Freedom of speech and thought — has long been a key element of the American idea. This is despite all the ways in which we have failed to live up to our self-image, above all the vast injustices that sprang from the original sin of slavery,
Everyone knows about the Big Lie, the refusal by a large majority of Republicans to accept the legitimacy of a lost election. But there are many other areas in which freedom is not just under assault but in retreat.
As a former teacher, the attack on education is one the most egregious.
Republicans have denouncing the teaching of CRT that is critical race theory.
Most voters have no idea what that CRT is and it isn’t actually being taught in public schools. These denunciations of C.R.T. are basically a cover for a much bigger agenda: an attempt to stop schools from teaching anything that makes right-wingers uncomfortable.
For example, a Florida Senate proposed legislation seeks to restrict discussions that would make workers and students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.”
The bill cites as its two prime examples of things that must not happen in schools “denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of critical race theory”.
Teaching anything that causes “discomfort” among students and their parents could not be limited to teaching about race relations. So the invasion of Iraq — or how we got involved in Vietnam could makes them uncomfortable.
Also, most high schools do teach the theory of evolution, but leading Republican politicians are either evasive or actively deny the scientific consensus, presumably reflecting the G.O.P. base’s discomfort with the concept.
Oh, and given the growing emergence of anti-vaccination as a badge of conservative allegiance, how long before basic epidemiology — maybe even the germ theory of disease — gets the critical race theory treatment?
The campaign against critical race theory is almost certainly the start of an attempt to subject education in general to rule by the right-wing thought police, which will have dire effects far beyond the specific topic of racism.
State-sponsored vigilantes could rise if Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, proposed “Stop Woke Act” that would empower parents to sue school districts they claim teach critical race theory — and collect lawyer fees, a setup modeled on the bounties under Texas’ new anti-abortion law.
There has there been no point over the past five years when warnings about right-wing extremism have proved overblown. This outrage should be stopped.
Sources: New York Times and https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article257437257.html#storylink=cpy
