The debate over critical race theory in K–12 schools took center stage in 2021 during the Virginia gubernatorial election. Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin heavily criticized CRT during his campaign, while Democrat Terry McAuliffe insisted Youngkin was employing a “racist dog whistle” and that CRT had “never been taught” in Virginia’s public schools. The New York Times characterized CRT as an “an academic body of thought about the effects of systemic racism that has galvanized conservatives” and reported that “it is generally not introduced until college and is not part of classroom teaching in Virginia,” despite the fact that the phrase “critical race theory” appeared multiple times on Virginia’s Department of Education website. Youngkin narrowly defeated McAuliffe in a state Biden had carried by 10 points two years prior. His first executive order as governor sought to end the use of CRT and other “inherently divisive concepts” in Virginia’s K–12 public schools.
Christopher Rufo, who directs a Manhattan Institute initiative combating CRT, credited Youngkin’s win to his stance against CRT, saying that “Youngkin made critical race theory the closing argument to his campaign and dominated in blue Virginia.” The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, has called the conservative movement against CRT a “false narrative” generating “manufactured outrage” that’s being pushed by a “vocal minority” of right-wing, “anti-woke” culture warriors. Similarly, commentary from the Brookings Institution describes CRT as a “bogeyman for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present” and asserts that the movement against it is fueled by “gross exaggerations.” Yascha Mounk, however, opined in The Atlantic that “it is impossible to win elections by telling voters that their concerns are imaginary.”
Since that election, this culture war debate has intensified. During the 2024 presidential election, the GOP platform promised that Republicans would “defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination of our children using Federal Taxpayer Dollars.” It remains to be seen whether—and if so, how—a second Trump administration will follow through on that pledge. But many states have acted on their own. Currently, lawmakers in 44 states have pursued anti-CRT legislation, and 17 states have enacted such laws or policies. According to Brookings, only two of the bills that have passed explicitly mention critical race theory. The term has effectively become shorthand for criticisms that public education has become too “woke” across a range of issues, and serious attempts to adjudicate the culture wars in education will need to acknowledge this nuance.
Proponents of anti-CRT legislation argue that such lessons “guilt,” “shame,” and “blame” students because of their race. For example, Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, enacted in 2022, prohibits school instruction that teaches that an individual “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” for actions committed in the past by people who share their identity. Legislation in Tennessee forbids teaching that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.” A Missouri bill would ban schools from using curriculum that “identifies people or groups of people, entities, or institutions in the United States as inherently, immutably, or systemically sexist, racist, biased, privileged, or oppressed.”
Clearly, tensions run high when it comes to CRT and education. But to what extent are political attitudes about CRT, on both the right and the left, driven by anecdotes and perception, and to what extent are they grounded in fact?
