critical race training in education

The State of Critical Race Theory in Education

• Posted February 23, 2022
• By Jill Anderson
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Moral, Civic, and Ethical Education

When Gloria Ladson-Billings set out in the 1990s to adapt critical race theory from law to education, she couldn’t have predicted that it would become the focus of heated school debates today.

Over the past couple years, the scrutiny of critical race theory — a theory she pioneered to help explain racial inequities in education — has become heavily politicized in school communities and by legislators. Along the way, it has also been grossly misunderstood and used as a lump term about many things that are not actually critical race theory, Ladson-Billings says. 

“It's like if I hate it, it must be critical race theory,” Ladson-Billings says. “You know, that could be anything from any discussions about diversity or equity. And now it's spread into LGBTQA things. Talk about gender, then that's critical race theory. Social-emotional learning has now gotten lumped into it. And so it is fascinating to me how the term has been literally sucked of all of its meaning and has now become 'anything I don't like.'”

In this week’s Harvard EdCast, Ladson-Billings discusses how she pioneered critical race theory, the current politicization and tension around teaching about race in the classroom, and offers a path forward for educators eager to engage in work that deals with the truth about America’s history. 

TRANSCRIPT:

Jill Anderson:   I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast.

Gloria Ladson-Billings never imagined a day when the words critical race theory would make the daily news, be argued over at school board meetings, or targeted by legislators. She pioneered an adaptation of critical race theory from law to education back in the 1990s. She's an educational researcher focused on theory and pedagogy who at the time was looking for a better way to explain racial disparities in education.

Today the theory is widely misunderstood and being used as an umbrella term for anything tied to race and education. I wondered what Gloria sees as a path forward from here. First, I wanted to know what she was thinking in this moment of increased tension and politicization around critical race theory and education.

Well, if I go back and look at the strategy that's been employed to attack critical race theory, it actually is pretty brilliant from a strategic point of view. The first time that I think that general public really hears this is in September of '20 when then president and candidate Donald Trump, who incidentally is behind in the polls, says that we're not going to have it because it's going to destroy democracy. It's going to tear the country apart. I'm not going to fund any training that even mentions critical race theory.

And what's interesting, he says, "And anti-racism." Now he's now paired two things together that were not really paired together in the literature and in practice. But if you dig a little deeper, you will find on the Twitter feed of Christopher Rufo, who is from the Manhattan Institute, two really I think powerful tweets. One in which he says, "We're going to render this brand toxic." Essentially what we're going to do is make you think, whenever you hear anything negative, you will think critical race theory. And it will destroy all of the, quote, cultural insanities. I think that's his term that Americans despise. There's a lot to be unpacked there, which Americans? Who is he talking about? What are these cultural insanities? And then there's another tweet in which he says, "We have effectively frozen the brand." So anytime you think of anything crazy, you think critical race theory. So he's done this very effective job of rendering the term, in some ways without meaning. It's like if I hate it, it must be critical race theory.

You know, that could be anything from any discussions about diversity or equity. And now it's spread into LGBTQA things. Talk about gender, then that's critical race theory. Social emotional learning has now got lumped into it. And so it is fascinating to me how the term has been literally sucked of all of its meaning and has now become anything I don't like.

Jill Anderson:  Can you break it down? What is critical race theory? What isn't it?

Gloria Ladson-Billings: Let me be pretty elemental here. Critical race theory is a theoretical tool that began in legal studies, in law schools, in an attempt to explain racial inequity. It serves the same function in education. How do you explain the inequity of achievement, the racial inequity of achievement in our schools?

Now let's be clear. The nation has always had an explanation for inequity. Since 1619, it's always had a explanation. And indeed from 1619 to the mid 20th century, that explanation was biogenetic. Those people are just not smart enough. Those people are just not worthy enough. Those people are not moral enough.

In fact across the country, we had on college and university campuses, programs and departments in eugenics. If you went to the World's Fair or the World Expositions back in the turn of the 20th century, you could see exhibits with, quote, groups of people from the best group who was always white and typically blonde and blue eyed, to the worst group, which is typically a group of Africans, generally pygmies. So the idea is you can rank people. So we've always had an explanation for why we thought inequity exists.

Somewhere around the mid 20th century, 1950s, you'll get a switch that says, well, no, it's really not genetic it's that some groups haven't had an equal opportunity. That was a powerful explanation. So one of the things that you begin to see around mid 1950s is legislation and court decisions, Brown versus Board of Education. You start to see the Voters Rights Act. You see the Civil Rights Act. You see affirmative action going into the 1960s. And yeah, I think that's a pretty good, powerful explanatory model.

Except they all get rolled back. 1954, Brown v. Board of Education . How many of our kids are still in segregated schools in 2022? So that didn't hold. Affirmative action. The court's about to hear that, right? Because of actually the case that's coming out of Harvard. Voters rights. How many of our states have rolled back voters rights? You can't give a person a bottle of water who was waiting in line in Georgia. We're shrinking the window for when people can vote.

So all of the things that were a part of the equality of opportunity explanation have rolled away. Critical race theory's explanation for racial inequality is that it is baked into the way we have organized the society. It is not aberrant. It's not one of those things that we all clutch our pearls and say, "Oh my God, I can't believe that happened." It happens on a regular basis all the time. And so that's really one of the tenets that people are uncomfortable hearing. That it's not abnormal behavior in our society for people to react in racist ways.

Jill Anderson: My understanding is that critical race theory is not something that is taught in schools. This is an older, like graduate school level, understanding and learning in education, not something for K–12 kids, not something my kid's going to learn in elementary school.

Gloria Ladson-Billings: You're exactly right. It is not. First of all, kids in K12 don't need theory. They need some very practical hands-on experiences. So no, it's not taught in K12 schools. I never even taught it as a professor at the University of Wisconsin. I didn't even teach it to my undergraduates. They had no use for it. My undergraduates were going to be teachers. So what would they do with it? I only taught it in graduate courses. And I have students who will tell you, "I talked with Professor Ladson-billings about using critical race theory for my research," and she looked at what I was doing and said, "It doesn't apply. Don't use it."

So I haven't been this sort of proselytizer. I've said to students, if what you're looking at needs an explanation for the inequality, you have a lot of theories that you can choose from. You can choose from feminist theory. That often looks at inequality across gender. You could look at Marx's theory. That looks at inequality across class. There are lots of theories to explain inequality. Critical race theory is trying to explain it across race and its intersections.

Jill Anderson:  We're seeing this lump definition falling under critical race theory, where it could be anything. It could be anti-racism, diversity and equity, multicultural education, anti-racism, cultural [inaudible 00:09:15]. All of it's being lumped together. It's not all the same thing.

Gloria Ladson-Billings: Well, and in some ways it's proving the point of the critical race theorists, right? That it's kind normal. It's going to keep coming up because that's the way you see the world. I mean, here's an interesting lumping together that I think people have just bought whole cloth. That somehow Nikole Hannah-Jones' 1619 is critical race theory. No, it's not.

No. It. Is. Not. It is a journalist's attempt to pull together strands of a date that we tend to gloss over and say, here are all the things were happening and how the things that happened at this time influenced who we became. It's really interesting that people have jumped on that. And there is another book that came out, and it also came out of a newspaper special from the Hartford Courant years ago called Complicity. That book is set in New England and it talks about how the North essentially kept slavery going.

And when it was published by the Hartford Courant, Connecticut, and particularly Hartford said, we want a copy of this in every one of our middle and high schools to look out at what our role has been. Because the way we typically tell you our history is to say, the noble and good North and then the backward and racist South. Well, no, the entire country was engaged in the slave trade. And it benefited folks across the nation.

That particular special issue, which got turned into a book hasn't raised an eyebrow. But here comes Nikole Hannah-Jones. And initially, of course, she won a Pulitzer for it and people were celebrating her. But it's gotten lumped into this discussion that essentially says you cannot have a conversation about race.

What I find the most egregious about this situation is we are taking books out of classrooms, which is very anti-democratic. It is not, quote, the American way. And so you're saying that kids can't read the story of Ruby Bridges. It's okay for Ruby Bridges at six years old to have to have been escorted by federal marshals and have racial epithets spewed at her. It's just not okay for a six year old today to know that happened to her. I mean, one of the rationales for not talking about race, I don't even say critical race theory, but not talking about race in the classroom is we don't want white children to feel bad.

My response is, well great, but what were you guys in the 1950s and sixties when I was in school. Because I had to sit there in a mostly white classroom in Philadelphia and read Huckleberry Finn , with Mark Twain with a very liberal use of the n-word. And most of my classmates just snickering. I'd take it. I'd read it. It didn't make me feel good. I had to read Robinson Crusoe . I had to read Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind . I had to read Heart Of Darkness .

All of these books which we have canonized, are books of their time. And they often make us feel a particular kind way about who we are in this society. But all of a sudden one group is protected. We can't let white children feel bad about what they read.

Jill Anderson: I was reading your most recent book, Critical Race Theory in Education, a Scholars Journey , and I was struck by when you started to do this work and this research, and adapt it from law back in the early 1990s. You talked about presenting this for the first time, or one of the first times. And there was obviously a group excited by it, a group annoyed by it. I look at what's happening now and I see parents and educators. Some are excited by a movement to teach children more openly and honestly about race. And then there's going to be those who are annoyed by it. You've been navigating these two sides your whole life, your whole career. So what do you tell educators who are eager, and open, and want to do this work, but they're afraid of the opposition?

Gloria Ladson-Billings:  Well, I think there's a difference between essentially forcing one's ideas and agenda on students, and having kids develop the criticality that they will need to participate in democracy. And whenever we have pitched battles, we've been talking about race, but we've had the same kind of conversation around the environment, right? That you cannot be in coal country telling people that coal is bad, because people are making their living off of that coal. So we've been down this road before.

What I suggest to teachers is, number one, they have to have good relationships with the parents and community that they are serving, and they need to be transparent. I've taught US History for eighth graders and 11th graders before going into academe, and we've had to deal with hard questions. But there's a degree to which the community has always trusted that I had their students' best interests at heart, that I want them to be successful, that I want them to be able to make good decisions as citizens.

That's the bigger mission, I think, of education. That we are not just preparing people to go into the workplace. We are preparing people to go into voting booths, and to participate in healthy debate. The problem I'm having with critical race theory is I'm having a debate with people who don't know what we're debating. You know, I told one interview, I said, "It's like debating a toddler over bedtime. That's not a good debate." You can't win that debate. The toddler doesn't understand the concept. It's just that I don't want to do it.

I will say following the news coverage that I don't believe that all of these people out there are parents. I believe that there is a large number of operatives whose job it is to gin up sentiment against any forward movement and progress around racial equality, and equity, and diversity.

You know, to me, what should be incensing people was what they saw in Charlottesville, with those people, with those Tiki torches. What should be incensing people is what they saw January 6th. People lost their lives in both of those incidents. Nobody's lost their lives in a critical race theory discussion. You know?

I'm someone who believes that debate is healthy. And in fact debate is the only thing that you can have in a true democracy. The minute you start shutting off debate, the minute you say that's not even discussable, then you're moving towards totalitarianism. You know? That's what happened in the former Soviet Union and probably now in Russia. That's what has happened in regimes that say, no other idea is permitted, is discussable. And that's not a road that I think we should be walking here.

Jill Anderson: I feel like we're getting lost in the terminology, which we've talked about. And for school leaders, I wonder if the conversation needs to start with local districts in their communities debunking, or demystifying, or telling the truth about what critical race theory is, that kids aren't learning it in the schools. That that's not what it's about. Does it not even matter at this point because people are always going to be resistant to the things that you just even mentioned?

Gloria Ladson-Billings:  I'm a bit of a sports junkie, so I'll use a sports metaphor here. I'm just someone who would rather play offense than defense. I think if you get into this debate, you are on the defensive from the start. For me, I want to be on the offense. I want to say, as a school district, here are our core values. Here's what we stand for. Many, many years ago when I began my academic career, I started it at Santa Clara University, which is a private Catholic Jesuit university. And students would sometimes bristle at the discussions we would have about race and ethnicity, and diversity and equality.

And I'd always pull out the university's mission statement. And I'd say, "You see these words right here around social justice? That's where I am with this work. I don't know what they're doing at the business school on social justice, but I can tell you that the university has essentially made a commitment it to this particular issue. Now we can debate whether or not you agree with me, but I haven't pulled this out of thin air."

So if I'm a school superintendent, I want to say, "Here are core values that we have." I'm reminded of many years ago. I was supervising a student teacher. It was a second grade. And she had a little boy in a classroom and they were doing something for Martin Luther King. It might have been just coloring in a picture of him with some iconic statement. And this one little boy put a big X on it. And she said, "Why did you do that?" And his response was, "We don't believe in Martin Luther King in my house." So she said, "Wow, okay, well, why not?" And he really couldn't articulate. She says, "Well, tell me, who's your friend in this classroom?" And one of the first names out of his mouth was a little Black boy.

And she said, "Do you know that he's a lot like Martin Luther King? You know, he's a little boy. He's Black." She was worried about where this was headed and didn't know what to do as a student teacher, because she's not officially licensed to teach at this point. And I shared with her our strategy. I said, "Why don't you talk with your cooperating teacher about what happens and see what she says. If she doesn't seem to want to do anything, casually mention, don't go marching to the principal's office. But when you have a chance to interact with the principal, you might say something I had the strangest encounter the other day and then share it." Well, she did that.

The principal called the parents in and said, "Your child is not in trouble, but here's what you need to know about who we are and what we stand for."

Jill Anderson:  Wow.

Gloria Ladson-Billings:  You know? And so again, it wasn't like let's have a big school board meeting. Let's string up somebody for saying something. It wasn't tearing this child down. But it was reiterating, here are our core values. I think schools can stand on this. They can say, "This is what we stand for. This is who we are." They don't ever have to mention the word critical race theory.

The retrenchment we are seeing in some states, I think it was a textbook that they were going to use in Texas that essentially described enslaved people as workers. That's just wrong. That's absolutely wrong. And I can tell you that if we don't teach our children the truth, what happens when they show up in classes at the college level and they are exposed to the truth, they are incensed. They are angry and they cannot understand, why are we telling these lies?

We don't have to make up lies about the American story. It is a story of both triumph and defeat. It is a story of both valor and, some cases, shame. Slavery actually happened. We trafficked with human beings, and there's a consequence to that. But it doesn't mean we didn't get past it. It doesn't mean we didn't fight a war over it, and decide that's not who we want to be.

Jill Anderson:  What's the path forward? What can we do to make sure that students are supported and learning about their own history so that they are prepared to go out into a diverse global society?

Gloria Ladson-Billings:  I'm perhaps an unrepentant optimist, because I think that these young people are not fooled by this. You know, when they started, quote, passing bans and saying, "We can't have this and we won't have this," I said, "Nobody who's doing this understands anything about child and adolescent development." Because how do you get kids to do something? You tell them they can't do.

So I have had more outreach from young people asking me, tell me about this. What is this? These young people are burning up Google looking for what is this they're trying to keep from us? So I have a lot of faith in our youth that they are not going to allow us to censor that. Everything you tell them, they can't read, those are the books they go look for. You know, I have not seen a spate in reading like this in a very long time.

So I think it's interesting that people don't even understand something as basic as child development and adolescent development. But I do think that the engagement of young people, which we literally saw in the midst of the pandemic and the post George Floyd, the incredible access to information that young people have will save us. You know, it's almost like people feel like this is their last bastion and they're not going to let people take whatever privilege they see themselves having away from them. It's not sustainable. Young people will not stand for it.

Jill Anderson:  Well, I love that. And it's such a great note to end on because it feels good to think that there is a path forward, because right now things are looking very scary. Thank you so much.

Gloria Ladson-Billings:  Well, you're quite welcome. And I will tell you, again sports metaphor, I'm an, again, unrepentant 76ers fan. I realize you're in Massachusetts with those Celtics. But trust me, the 76ers. Okay? One of my favorite former 76ers is Allen Iverson and he has a wonderful line, I believe when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He said, "My haters have made me great."

Well, I will tell you that I had conceived of that book on critical race theory well before Donald Trump made his statement in September of 2020. And I thought, "Okay, here's another book which will sell a modest number of copies to academics." The book is flying off the shelves. Y'all keep talking about it. You're just making me great.

Jill Anderson:  Maybe it will start the revolution that we need.

Gloria Ladson-Billings: Well, thank you so much.

Jill Anderson:  Thank you. Gloria Ladson-billings is a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is the author of many books, including the recent Critical Race Theory in Education, a Scholar's Journey . I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast produced by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thanks for listening.

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Yes, Critical Race Theory Should Be Taught in Your School: Undoing Racism in K–12 Schooling and Classrooms Through CRT

Despite panicked calls from the right to keep Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of the K–12 classroom, the authors assert that CRT , one of many theoretical frameworks used in ethnic studies, is needed to address the entrenched status quo of well-documented inequity through racism in schooling.  Rather than deny CRT is being taught in schools, the authors embrace CRT as a tool to disrupt the myth that educational decisions, policies, and practices are based on objectivity or neutrality.  First, the authors describe how racism and injustice in schools today directly relate to the historical trajectory of schooling experiences of people of color and Indigenous people in the United States.  Next, the authors offer how CRT in K–12 ethnic studies serves to disrupt inequities through antiracist teaching and pedagogy that names oppression, embraces racialized intersectional identities through community cultural wealth, develops counter-stories, and engages students in social activism to defy majoritarian supremacy.  Last, through examples from K–12 classrooms, the authors show how CRT is indeed taught in schools and argue it’s teaching should become ubiquitous.

Introduction

In 2021 the nationwide racial reckoning arrived at our elementary, middle, and high schools.  Scenes of school board meetings punctuated with violent denials of racism and white supremacy along with protests against and bans on teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) became sacrosanct for the right.  Filmmaker Christopher Rufo gained national prominence by intentionally stoking fear and then blaming CRT : “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think of ‘critical race theory,’” he wrote on Twitter.  “We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” [1]   Uninformed, conservative parents and school board members in California and beyond are often quick to connect the teaching of CRT to the teaching of ethnic studies.  For example, in a recent letter to a school board, parents warned about “the danger of Critical Race Theory slipping into our schools through the ETHNIC STUDIES CLASS .” [2]   During a school board meeting in Los Alamitos, Harriet Reid, an opponent of a new ethnic studies elective course, argued when after reviewing a slide presentation about the course: “When you read through the slides, you see nothing but critical race theory verbiage.” [3]   The same tirade against CRT and ethnic studies has been repeated at school board meetings in cities and towns across California, in Paso Robles, [4] Placentia-Yorba, [5] Salinas, [6] San Diego, [7] Orange County, [8] Palm Springs, [9] Riverside, [10] and Grass Valley [11] to name just a few.  In fact, the school board in Paso Robles approved a pilot course in ethnic studies, but according to Superintendent Dubost and Trustee Nathan Williams, CRT would not be part of the course. [12]   The attacks on CRT are the latest distractions employed by right wing demagogues in their efforts to derail the movement for ethnic studies.  The push to restrict teaching about racism and bias echoes across the nation with at least thirty-six states adopting or introducing such laws or policies. [13]

In truth, the explicit teaching of CRT is rare in K–12 schools, including in ethnic studies classrooms.  Beyond the challenge of translating CRT concepts, which have their roots in a complex theory taught in university and law school settings, into language that young people can engage with, it is precisely because CRT “acknowledges the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color [that] continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation” [14] that most K–12 teachers and districts avoid the topic altogether. [15]   Despite this, since racism and injustice in schools today are directly related to the historical trajectory of racism and oppression experienced by people of color and Indigenous people in the United States, discussing racial inequity and justice is central to the teaching of ethnic studies at any level.  In the school setting, given the long history of persistent school segregation and resegregation, [16] high stakes testing, [17] racial disparities in school discipline [18] and special education practices, [19] and pushout that disproportionately hurts and dehumanizes people of color and Indigenous people, [20] a laser-focus on racism in schools is necessary.  Resegregation of Black students across regions and even within schools is well-documented and most pronounced in New York, Illinois, California, and Maryland—states with such extreme segregation they are called “apartheid schools.” [21]   Knoester & Au show how high stakes testing is utilized as code to facilitate segregation through racializing decisions and resulting in racist outcomes for children of color.  Even within segregated schools, students of color are dehumanized through inequitable discipline policies that result in tremendous lost instructional time for them. [22]   Similarly, students of color are disproportionately placed in special education and experience discipline disparities that sustain racialized inequities within special education settings. [23]   Finally, the rate at which our nation’s schools push students of color and Indigenous students out of high school is related to less income and poorer health. [24]   The legacy of racism in schools, as documented above, demands that K–12 ethnic studies curricula center the experiences of students of color in our past, present, and futures with a particular focus on race and racism:

Attempting to challenge the reproduction of essentialist categories of race, class, and gender, ethnic studies deconstructs structural forms of domination and subordination, going beyond simplistic additives of multicultural content to the curriculum.  Ethnic studies is an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and comparative study of the social, cultural, political, and economic expression and experience of ethnic groups.  Ethnic studies recovers and reconstructs the counternarratives, perspectives, epistemologies, and cultures of those who have been historically neglected and denied citizenship or full participation within traditional discourse and institutions, particularly highlighting the contributions people of color have made in shaping U.S. culture and society. [25]

CRT is one of many theoretical frameworks commonly found in ethnic studies that is used to fight entrenched racism. [26] Rather than deny CRT is being taught in schools, it is important to point out that teachers do use CRT methods and pedagogy as a tool to disrupt the myth that educational decisions, policies, and practices are based on objectivity or neutrality. [27]   We assert that CRT belongs in schools as a tool to identify and dismantle structures, policies, and practices that harm students of color and Indigenous students, their families, their communities, and their futures.

 I.  CRT in K–12 Ethnic Studies

Critical Race Theory (CRT) arose after legal scholars of color questioned why majoritarian legal scholars insisted that legal decisions, policies, and practices were based on objectivity or neutrality. [28]   Critical Race scholars maintained that race was and is central to every decision made by those in power.  In other words, there is no colorblind decision-making when deciding legal cases, deciding curricular standards, or determining public services. [29]   Educational scholars of color were intrigued by the ideas contained in CRT [30] and began to apply it in the field of education to expose the racial inequity in education.

In 2002, Daniel Solórzano and  Tara Yosso identified five main elements of CRT and applied those tenets to the context of education.  They asserted that:

CRT in education challenges the traditional claims of the educational system and its institutions toward objectivity, meritocracy, color-blindness, race neutrality, and equal opportunity.  The critical race theorist argues that these traditional claims act as camouflage for the self-interest, power, and privilege of dominant groups in societal and individual transformation. [31]

Ethnic studies educators utilize the five elements identified by Solórzano and Yosso: the intercentricity of race and racism with other forms of subordination; the challenge to dominant ideology; the commitment to social justice; the centrality of experiential knowledge; and the transdisciplinary perspective. [32]   In particular, ethnic studies educators aim to disrupt the stereotypical and pervasive falsehoods evident in the K–12 curriculum—most easily identified in history and social science content.  Using the disciplines of history, English, mathematics, science, and world languages, as well as visual and performing arts, ethnic studies essentially deconstructs the dominant narrative and reconstructs it to embrace the experiential knowledge and intersectional identities of racialized and marginalized communities as the alternative to an outdated, racist and narrow definition of United States history, for example.  The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium explains the difference in approach:

For example, in a [typical] United States History course one might incorporate a lesson on the construction of the intercontinental railroad mentioning the contributions of the Chinese railroad workers.  In contrast, an ethnic studies or Asian American Studies course would examine the patterns of immigration law, economic exploitation, racism, and colonialism from the perspective of Asian Americans. [33]

By asking students to consider the impact of systems that sustain racist policies and practices while claiming neutrality on Asian Americans, students can challenge the ideologies and engage in social justice activities to undo those racist structures.

Likewise, as oppositional disciplines, it often takes social movements to institutionalize the counter narratives of these communities and to ensure their implementation, as we saw in the student challenges to the state of Arizona’s banning of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson Unified School District. [34]   The struggle for K–12 ethnic studies is evidenced in the current struggle to secure a liberatory ethnic studies graduation requirement in California. [35] For these reasons without explicitly naming CRT , ethnic studies educators apply the tenets of CRT as they write lesson plans, develop curricula and instruct their students.  The development of CRT as a structure of K–12 ethnic studies curricula opens the door to liberation from racism for our students.  Therefore, it is central that CRT in education argues that a students’ every day experience is informed by their encounters with racism.

 II. Naming Oppression and Embracing Intersectional Identities

When applied to the interdisciplinary field of ethnic studies, Critical Race Theory (CRT) argues that race and racism are a part of everyday life for communities of color where ordinary experiences are informed by their encounters with racism—individual, interpersonal, institutional, and ideological.  In order to disrupt oppression, the ethnic studies teacher must help students identify and name it.  For example, a lesson wherein students learn about the aforementioned “four I’s of oppression” [36] and then identify which type of oppression is displayed in primary and secondary sources gives students the practice needed to name oppression of racialized groups.  An example of this in practice is engaging students in analysis of a music video clip “Ice El Hielo’’ by La Santa Cecilia, [37] a bar graph of police killings by race over time, a clip from the documentary No Más Bebés , [38] and a Chinese laundry advertisement.  Students are asked to identify which types of oppression—individual, interpersonal, institutional, or ideological are exemplified in each artifact.  For example, the practice of sterilizing Latinx women post-childbirth in a Los Angeles hospital without their knowledge or consent in an example of both institutional and individual oppression.  Through naming oppression, students in ethnic studies classrooms then gain the critical consciousness needed to change those oppressive structures.

A teacher using a CRT lens would reason that changing racist educational structures requires students to embrace their racialized identity and its intersections with gender, religion, sexual orientation, languages, immigration status, ability, and other traits. [39]   Using a CRT lens in ethnic studies recognizes the critical role that race plays in the educational experiences of students of color, while maintaining that historical and contemporary experiences are also influenced by other intersectionalities such as gender and class and that those intersectionalities can further marginalization and inequity. [40]   For example, being a Black, migrant, cis-gendered woman will yield a different experience than being a Pinoy trans multilingual man.  In addition, the explicit commitment to social justice in CRT compels student engagement in systemic change and requires students to embrace their racialized identity and their intersectional positionality.  As Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales explains:

To get rid of racism, to get rid of Anti-Asian, Anti-Black, Anti-Brown, Anti-Arab, Anti-Indigenous violence we must teach about the historical and contemporary racial injustice that our communities have experienced and fought against.  Ethnic Studies has been at the forefront of ensuring that the stories, struggles, survival, social movements, and solidarity of people of color are being taught.  To be honest Ethnic Studies saved my own life and is the only place in education where I felt true belonging. [41]

It is through knowledge of self and one’s communities by centering experiences of people of color and Indigenous people, resilience, and resistance in the K–12 ethnic studies classroom, that intersectional antiracism and decolonization can take place.  Indeed, a facet of CRT utilized in ethnic studies is the idea that from the ashes of oppression and marginalization faced by communities of color comes the beauty and richness of the cultural knowledge, stories of resistance, literary writings, songs and music, and linguistic diversity used to express the humanism, collectivism, healing, and community intrinsic in communities of color. [42] Ethnic studies operationalizes students’ experiences and knowledge through Yosso’s “community cultural wealth.” [43]

 III.  How Community Cultural Wealth and Counterstories are Reflected in Ethnic Studies

Ethnic studies also embraces Yosso’s CRT challenge to traditional interpretations of cultural capital, [44] known as community cultural wealth.  In an assets-based approach, Yosso identifies forms of capital that are typically made invisible for marginalized students by schooling and that are centered in K–12 ethnic studies: aspirational capital (holding dreams in the face of barriers); navigational capital (the ability to move through institutions); social capital(networks of people); linguistic capital (the intellectual and social skills achieved through facility in more than one language); familial capital (the sense of community history, memory, cultural intuition); and resistant capital (knowledges and skills fostered through opposition behaviors that challenge inequality).  Students can embrace their racialized identity and their intersectional positionality by highlighting their community cultural wealth, such as intellectual traditions and ancestral knowledge.  What this looks like in one classroom in Los Angeles, is two teachers creating a schoolwide production called Canción del Inmigrante (Song of the Immigrant), [45] where students constructed a community counternarrative using puppetry, poetry, and plays to portray the way that Latinx immigrant communities survive racist immigration policies that often result in deportations, familial trauma, and family separation.

Ethnic studies courses center on the lived experiences of people of color and Indigenous people told as counternarratives that defy majoritarian supremacy. [46] In K–12, ethnic studies teachers use CRT methods and pedagogy to address the educational and social experiences of racialized communities as influenced by multiple forces including racial trauma, phenotypical stereotyping, cultural devaluation or appropriation, legal discrimination, and historical amnesia.  Recognition of racialized trauma in the K–12 ethnic studies classroom doesn’t mean that people of color or Indigenous people are deficient, defective, or lesser than—on the contrary, they are resilient people.  Ethnic studies educators take care to point out that in response to the devaluing of a people, ancestors have passed on their counternarratives, their community cultural wealth, their intellectual traditions, and their ancestral knowledge.  Ethnic studies is the vehicle used to share the healing and connecting beauty of culture, art, traditions, and knowledge. [47]

In K–12, students reflect, name, discuss and address the trauma of their encounters with racism, past and present.  For example, while studying the San Patricio Battalion [48] and contemporary solidarity movements, students may engage in an activity wherein they identify examples of colonialism, examine the similarities between Irish and Mexican experiences, and hypothesize why the Irish chose to fight alongside the Mexicans during the Mexican-American War.  They may investigate and research other historical examples and observe and engage in analyzing the face of oppression as either self-defeating, reactionary, conformist, or transformative while discussing how people who have been colonized respond to imperialism.  They may also decide to consider other contemporary areas of solidarity, nationally or globally.

 A.  Social Activism

Ethnic studies embeds community responsive practices such as youth participatory action research, [49] civic engagement, direct involvement in social movements or critical community projects as a means to creating a better, more equitable society.  These critical participatory projects connect directly to the idea of working for social justice, a component of CRT . [50]   Student involvement in social movements, civic engagement and other community responsive projects are necessary in ethnic studies, a field where social engagement is often considered the radical hope of ethnic studies. [51]

 IV.  CRT in the Ethnic Studies Classroom

We assert that using CRT in K–12 ethnic studies classrooms is the foundation for antiracist pedagogy and methodology.  A quick look at the seven principles of ethnic studies, demonstrates why CRT is one of the many theoretical frameworks that complement ethnic studies. [52]

• Cultivate empathy, community actualization, cultural perpetuity, self- worth, self-determination, and the holistic well-being of all participants, especially people of color and Indigenous people;
• Celebrate and honor Native People/s of the land and communities of color by providing a space to share their stories of struggle and resistance, along with their intellectual and cultural wealth;
• Center and place high value on pre-colonial, ancestral, indigenous, diasporic, familial, and marginalized knowledge;
• Critique empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power at the intersections of our society;
• Challenge imperialist and colonial hegemonic beliefs and practices on ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized levels;
• Connect ourselves to past and contemporary resistance movements that struggle for social justice on global and local levels to ensure a truer democracy ;
• Conceptualize , imagine, and build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promote collective narratives of transformative resistance, critical hope, and radical healing.

Ethnic Studies educators may connect curricular objectives that reflect CRT methodology and apply the following learning strategies:

• Students consider the historical trajectory experienced by people of color and Indigenous people, as they consider issues of racism and injustice today;
• Students reflect, name, discuss, and address the trauma of their encounters with racism;
• Students embrace their racialized identity and their intersectional positionality, their community cultural wealth, their intellectual traditions and ancestral knowledge;
• Students engage in social justice projects that benefit all of society;
• Since ethnic studies is an antiracist project, students are encouraged to develop counter-stories or counter-narratives to the dominant voices in traditional curriculum. [53]

Through ethnic studies courses that utilize these objectives to guide student learning, CRT educated teachers can equip students to transform structural racism into a system based on equity, inclusion, and democracy.  Through lessons, student experiences of oppression would be named in order for students to understand how their experiences are not anomalies, but directly related to the historical trajectory and social conditions facing communities of color and Indigenous people in the United States.

Once student critical consciousness [54] is developed, students engage in social justice projects that benefit all of society.  For example, at one Southern California high school, teachers ask students to brainstorm issues of injustice in their communities.  These students situated in a predominately Asian American and Latinx community have identified how racism impacts the lives of undocumented students in their communities.  The civic engagement projects in this district have ranged from establishing a dream center at the local high school to proposing a legislative proposal presented to the local school board and city council. [55] Other ethnic studies educators have concentrated on the school-to-prison pipeline, voter registration, planting gardens in the community for environmental justice, and more. [56] The idea of moving students from naming and analyzing injustice to actually engaging in constructing a better world is a central element of CRT . [57]

In order for students to engage in social justice actions they develop counterstories to the stories told about people of color and Indigenous people.  Since ethnic studies is an antiracist project, students are also encouraged to develop counterstories or counternarratives to the dominant voices in the  traditional curriculum.  The development of the counterstory is an indispensable element of critical race methodology in that it becomes a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege and can be used to shatter complacency, challenge the dominant discourse on race, and further the struggle for racial reform. [58] At one Northern California high school, a teacher applied the concept of community cultural wealth to an ethnic studies unit using Tupac Shakur’s The Rose That Grew from Concrete . [59]   Students were asked to analyze the poem, listen to a short lecture on self-actualization, and consider how the elements of community cultural capital disrupt deficit models and internalized oppression in our school communities.  Students then learned that deficit thinking blames poor and marginalized parents and families for the educational opportunity gap that labels their children as underachieving. [60]   Students were asked to name the community cultural capital in their lives and demonstrate how the examples identified by students deconstruct this thinking.  Finally, students turned the concepts into beautiful artwork and murals.  In this instance, the murals were counter-stories that challenge deficit views of students of color.

Antiracist pedagogy that names racism and oppression, although not widespread, is nothing new in schooling. [61]   However, ethnic studies is explicitly antiracist and centers the experiences of the four core groups of ethnic studies (Indigenous/Native American, Black, Chicanx/Latinx, and Asian American/Pacific Islander/Arab American) from their self-determined perspectives.  Further, CRT in ethnic studies is not satisfied with naming racism; it is imperative that K–12 students take action based on their critical consciousness of racial injustice.  Not only is CRT being taught in ethnic studies classrooms, but we need all classrooms to  explicitly challenge the endemic racism in our schools in society that serves to dehumanize students of color.  We believe that if you are against CRT in schools, you are for racism in schools.

[1] .         Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo), Twitter (Mar. 15, 2021, 12:17 PM), https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1371541044592996352 [ https://perma.cc/HR6T-HVYL ].

[2] .         Email From a Group Opposing the Teaching of Critical Race Theory in Schools to Parents, Grandparents, and Community Members of Los Alamitos School District (n.d.),  https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1eTNNnLUriptjbkad4otJPKOXHbz0GL2imwKLF2l0MOI/mobilebasic?urp=gmail_link&gxids=7628 [ https://perma.cc/DAA9-G5SY ].

[3] .         Hayley Smith, Orange County Debates Ethnic Studies: Vital Learnings or “Anti-White” Divisiveness? , L.A. Times (April 28, 2021, 8:42 AM), https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-28/ethnic-studies-slammed-as-anti-white-in-orange-county (last visited Mar. 20, 2022) (summarizing a Los Alamitos school board meeting).

[4] .         Camille DeVaul, PRJUSD Board Vote Down Study Session to Discuss Critical Race Theory , Paso Robles Press (July 14, 2021),   https://pasoroblespress.com/news/education/prjusd-school-board/prjusd-board-vote-down-study-session-to-discuss-critical-race-theory [ https://perma.cc/VY9W-FPW5 ].

[5] .         Hosam Elattar, Orange County Parents and Students Confront Ethnic Studies; School Districts Look to Potentially Expand Offerings , Voice of OC (July 8, 2021), https://voiceofoc.org/2021/04/orange-county-parents-and-students-confront-ethnic-studies-school-districts-look-to-potentially-expand-offerings [ https://perma.cc/R37Y-5UM8 ].

[6] .         Melody Waital, Ethnic Studies Debate Continues in the Salinas Unified High School Board Meeting , KION 5/46 News (July 14, 2021, 8:58 AM), https://kion546.com/news/2021/07/13/ethnic-studies-debate-continues-in-the-salinas-unified-high-school-board-meeting [ https://perma.cc/8N3G-Q5Y8 ].

[7] .         Anissa Durham, San Diego Unified Board Approves Ethnic Studies Funding , San Diego Union-Trib. (June 22, 2021, 7:38 PM), https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2021-06-22/rally-against-critical-race-theory-held-in-opposition-of-board-of-education .

[8] .         Elattar, supra note 5; Smith, supra note 2.

[9] .         Shad Powers, Masks, Ethnic Studies Debated at Contentious Desert Sands School Board Meeting , Palm Springs Desert Spring (July 21, 2021, 8:26 AM), https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/education/2021/07/21/masks-ethnic-studies-debated-dsusd-board-meeting/8027045002 [ https://perma.cc/8DWB-DZUP ].

[10] .      Breanna Reeves, RUSD Pushes Back Against Extremists, Affirming Ethnic Studies is Not Critical Race Theory, Black Voice News (Jan. 12, 2022),   https://blackvoicenews.com/2022/01/12/rusd-pushes-back-against-extremists-affirming-ethnic-studies-is-not-critical-race-theory [ https://perma.cc/U6HZ-ZM2B ].

[11] .      Critical Race Theory in Schools Isn’t Indoctrination, It’s the Truth , New University (Jan. 24, 2022), https://www.newuniversity.org/2022/01/24/critical-race-theory-in-schools-isnt-indoctrination-its-the-truth [https://perma.cc/Y9BZ-JPAP].

[12] .      DeVaul, supra note 4; Karen Garcia, Paso Unified Approved Its Ethnic Studies Course Offering With More Contingencies , New Times (Apr. 15, 2021),   https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/paso-unified-approved-its-ethnic-studies-course-offering-with-more-contingencies/Content?oid=10923656 [https://perma.cc/6USG-6ZGV].

[13] .      Cathryn Stout & Thomas Wilburn, CRT Map: Efforts to Restrict Teaching Racism and Bias Have Multiplied Across the U.S. , Chalkbeat (Feb. 1, 2022, 7:20 PM), https://www.chalkbeat.org/22525983/map-critical-race-theory-legislation-teaching-racism [ https://perma.cc/V5WP-R4R5 ].

[14] .      Janel George, A Lesson on Critical Race Theory , Am. Bar Ass’n (Jan. 11, 2021), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory (last visited Mar. 21, 2022).

[15] .      Ileana Najarro, What Do Teachers Think About Discussing Racism in Class?   We Asked Them , Educ. Week (June 28, 2021), https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-do-teachers-think-about-discussing-racism-in-class-we-asked-them/2021/06 [ https://perma.cc/CK6U-4PYK ].

[16] .      Gary Orfield & Danielle Jarvie, UCLA C.R. Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, Black Segregation Matters: School Resegregation and Black Educational Opportunity (2020).

[17] .      Matthew Knoester & Wayne Au, Standardized Testing and School Segregation: Like Tinder for Fire? , 20 Race Ethnicity & Educ. 1 (2017).

[18] .      Daniel J. Losen & Paul Martinez, UCLA C.R. Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles,  Lost Opportunities: How Disparate School Discipline Continues to Drive Differences in Opportunity to Learn (2020).

[19] .      Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Alexandra Aylward, Adai Tefera, Alfredo J. Artiles, Sarah L. Alvarado & Pedro Noguera, Unpacking the Logic of Compliance in Special Education: Contextual Influences on Discipline Racial Disparities in Suburban Schools , 94 Sociology of Education 208 (2021).

[20] .      Joel McFarland, Jiashan Cui, Juliet Holmes & Xiaolei Wang, Nat’l Ctr. for Educ. Stat., Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2019 (2020).

[21] .      Orfield & Jarvie , supra note 16.

[22] .      Losen & Martinez , supra note 18.

[23] .      Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Aylward, Tefera, Artiles, Alvarado & Noguera, supra note 19.

[24] .      McFarland, Cui, Holmes & Wang , supra note 20.

[25] .      Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Rita Kohli, Jocyl Sacramento, Nick Henning, Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath & Christine Sleeter, Toward an Ethnic Studies Pedagogy: Implications for K-12 Schools From the Research , 47 Urban Rev. 104 (2014).

[26] .      Cati V. de los Ríos, Jorge López & Ernest Morrell, Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Race: Ethnic Studies and Literacies of Power in High School Classrooms ,  7 Race & Soc. Probs. 84 (2015).  See generally Rethinking Ethnic Studies (R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, Miguel Zavala, Christine Sleeter & Wayne Au eds., 2019);   Christine E. Sleeter & Miguel Zavala, Transformative Ethnic Studies in Schools: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Research (2020).

[27] .      Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26 .

[28] .      Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law , 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1331 (1988).

[29] .      Id.

[30] .      Gloria Ladson-Billings, Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy , 32 Am. Educ. Rsch. J. 465 (1995); Daniel G. Solórzano & Tara J. Yosso, Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research , 8 Qualitative Inquiry 23 (2002); Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (1997); see also Gloria Ladson-Billings, Just What Is Critical Race Theory and What’s It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education? 11 Int’l J.  Qualitative Stud. Educ. 7 (1998).

[31] .       See Daniel G. Solórzano & Tara J. Yosso, Critical Race and LatCrit Theory and Method: Counter-Storytelling , 14 Int’l J. Qualitative Stud. Educ. 471, 471–72.

[32] .      Solórzano & Yosso, supra note 30; Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26; Sleeter, & Zavala , supra note 26.

[33] .      Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, Introduction to Chapter 1, in The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum 4 (2021).

[34] .      Julio Cammarota, The Praxis of Ethnic Studies: Transforming Second Sight into Critical Consciousness , 19 Race Ethnicity and Education 233 (2016) .

[35] .      John Fensterwald, California Becomes First State to Require Ethnic Studies in High School ,  EdSource (Oct. 8, 2021), https://edsource.org/2021/california-becomes-first-state-to-require-ethnic-studies-in-high-school/662219 [ https://perma.cc/9LLT-FEN7 ].

[36] .      John Bell, The Four “I’s” of Oppression , Begin Within Blog , https://beginwithin.info/articles-2 (follow hyperlink; scroll to “Diversity, Oppression, and Liberation” heading and select The Four I’s of Oppression ).

[37] .      La Santa Cecilia, La Santa Cecilia: Ice El Hielo , YouTube (Apr. 8, 2013), https://youtu.be/0lNJviuYUEQ [ https://perma.cc/R523-HQCR ].

[38] .      No MÁs BebÉs (PBS 2015).

[39] .      Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color , 43 Stan. L. Rev. 1241 (1991).

[40] .      Daniel G. Solórzano & Dolores Delgado Bernal, Examining Transformational Resistance Through a Critical Race and LatCrit Theory Framework: Chicana and Chicano Students in an Urban Context , 36 Urb. Educ. 308 (2001); R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, The Matrix of Social Identity and Intersectional Power, in Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26, at 38–47.

[41] .      Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, LESMC Institute: Demystifying Critical Race Theory, Expert Panel Presentation , YouTube (Nov. 20, 2021), https://youtu.be/IeZodCmKNY4 [ https://perma.cc/KA54-Y6AZ ].

[42] .      Solórzano & Yosso, supra note 30;  R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, We Have Community Cultural Wealth: Scaffolding Tara Yosso’s Theory for Classroom Praxis, in Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26, at 244–46.

[43] .      Tara J. Yosso, Whose Culture Has Capital?   A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth , 8 Race Ethnicity & Educ. 69 (2005).

[44] .       Id.

[45] .      Canción del Inmigrante is a production of the One Grain of Sand Puppet Theatre and Los Angeles-based Latin folk band Cuñao.  See One Grain of Sand Puppet Theatre , https://artisvida.wixsite.com/bethpeterson [ https://perma.cc/4FPQ-6XFY ]; CuÑao Music , https://cunaomusic.com (last visited Mar. 20, 2022).

[46] .      Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Rita Kohli, Jocyl Sacramento, Nick Henning, Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath & Christine Sleeter, What is Ethnic Studies Pedagogy?, in Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26, at 20–25.

[47] .      See generally Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26.

[48] .      Abby Bender, Irish-Mexican Solidarity and the San Patricio Battalion Flag , 36 Genre 271 (2003).

[49] .      Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion (Julio Cammarota & Michelle Fine eds., 2008).

[50] .      Solórzano & Yosso, supra note 30; Rita Kohli, Critical Race Reflections: Valuing the Experiences of Teachers of Color in Teacher Education . 12 Race Ethnicity & Educ. , 235–51 (2009) .

[51] .      Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete , 79 Harv. Educ. Rev. 181 (2009).

[52] .      See, e.g. , Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales & Edward Curammeng, Pedagogies of Resistance: Filipina/o “Gestures of Rebellion” Against the Inheritance of American Schooling, in Education at War: The Fight for Students of Color in America’s Public Schools 233–38 (Arshad Imtiaz Ali & Tracy Lachica Buenavista eds., 2018); R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, The Ethnic Studies Framework, A Holistic Overview in Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26, at 65–75; Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Coalition, The Guiding Values, Principles, and Outcomes of Ethnic Studies Teaching (2019) http://www.liberatedethnicstudies.org/principles.html [ https://perma.cc/75MQ-KNU9 ] (follow “Core values and principles of Ethnic Studies” hyperlink); Yosso, supra note 43.

[53] .      Theresa Montaño, Adm’r Institute Ass’n Cal. Sch. Adm’rs, Region 6 Conf., Implementing Ethnic Studies Through a Critical Consciousness, (Oct. 20, 2021).

[54] .      Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness (1974).

[55] .      Interview with Tammy Scorcia, Alhambra Tchrs. Ass’n President (Nov. 17, 2020).

[56] .      E-mail from Lupe Carrasco Cardona, Ethnic Studies Educator and English Language Development Coordinator, Los Angeles Unified School District, to author (Jan. 11, 2022).

[57] .      Cati V. de los Ríos, Revisiting Notions of Social Action in Ethnic Studies Pedagogy: One Teacher’s Critical Lessons From the Classroom, in Rethinking Ethnic Studies , supra note 26, at 59–64; Solórzano & Yosso, supra note 30.

[58] .       See Solórzano & Yosso, supra note 31.

[59] .      Jeffrey Ramirez, How Do We Grow More Roses?: Identifying and Utilizing Cultural Capital in Our Lives and Communities, Presentation at the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium Ethnic Studies Demystifying Critical Race Theory Seminar, at 1:54:08 (Nov. 20, 2021), https://youtu.be/IeZodCmKNY4 [ https://perma.cc/UE9H-ECR2 ]; see also Tupac Shakur, The Rose That Grew From Concrete (1999).

[60] .      Gloria Ladson-Billings, From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools , 35 Educ. Researcher , 3 (2006).

[61] .      Amy Stuart Wells & Diana Cordova-Cobo, The Post-Pandemic Pathway to Anti-Racist Education: Building a Coalition Across Progressive, Multicultural, Culturally Responsive, and Ethnic Studies Advocates , Century Found. (May 24, 2021), https://tcf.org/content/report/post-pandemic-pathway-anti-racist-education-building-coalition-across-progressive-multicultural-culturally-responsive-ethnic-studies-advocates/?session=1 [ https://perma.cc/4TPH-HTPW ].

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About the author.

Theresa Montaño, Ed.D., is a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) with an emphasis on education. She teaches courses on equity and diversity in schools and the Chicanx child and is an advisor to students enrolled in the master’s program. Dr. Montaño has written articles, texts, and a book on issues such as teacher activism, educational injustice, and educating the Latinx and Chicanx student. She previously served for six years as a National Education Association board director, president of the National Council for Higher Education, and California Teachers Association vice president. She has also served as president of educational rights organizations, such as the National Association for Multicultural Education and the California Association of Mexican-American Educators. Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen, Ed.D., lectures at the University of California San Diego and UC Santa Cruz. She received her doctoral degree in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College Columbia University. She is Co-President of the California Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education and Co-Chair of San Diego Unified School District’s Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee. She began her education through learning from and supporting multilingual communities of color in San Diego, San Jose, New York City, and Utah. Her research and university teaching center decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy.

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What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers

Editor’s note: This blog was republished with permission from Robert Kim. You can view the original post on Heinemann.com . Watch Robert Kim, Cornelius Minor and Kass Minor talk about anti-CRT legislation as part of Heinemann’s ForwardEd series on Tuesday, August 24, at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Educators around the nation are grappling with so-called “anti-critical race theory” laws that are cropping up around the nation. What’s going on here, and how should educators respond to this development? Civil rights law and policy expert and Heinemann author Bob Kim breaks it down for us here:

What is critical race theory?

Critical race theory (or “CRT”) is a school of thought that explores and critiques American history, society, and institutions of power (including government and legal systems) from a race-based perspective. An intellectual outcropping of the critical legal studies and feminist legal theory movements of the 1970s, the CRT movement has contributed to a deeper understanding of how race has been constructed in and impacted the United States. It also poses key questions, such as: Has the American legal system and traditional civil rights litigation been effective at achieving racial justice? And if not, what should be done about that?

What are “anti-CRT” laws?

As of July 2021, 26 states have proposed legislation or executive actions banning or limiting the teaching of principles attributed to CRT in public schools. (To be clear: these proposals don’t have all that much to do with actual critical race theory.) So far, those bills have been signed into law in six states (Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas), and four other states (Georgia, Florida, Montana and Utah) have issued executive rules or memos with a similar purpose.

While the proposals vary in scope and content, one common goal is to discourage or prohibit staff training and/or curriculum and instruction in public K-12 and/or postsecondary schools that “stereotypes,” “scapegoats” or causes “discomfort or guilt” among members of a particular race or sex (or the government) by suggesting they are responsible for racism/sexism or are “inherently” racist, sexist or oppressive. Some proposals prohibit additional actions, such as “promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government”; “promoting division between, or resentment of” people of different races or classes; or even suggesting that “the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States” (a direct response to the 1619 Project ).

Where did this “anti-CRT” movement come from?

Many state “anti-CRT” bills contain provisions similar to those found in documents issued by the former Trump Administration. In September 2020, the Trump Administration issued a memo to federal agencies directing them to identify and cancel any staff training programs that focus on “critical race theory” or “‘white privilege,’ or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.” Weeks later, President Trump issued an executive order that purported “to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating” by restricting the federal government and its contractors from conducting diversity training that examined systemic racism, white privilege and other issues involving race and gender bias. This executive order was revoked by President Biden on his first day in office, but its contents have since been replicated by state legislatures.

Can I still discuss and teach issues pertaining to racism or sexism in schools or staff trainings?

Yes. However, depending on whether an anti-CRT law is in effect where you teach or work or not, there may be a few restrictions on how you teach or provide training on these concepts. Check with your school administrator—and take a moment to look up your state to get clear on the rules of the road.

A scan of the provisions in states where anti-CRT legislation has passed reveals that educators and school training facilitators still enjoy wide latitude. For example, in Texas, educators can (and may be required) to teach topics related to the “history and importance of the civil rights movement” and “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.” In Idaho, any curriculum that was allowed before is still okay as long as no student is “compelled” to adhere to certain tenets ascribed to critical race theory. In Iowa, any otherwise prohibited content is allowable in staff diversity trainings if those trainings are voluntary—and even in mandatory trainings, trainers are allowed to respond to questions related to critical race theory (as described in the statute). And Iowa and New Hampshire educators or diversity trainers can still teach or train about “the historical existence of ideas and subjects” related to race and gender; “the inherent humanity and equality of all persons”; “sexism, slavery, racial oppression, or racial segregation”; “promote racial, cultural, ethnic, or intellectual diversity or inclusiveness”; or teach any topic otherwise prohibited in the legislation “as part of a larger course of academic instruction.” (In fact, many of these “anti-CRT” bills contain similar provisions that allow educators to continue teaching topics related to racism, sexism, history, the civil rights movement and anything that is prescribed under state academic content standards.)

Are the anti-CRT laws legal?

That’s a good question. States do have the broad discretion to control the content of classroom instruction or school employee trainings. But they can’t enact laws with a discriminatory purpose (for example, if  they are directed harmfully at specific racial or ethnic populations). Laws can’t be so vague that it’s impossible for educators or state-funded contractors or trainers to decipher what’s allowable or what’s not. And laws that unduly restrict academic freedom or the ability of students to receive a diverse range of information and ideas may violate the First Amendment.

Remember also: Public school educators enjoy free speech protections when they choose to speak out on issues of racism, sexism and other matters of public concern in their personal capacities (i.e., on your own time). That said, in our highly connected world, even personal speech may impact the school community; in general, for public school educators, the more unconnected to work your speech is (as indicated by what, where, when, to whom and how you communicate), the greater your right to speak freely. Government employees do have a right to speak out at work, but this right is more limited than when they are speaking in their personal capacities.

What can I do to address anti-CRT laws?

These “anti-CRT” laws are creatures of state legislatures and/or governors. If you are experiencing a problem or unnecessary restriction related to your job, report it your local or state elected representative (or your union representative, if you have one). That’s your right. You may also wish to pay a visit to civil rights advocacy organization defending free speech or educators’ rights. (As a former ACLU attorney, I always appreciated calls from educators; they helped me to understand how laws or policies impact practitioners on the ground—whether or not I later represented them in court.)

At the school and community level, you may wish to raise the topic of “anti-CRT” laws at a staff or supervisory meeting. Your goal is to understand clearly what’s prohibited and what isn’t. (See above: there are a LOT of loopholes in these laws!) School trainers may wish to have a dialogue with school administrators prior to conducting professional development sessions to clarify permissible versus prohibited content. Get this in writing! And remember to keep  the language of the anti-CRT provision front and center in these conversations.

Questions or comments for Bob Kim? Please fill in the form on the original post .

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University libraries, research guides, critical race and ethnic studies guide.

• Additional Critical Discourses
• CRT in Education
• CRT in Sociology
• CRT in Religious Studies
• Related Titles of Interest

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Relevant Databases

A Working Definition of CRT by Dr. Daniel Solorzano | Saint Mary's College

Five Tenets of Critical Race Theory in Education - Sources

• The Centrality and Intersectionality of Race and Racism
• Challenge to Dominant Ideology
• Commitment to Social Justice
• Experiential Knowledge and Counterstorytelling
• Interdisciplinary Perspectives
• Kimberle Crenshaw, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics."
• Kimberle Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color"
• Gillborn, David, and Laurence Parker. "Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and the Primacy of Racism: Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in Education." Qualitative Inquiry 21, no. 3 (2015): 277-87.

• Anthony E. Cook, "The Spiritual Movement towards Justice"

• Bernal, Dolores Delgado. "Critical Race Theory, Latino Critical Theory, and Critical Raced-Gendered Epistemologies: Recognizing Students of Color as Holders and Creators of Knowledge." Qualitative Inquiry 8, no. 1 (2002): 105-26. For too long, the histories, experiences, cultures, and languages of students of color have been devalued, misinterpreted, or omitted within formal educational settings. In this article, the author uses critical race theory (CRT) and Latina/Latino critical theory (LatCrit) to demonstrate how critical raced-gendered epistemologies recognize students of color as holders and creators of knowledge. In doing so, she discusses how CRT and LatCrit provide an appropriate lens for qualitative research in the field of education. She then compares and contrasts the experiences of Chicana/Chicano students through a Eurocentric and a critical raced-gendered epistemological perspective and demonstrates that each perspective holds vastly different views of what counts as knowledge, specifically regarding language, culture, and commitment to communities. She then offers implications of critical raced-gendered epistemologies for both research and practice and concludes by discussing some of the critiques of the use of these epistemologies in educational research.
• Solórzano, Daniel G, and Tara J Yosso. "Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research." Qualitative Inquiry 8, no. 1 (2002): 23-44. This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subordination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts epistemologies of people of color. Although social scientists tell stories under the guise of “objective” research, these stories actually uphold deficit, racialized notions about people of color. For the authors, a critical race methodology provides a tool to “counter” deficit storytelling. Specifically, a critical race methodology offers space to conduct and present research grounded in the experiences and knowledge of people of color. As they describe how they compose counter-stories, the authors discuss how the stories can be used as theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and work toward social justice.
• Richard Delgado, "Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative"

• Richard Delgado, "Imperial Scholar: Reflections On a Review of Civil Rights Literature"

Articles and Journals

• Past and Current DU HED Scholars
• Freely Available Journals
• Duran, Lynda. “The Authenticity Trap: A Critical Race Interrogation.” About campus 27, no. 4 (2022): 13–17.

Several HED Alumni (Chayla Haynes, Meseret Hailu, and Saran Stewart) recently edited a special issue in the  International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education  ( Volume 32, 2019 - Issue 9 ) titled:  Black Deprivation, Black Resistance, and Black Liberation: the influence of #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) on higher education .  Also appearing in this edited volume are MCE alums Myntha Anthym (RMS) and Molly Sarubbi (HED) and Professor Frank Tuitt (HED).  This special issue can be accessed  here  and include the following articles:

• Anthym, Myntha, and Franklin Tuitt. "When the Levees Break: The Cost of Vicarious Trauma, Microaggressions and Emotional Labor for Black Administrators and Faculty Engaging in Race Work at Traditionally White Institutions." International Journal of Qualit The purpose of this article is to offer insight to administrators and human resource professionals at Traditionally White Institutions (TWIs) about developing action plans that provide meaningful support to Black administrators and faculty who are coping with racial trauma. Operationalizing tenets of Critical Race Methodology (CRM), the counter-narratives presented here are drawn from 15 years of unpublished professional and personal communication created by an individual Black faculty and administrator. The lectures, conference presentations, commencement addresses and other ephemera trace the development of battlements and emotional battle scars over the early years of one scholar-activist’s career at TWIs. The calamitous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is considered in this context both as metaphor and collective psychic wound. As such, it illuminates other instances of vicarious trauma, foreshadows the Movement for Black Lives, and provides a devastating illustration of administrative unpreparedness. Revealing the ramifications of racial trauma can serve to help others who suffer to feel less alone and can provide stakeholders in higher education with valuable knowledge for the sake not only of recruitment and retention, but institutional transformation.
• Haynes, Chayla, and Kevin J Bazner. "A Message for Faculty from the Present-day Movement for Black Lives." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 32, no. 9 (2019): 1146-161. The present-day movement for Black lives calls attention to the antiblackness that is supported and reinforced in White America. Antiblackness ostensibly contextualizes what it means to Learn While Black at predominantly White institutions. This article presents a content analysis of the demands that pertain to faculty and faculty work Black students submitted to institutional leaders in the aftermath of Ferguson and the campus rebellion led by Concerned Student 1950 at the University of Missouri. Study findings point to the classroom as a pedagogical site of Black Liberation; that is, interrogating Whiteness. This article concludes with recommendations to help faculty, especially White faculty, in interrogating whiteness and advancing Black Liberation in higher education.
• Hailu, Meseret F, and Molly Sarubbi. "Student Resistance Movements in Higher Education: An Analysis of the Depiction of Black Lives Matter Student Protests in News Media." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 32, no. 9 (2019): 1108-12 Popular media shapes societal perceptions and discourse. The growing use of news media in higher education practices (outreach, admissions, and campus communication) have heightened the need for institutional leadership to not only understand the general impact of popular media but also to comprehend students’ representation, as well as the acquisition and dissemination of media content. In this study, authors present a media content analysis of newspaper coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the well-known periodical, the Chronicle of Higher Education. Ultimately, this study demonstrates (1) organizational leadership can be influenced and disrupted to promote racial justice and (2) the discursive treatment of the BLM in popular media and, and by extension, in the United States’ public imagination. Overall, this study suggests that in situations where institutional policies perpetuate racial inequity, BLM student movements have the capacity to complicate existing discourse about Blackness in higher education and catalyze substantial social change.
• Stewart, Saran, and Chayla Haynes. "Black Liberation Research: Qualitative Methodological Considerations." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 32, no. 9 (2019): 1183-189. This article provides an overview of critical qualitative considerations for Black Liberation Research. The methodological considerations focus on: (a) resistance research as paradigm, (b) researcher positionality, (c) naming Black deprivation as the problem of study, (d) situating Black Liberation as the aim of analysis, and (e) centering emotions as humanizing methods. Taken together, the articles in this special issue provide an example of how Black Liberation Research can support the #BLM movement and simultaneously seek to disrupt Black deprivation in the academy.
• Maria C. Malagon; Lindsay Perez Huber; Veronica N. Velez, "Our Experiences, Our Methods: Using Grounded Theory to Inform a Critical Race Theory Methodology," Seattle Journal for Social Justice 8, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2009): 253-272 As CRT scholars, we build from these four sources and argue that our cultural intuition informs not only data collection and analysis, but also the entire research process itself--from the questions we ask and the methodologies we employ, to the ways we articulate our findings in the writing process. ... By working to situate grounded theory within a critical race framework, we strengthen the interdisciplinary, methodological toolbox for qualitative critical race research, which seeks to build theory from the lived experiences of the researchers' informants and research collaborators. ... Background Grounded theory is primarily a methodological strategy developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss to generate theory from real life experience. ... Using a CRT lens helps move toward this goal, as we move our scholarship forward in a social context where racism maintains permanence and expose the many ways that racism manifests in the daily experiences of People of Color. ... While there are many approaches researchers can take, we briefly discuss our epistemological stance--a Chicana feminist epistemology--and specifically, how we can utilize our own cultural intuition in a critical race-grounded theory methodology.
• Matias, Cheryl E, and Daniel D Liou. "Tending to the Heart of Communities of Color: Towards Critical Race Teacher Activism." Urban Education 50, no. 5 (2015): 601-25. Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies assert colorblindness flourishes when most urban teachers who are White feel emotionally uncomfortable to engage in dynamics of race in the classroom. Colorblind ideology distorts urban teaching because it presumes (a) many White teachers are missionaries trained to save and (b) urban schools are pathological deficits that need to be saved. We propose a community of color epistemological approach that draws from emotional strengths found inside urban communities of color and supports the pedagogical and emotional investment needed to (a) operate critical race activism inside urban classrooms and (b) disrupt the normalcy of Whiteness in schools. We present a counterstory of how one urban teacher engaged in critical race teacher activism.
• Matias, Cheryl E, and Peter M Newlove. "The Illusion of Freedom: Tyranny, Whiteness, and the State of US Society." Equity & Excellence in Education 50, no. 3 (2017): 316-30. Abstract: Despite boasting its self-characterization as the “land of the free,” US American “freedom” is, at times, tainted with historical amnesia, hypocrisy, and inhumanity. This article examines today's socio-political climate by drawing from de Tocqueville's (2003) prediction that American democracy is a tyranny of the majority. Because tyranny relies on gaslighting and dismissing facts, no definitive portraiture of freedom is made; therefore, the tyrannized wonder whether they are truly living within freedom or, instead, in collective submission to its illusion. This article examines this phenomenon in order to investigate how whiteness (re)produces conditions of disillusionment and tyranny. By employing hermeneutics of whiteness as a methodology, the authors investigate how whiteness infiltrates thoughts/epistemology, speech/rhetoric, emotions/emotionality, and nationalistic symbols/semiotics. The authors analyze implications for US education and offer a plea for all to consider.
• Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis The Journal of Critical Thought & Praxis is a peer-reviewed on-line journal committed to providing a space for critical and progressive scholarship, practice, and activism. Our mission is to create an accessible and inter/transdisciplinary journal that supports awareness and challenges individuals to move towards advocacy. The journal brings together emerging scholars, educators, and activists with the intention of providing recognition to the work of the social justice community. JCTP explores, challenges, and pushes the boundaries within the intersections of identity in a multicultural society, while providing all authors with developmental feedback.
• The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy "The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy is committed to publishing original articles that propose innovative understandings and applications of critical pedagogy. The journal covers a wide range of perspectives in areas such as: Diversity, popular culture,media literacy, critical praxis, experimental methodologies"
• Understanding and Dismantling Privilege An interdisciplinary journal focusing on the intersectional aspects of privilege, bridging academia and practice, highlighting activism, and offering a forum for creative introspection on issues of inequity, power and privilege.
• International Journal of Multicultural Education International Journal of Multicultural Education (IJME) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal for scholars, practitioners, and students of multicultural education. Committed to promoting educational equity for all, cross-cultural understanding, and global awareness in all levels of education including leadership and policies, IJME publishes (1) reports of empirical research typically in qualitative research orientation (some special issues may publish quantiative studies); (2) literature-based conceptual articles that advance theories and scholarship of multicultural education; and (3) praxis articles that discuss successful multicultural education practices grounded on sound theories. We accept submissions of high quality from the global community.
• The Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity The Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (JCSCORE) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal launched in 2015 by the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), a production of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies at the University of Oklahoma Outreach. JCSCORE promotes an exchange of ideas that can transform lives, enhance learning, and improve human relations in higher education. It explores and examines interactions from interdisciplinary perspectives and reports on the status, needs, and direction of human relations studies affected by race, ethnicity and sovereignty in higher education policy, practice, and theory. JCSCORE accepts manuscripts on a rolling basis.
• Journal of Hispanic Higher Education The Journal of Hispanic Higher Education (JHHE) is a quarterly international journal devoted to the advancement of knowledge and understanding of issues at Hispanic-serving institutions. JHHE maintains a broad focus and accepts the highest quality scholarly, creative and practical articles that combine research with application, fostering the integration of theory and practice. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
• Equity & Excellence in Education Equity & Excellence in Education publishes research articles and scholarly essays that address issues of equity and social justice in education. We consider manuscripts that are theoretically rich and/or empirically grounded; draw on a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives and approaches ; and, advance our understanding of school systems, individual schools, classrooms, homes, communities, organizations, technologies, social spaces, processes, and practices attentive to different ways in which students from a range of social group backgrounds are served.
• Qualitative Inquiry Qualitative Inquiry (QI) provides an interdisciplinary forum for qualitative methodology and related issues in the human sciences. The journal publishes open-peer reviewed research articles that experiment with manuscript form and content, and focus on methodological issues raised by qualitative research rather than the content or results of the research. QI also addresses advances in specific methodological strategies or techniques.
• Race, Ethnicity and Education Race Ethnicity and Education is the leading peer-reviewed journal on racism and race inequality in education. The journal provides a focal point for international scholarship, research and debate by publishing original and challenging research that explores the dynamics of race, racism and ethnicity in education policy, theory and practice.
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Not all of the colleges and universities in this database have Critical Race Training. This list allows you to check. For those who do have such Critical Race Training, there are varying degrees of such programming, some mandatory, some not. For many schools, it’s a continuum of programming, such as “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and “implicit bias” training and programming, that does not easily fit into a Yes/No construct. We provide information from which you can assess the developments.

This is not a list of schools to avoid, it is a database to provide parents and students with information from which they can make informed decisions as to what is best.

CriticalRace.org is a resource for parents and students concerned about how Critical Race Theory, and implementation of Critical Race Training, impacts education. We have compiled the most comprehensive database to empower parents and students.

We have researched and documented Critical Race Training in close to 400 colleges and universities in the United States. The website explains Critical Race Theory itself and provides resources to learn more . Additionally, it allows users to look up the steps their school has taken to mandate Critical Race Training in different parts of the college experience, from changing academic codes of conduct to funding “equity” projects.

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