Critical Race Fragility

The critical race theorists are feeling the heat. Over the past decade, they have had remarkable success in perpetuating the concepts of systemic racism, unconscious bias, white privilege, and white fragility in American institutions, beginning with universities and moving on to schools, government agencies, and multinational corporations. Their campaign began mostly without opposition, as most conservatives were either ignorant of what was happening or dismissed it as a campus fad.

That changed last year. The intellectual movements around the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, Quillette magazine, and the 1776 Unites coalition of dissident black scholars had laid down a theoretical case against critical race theory (CRT). President Trump elevated the debate into the mainstream, denouncing CRT by name at the National Archives, signing an executive order banning CRT-based training programs from the federal government, and sparring on the topic during a televised presidential debate. Since then, investigative journalists, including me, have reported on the negative impact of CRT in government, schools, and corporations; states such as New Hampshire, Arkansas, Iowa, West Virginia, and Oklahoma have introduced legislation seeking to ban CRT programs that promote the concepts of race essentialism, collective guilt, and race-based harassment in public institutions.

This shift in momentum against the new racial orthodoxy, which has now grown beyond America’s borders to England, France, Italy, Hungary, and Brazil, has rattled the American Left. Their first argument against this change is that conservatives are using state power to “cancel wokeness.” New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently followed this line, attacking my work “leading the conservative charge against critical race theory,” declaring that the Right wants to ban critical race theory because it is afraid to debate it. This is false, of course. For more than a year, prominent black intellectuals, including John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Wilfred Reilly, and Coleman Hughes have challenged the critical race theorists to debate—and none has accepted. After Goldberg published her column, I called her bluff even further, challenging to “debate any prominent critical race theorist on the floor of the New York Times.” Predictably, none responded, catching the New York Times in a fib and further exposing the critical race theorists’ refusal to submit their ideas to public scrutiny.

The second line of attack, advanced by Goldberg and Acadia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, is that the attempt to regulate critical race theory-based programs is an “attack on free speech.” Goldberg and Sachs are attempting to reclaim the mantle of free speech, but on closer inspection, their case is legally and morally groundless. First, as legal writer Hans Bader points out, the Supreme Court has ruled that states and public schools have the ability to control curricular speech without violating free speech. Furthermore, under the Fourteenth Amendment, states and school districts have an obligation to prevent the creation of a learning environment that promotes hostility toward a certain race or sex. The courts have repeatedly ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment outweighs and limits the First Amendment when it comes to government entities adopting policies and programs that perpetuate racial stereotyping, discrimination, and harassment. Despite Sachs’s hyperventilation about threats to academia (i.e., the public-employment program for new racialist ideology), many legislatures have explicitly allowed the teaching of CRT in university classrooms; it is only forbidden to turn these principles into compelled speech, employee-indoctrination programs, and official state curricula for primary and secondary school students.

By Christopher F. Rufo

Read Full Article on City-Journal.org

The Thinking Conservative
The Thinking Conservativehttps://www.thethinkingconservative.com/
The goal of THE THINKING CONSERVATIVE is to help us educate ourselves on conservative topics of importance to our freedom and our pursuit of happiness. We do this by sharing conservative opinions on all kinds of subjects, from all types of people, and all kinds of media, in a way that will challenge our perceptions and help us to make educated choices.

Columns

DOGE and Musk Recover Deleted Computer Files

Elon Musk and his “Geek Squad” discovered an entire terabyte of data was deleted from government servers from the office of the “Institute of Peace”.

A Simple Question

What is a woman? Anyone with an IQ above room temperature can answer the question. Everyone, that is, except Democrats.

Democrats Tesla Takedown is a Proven Astro Turf Movement

Elon Musk and other journalistic leaders like Joe Rogan have been asking the critical question, “Who is behind the organization of these Tesla protests?”

Can Ramaphosa and Trump Come to Terms?

Whether South Africa can quell the hostility emanating from Washington, without compromising on its national priorities, is a formidable test for a country

Maddened Europe

Viable prospects for peaceful settlement of conflict between Moscow and Kyiv exist, but Europe obsesses over threat of incursion onto European territory.

News

US Immigration Services Drops 3rd Gender Option

US immigration services agency officially updated policy to recognize only two biological sexes—male and female—for all immigration-related doc and benefit requests.

Africa at Crossroads After $13 Billion US Aid Cut, Say Analysts

African countries reacted with shock when the U.S. government recently cut $13 billion in financial assistance.

Trump Admin Ordered to Restore Legal Aid for Unaccompanied Minors

Judge in CA ordered Trump admin to restore funding for nonprofits providing legal services to unaccompanied illegal immigrant children who entered US.

Val Kilmer, Star of ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Batman,’ Dies at 65

Actor Val Kilmer, best known for his roles in movies “Top Gun,” “The Doors,” and “Batman Forever,” died on April 1 at age 65, his daughter confirmed.

Princeton Says Trump Administration Has Suspended Dozens of Research Grants

Trump admin has suspended several dozen federally funded research grants to Princeton University as part of its investigation into campus anti-Semitism.

How Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Are Set to Reshape Global Trade

President Donald Trump is set to announce reciprocal tariffs for all nations starting April 2, the date he has dubbed “Liberation Day.”

4 Takeaways From April 1 Elections in Florida, Wisconsin

Voters in FL and WI went to the polls to decide races that could significantly impact the composition of the U.S. House of Reps and the Trump agenda.

Crawford Defeats Musk-Backed Rival to Preserve Liberal Majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court

Judge Susan Crawford, backed by in-state Democrats and supported by millions in out-of-state donations, won most expensive Supreme Court seat in state history.
spot_img

Related Articles

Popular Categories

MAGA Business Central