Critical Race Theory. Anti-racism. Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. Social or emotional learning. Call it what you will, says a noted legal scholar. The common threat, notes the scholar, is an obsessive focus on race.
According to Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson, “the fight against Critical Race Theory is nothing less than a battle for national survival.” As reported by The Carolina Journal, Jacobson made the “national survival” observation during a recent talk in which he explored the historical roots of CRT, its growing presence in academia and K-12 education, and most importantly, what to do to combat it.
Jacobson asked, in reference to CRT advocates:
If you wanted to rip this country apart, what would you do differently than what they are doing?
Great question. I often wonder what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who famously admonished a racially troubled America: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” would think about a radical racist philosophy that seeks to turn on its head everything he fought and eventually died for.
Jacobson continued, as transcribed by The Carolina Journal:
That’s why it’s a fight for national survival. [CRT] is setting people against each other based on race and based on skin color. It’s setting students against each other, students against teachers. It’s setting students against their country.
The noted legal scholar talked of his experiences at Harvard Law School in the early 1980s, when, he said, the push to begin identifying people “by ethnic and racial groups as opposed to individual” began to take hold. The more politically moderate students graduated and went into business law, Jacobson said, while the more radical students who studied critical legal theory went into academia.
And there we have it. The radical students of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s now proliferate the no-longer hallowed halls of academia. Let’s call them leftist elitists. These elitists then began to target— let’s call them useful idiots, everywhere from politicians to media types and left-wing pundits, to Hollywood, and sadly, even professional sports. Why?
Because the useful idiots are far more plentiful than the leftist elitists and have a greater ability to exploit and pander to far more— let’s call them willfully low-information voters. The low-information voters, of course, after becoming sufficiently programmed, dutifully (and mindlessly) line up in every election and vote for the “right” (far-left) candidates and support the “right” (so-called “progressive”) issues.
Jacobson said most of America was “asleep at the wheel” while the radical leftists began to develop CRT:
They began to develop theories over 30 years that have resulted in Critical Race Theory, while the rest of us were asleep at the wheel.
“It is truly astounding how deeply this highly racialized view of the world,” he said, that “this highly racialized view of academics, this highly racialized view of mandatory activism and mandatory training, has become, adding: “It’s not every place, and it’s called different things at different places, but it’s almost everywhere.”
Sobering thought. Yet, I get messages from parents on a fairly regular basis who are flabbergasted when CRT ideology begins to creep into their kids’ schools. Guess what? It’s past time to get involved, parents.
But, as Jacobson noted, “I can’t think of a single good thing that has been accomplished on the campuses from this obsession with race.”
I think everybody in this room is against racism. You want people to be treated equally. You want equal opportunity. What’s going on in campus is the opposite of that is.
It is stratifying people. It is teaching people that they can’t speak up for fear of being called racist, which can end your career, or the false accusation can end your career. And people are bullied into silence.
So what does Professor Jacobson suggest we do about it? How should CRT be fought in everyday life? The first thing, he suggests, is to shine a light on CRT wherever it is and whatever name it goes by.
“When people find out about it, there is pushback, the professor said. “And what frightens the people who are advocating this, who are funding this, is that the push back is multiracial, multi-ethnic, and cuts across party lines.”
And, counter to the demands we’ve seen from various irate parents at various school board meetings across the country — Loudoun County, Virginia, comes to mind — “the pressure should not be to fire somebody or ban something.” advised Jacobson.
The pressure should be to open up the campus. The pressure should be to create a campus atmosphere where alternative views can be heard without people being mobbed, without people being targeted. We need to create that culture of respect that does not exist on many campuses.
I appreciate Jacobson’s recommendation to pressure academic institutions to “create a campus atmosphere where alternative views can be heard,” but let’s be honest: the radical left is no longer going to allow that to happen. One need only look at any number of violent examples to prove the point. Most recently, of course, the histrionic leftist meltdown following the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
While Jacobson was spot-on with his observation that opponents of CRT and other radical-leftist indoctrination have been “bullied into silence,” I do believe, as has been the case with Loudoun County and several other schools systems, that continuing to call these people out for what they are — and most importantly for what they are attempting to do to America’s children — remains a critical component of fighting CRT and other destructive radicalism at every turn.
And it must be done in numbers; larger crowds have larger voices.
The left is well aware of that reality. We must be, as well.
Related on RedState:
Superintendent Proudly Declares His District Is Using Critical Race Theory in the Classroom
The Left’s Assault on ‘Racist’ Math Continues: DeSantis Rejects CRT-Riddled Textbooks
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