of the world caught up.  Christopher Ruffo, an investigative reporter, has documented over 1,000 cases of CRT in k-12 classes.  For example, a public school in Cupertino, Calif. required third graders to “deconstruct” their racial identities and rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” (Third graders!)

CRT has distorted the meaning of the previously attractive word “equity”. To them, it means distributing benefits by racial percentages, rather than by individual merit. I quote from an article in Commentary Magazine: “Equity as equal outcomes disfavors equal opportunity.  Neither does it favor excellence springing from ambition, talent, and free competition of ideas… In the Age of Woke, achievement is not praiseworthy but proof of privilege and injustice.”

What about Arizona? It is an urban myth that CRT is a graduate course not taught in Arizona k-12 schools. I have, and will furnish to anyone who wants it, a public list of 250 Arizona teachers who signed a national teachers’ union document pledging, if a state discouraged teaching CRT, to defy the law.  They would not have signed the statement if they were not already teaching it.

The ASU School of education has a required course called TEL 215: Infant, Child, and Adolescent Development. The text for the course has a chapter called "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race." The class discussion for this chapter includes how these future teachers should articulate how "white people are inherently racist" to their future captive audiences of young elementary students.

CRT is taught under different titles: “Power diversity” in Peoria; “deep equity” in Chandler, which spent almost $1/2 million, that should have gone to teachers’ salaries, to a CRT consultant; “social and emotional learning”, which included the following: “View the video on intersectionality …What is the privilege you hold?” The Baltz district in Arizona was the first in the nation to adopt the 1619 project, currently the primary source for teaching CRT. It teaches that Lincoln, the man who did more good for humanity than anyone in history by freeing the slaves, was a “racist.” He freed the Southern slaves unilaterally by the stroke of his pen against a lot of advice and opposition. He freed the rest of the slaves by pushing hard for the 13th amendment.

 A second example from the 1619 project: “The cruelties of capitalism come from the cruelties of the plantation. This is pure Marxism, ignoring that free-market economies free people from poverty, and socialist economies (the Soviet Union, East Germany, North Korea, Venezuela) create poverty.

 Third example: The Revolutionary War was not fought for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but to protect southern slave owners from British interference with slavery.  When a number of historians who specialize in that period wrote the NY Times that there was no historical evidence for this, the principal author of the 1619 project dismissed them as "white historians". 

 Let’s get one thing straight:

 NO ONE has EVER suggested that teachers can't teach about the horrors of slavery, Jim Crow, Oklahoma, or any other historical events of racism.  That is a straw man put up by CRT advocates to create an easy but fabricated argument to knock down.

 The parents who protested in massive numbers at school board meetings weren't making up an excuse because they like to protest.  They were protesting because, during COVID, teaching was largely online to students at home, the parents could watch, and they were profoundly shocked at what they saw.

That is one of the reasons I defeated an incumbent in a year when a number of Republicans lost.  The parents spoke.

Tom Horne on CRT

CRITICAL RACE THEORY IS REAL, NO MATTER WHAT IT’S CALLED

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is being taught in many public schools. It’s not a myth, and it’s not just a college-level curriculum. It’s an ideology that can wear many different labels.

Because many CRT supporters recognize the CRT label carries negative connotations, efforts are made to use other terms or no terms at all. That leaves enough room to deny that something labeled CRT is taught.

All that matters is that the principles of CRT are conveyed to children, which is happening today because at the very least it permeates many colleges of education that produce today’s classroom teachers.

NOTE: There is no suggestion whatsoever that teachers should be hindered from teaching the accurate history of the United States. Students need to know about the flaws and failures as well as the successes of the U.S. This includes a clear telling of the terrible history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights struggle and other events that are a part of our history.

What is CRT?

Critical Race Theory was started by a Harvard Professor,  Derek Bell in 1989, along with his students. They were explicitly opposed to knowledge and objective reason, on the grounds that those were just tools of white oppression. One of those students, Delgado, wrote a book explaining Critical Race Theory.  Here was his definition, its entirety, of Critical Race Theory:

“Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundation of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”

They are against Enlightenment rationalism. Go figure.

In reading the curriculum of Critical Race Theory, embedded in the Tucson Unified School District ethnic studies program, the above definition was taught to Tucson High School students in those words.

One of Bell’s students, Charles Lawrence III, developed a new definition of truth.  Another student complained about a reading assignment from another course that she regarded as offensive.  “I am  offended. Therefore these materials are offensive.” For Lawrence, this was a revelation. Objective truth, evidence, and logic go out the window.  If someone “feels” something is true, it IS true.

A key part of Critical Race Theory is the doctrine of intersectionality. Under intersectionality, the more minorities you could claim – such as Black, gay, female, transsexual, etc.—the more you were at the top of the intersectionality hierarchy.  If you were a white heterosexual male, you were  at the bottom of Dante’s hell, without any regard to your individual merit.

Another doctrine, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) swept American campuses.  The words are the ultimate deception.  In ordinary usage, they are positive words.  But here is their meaning in critical race theory:

Diversity: Diversity treats racial groups as monoliths, exults stereotypes. Race becomes a proxy for worth.

Equity: Equity replaces the American regime of individual merit with group entitlement. Instead of encouraging individual creativity and performance, they simply seek equal results by race, which provides no incentive for individuals to work hard, be creative, or achieve.

Inclusion: This includes only inclusion of  those belonging to favored races.

CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society… CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy… CRT also rejects the traditions of liberalism and meritocracy…

Since the term CRT is controversial and often avoided, look for these ideas embedded within lessons, books and general classroom interaction:

Oppressors or oppressed: where the oppressors rule society to benefit themselves. This is classic Marxism and causes division between people on racial and economic lines. The developers of CRT such as Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo and others are explicit in their contention that white-skinned people – all of them - are oppressors.

Whiteness: a set of privileges enjoyed by white-skinned people and groups that is “invisible” to those privileged by it. (Neil Shenvi, “Antiracist Glossary”)

White privilege: a series of unearned advantages that are given to white people because of their whiteness. (Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”)

White Supremacy: any belief, behavior, or system that supports, promotes, or enhances white privilege. (Center for the Study of Social Policy, “Race Equity Glossary of Terms”)

This is a new definition, supported by CRT advocates to claim all white-skinned people are white supremacists. Authors Robin DiAngelo, and Ozlem Sensoy co-wrote Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Critical Social Justice Education. This won the Society of Professors of Education Book Award in 2018. It’s found in many schools of education producing today’s classroom teachers.

On page 143 the authors write: ”When we use the term White supremacy, we are not referring to extreme hate groups or ‘bad racists’”. We use the term to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege dominance and assumed superiority in mainstream society.”

White complicity: because of white privilege and whiteness, white people contribute to ongoing systemic racism. (Barbara Applebaum, “Being White, Being Good”)

White Equilibrium: white-skinned people don’t even know they are privileged racists. (Robin DiAngelo, “White Fragility”)

White Fragility: the inability and unwillingness of white people to talk about race. (Robin DiAngelo, “White Fragility”)

The claim that CRT or its principles and elements is not part of any school curriculum in Arizona is false. It is being taught to children.

“SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING” AND CRT

Many schools use Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as part of the regular curriculum. This is wrong for a number of reasons:

1. SEL is a gateway method – a “Trojan Horse” - to introduce the elements of CRT into the schools. Classrooms need to be a place where students learn how to read, write, do math, and understand history and the arts.
   According to the Collaborative for Social Emotional Learning (CASEL), “In the context of SEL, equity and excellence refers to every student—across race, ethnicity, family income levels, learning abilities, home language, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other factors…” (casel.org “ In what ways does SEL advance equity and excellence”)
   It is irresponsible for schools to indoctrinate children on subjects that in many cases they are far too young to comprehend.

ADE strongly supports teaching students that value of character and emotional well-being and endorses the following elements from the Character Counts program:

Character Counts focuses on the values, attitudes, mindsets, and skills that assist each student reach his/her development and understanding of The Six Pillars of Character. Developmental outcomes embodied in the character dimension of the CHARACTER COUNTS! Student Development Workshop addresses all Six Pillars traits necessary in the development of a safe and caring learning environment.

The objective of this aspect of the CHARACTER COUNTS! Implementing a Six Pillar Culture Workshop is to help each student:

• Develop moral character and commitment in its use
• Improve decision-making qualities
• Demonstrate integrity, honesty promise-keeping, and loyalty which are essential in relationship building and career readiness
• Demonstrate respect for authority figures and others without regard to gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other distinguishing attributes
• Make students accountable for their actions and the consequences of choices made
• Increase cognitive skills related to being just and fair with others
• Display compassion and a concern for the well-being of others
• Demonstrate their civic duties and social responsibilities