Virginia’s McAuliffe Is Dishonest & Deceptive On Critical Race Theory | RealClearPolicy
Appearing this weekend on CNN s State of the Union, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe charged that Republicans have made up K-12 disputes over Critical Race Theory (CRT) in order to divide voters. McAuliffe said, This is a made-up this is a Trump, Betsy DeVos, Glenn Youngkin plan to divide people, and really bothers me.
In a television interview last week, McAuliffe had previously said of Critical Race Theory, It s not taught in Virginia, it s never been taught in Virginia. And as I ve said this a lot: It s a dogwhistle. It s racial. It s division. But the controversy over Critical Race Theory is hardly made up, as McAuliffe alleges. Take developments in Virginia s Loudoun County, an affluent Washington suburb that s made plenty of national headlines with its CRT disputes.
In July, a freedom of information request revealed that Loudoun County Public Schools paid consultants at “The Equity Collaborative” for a raft of anti-racist trainings. Teachers were taught, in lessons that incorporated the Dismantling Racism Workbook, that good teachers don t profess color blindness,” “accept responsibility for their own racism,” and believe that “addressing one s Whiteness (e.g., white privilege) is crucial for effective teaching.”
Rather remarkably, school teachers were taught that “fostering independence and individual achievement” is a racist hallmark of “white individualism, as is the promotion of self-expression, individual thinking, personal choice.” The school system s “Action Plans to Combat Systemic Racism” recommends the book How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, which teaches that “there is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy” and that “only racists say they re not racist.”
Now, McAuliffe would presumably claim that such teachings have nothing to do with CRT. But this is where he s being dishonest and disingenuous. After all, while it s true that CRT is technically just a school of legal analysis, its own adherents would argue that it s much more and that the toxic dogmas on display in Loudoun are precisely what they have in mind.