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By ROBIN SMITH February21, 2022 in Education
The state is taking action to preserve and restore good higher education principles.
Does Critical Race Theory actually discriminate? Yes, it does. And according to one “expert,” in order to eliminate racism, more discrimination is needed.
This mindset is attributed to Ibram Xolani Kendi, born Ibram Henry Rogers, a renowned anti-racist activist, author, professor, and critical race theorist. In his 2019 book, How To Be an Antiracist, Kendi declares: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” That might be the mission statement of CRT.
The Kendis of the current times would have us divide along lines of whether you are racist or racist against the racists. If you are a part of the “privileged,” then you are automatically in the first category as deemed by academia, the public, and the government.
Thanks to groups of concerned parents holding educrats accountable for curricula content, high schools are one by one being rid of this divisive and dangerous CRT. Now we must look at higher education, where parents are spending tens of thousands of dollars, students are racking up millions in debt annually, and taxpayers are subsidizing tuition. These places of training for our future leaders are also being infiltrated and corrupted by the disunity and discrimination of this theory.
There’s a new industry of consultants, department heads, and altered curriculum to replace general education requirements with activism that teaches Professor Kendi’s way of thinking — to cure racism, more discrimination is needed. Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are being violated in the name of wokeness.
In Title IV, the U.S. attorney general addresses equal protections based on race, color, national origin, sex, and religion in public schools and institutions of higher education. Title VI specifically prohibits discrimination for receiving federal funds based on race, color, and national origin within educational institutions. It is a Civil Rights violation to discriminate by treating any race, color, national origin, ethnicity, or religion as superior or inferior in educational institutions. Equality is the foundation that makes these issues constitutional as well as moral.
What are states doing about CRT in higher education classrooms and on our university campuses? Sadly, they’re funding it with money that taxpayers lawfully remit for their tax responsibilities. Many see the problem, yet few seem bold enough to speak — that is, unless you’re in Tennessee, where research is being released that captures the extent of CRT in higher education.
The Volunteer State has already put a law, Public Chapter 493, in place for K-12 education, prohibiting the divisive concepts and content that assign inherently oppressive traits to one race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people. Tennessee is now also working to address activist curriculum in higher education with two pieces of legislation, HB 2417/SB 2283 and HB 2670/SB 2290, which take two important approaches.
The first, HB 2417/SB 2283, employs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to which universities must already comply, to embed the anti-discrimination federal law in state code. Universities will develop processes under the oversight and review of the Tennessee General Assembly that investigates and remedies these alleged or actual violations — all discrimination, not just that deemed necessary by activists — at the state level. Non-student scholastic funding could possibly be withheld for noncompliance. Currently victims can only file a complaint federally either with the U.S. Department of Education or in federal court.
The second legislative proposal, HB 2670/SB 2290, protects all speech and protects from adverse treatment if divisive ideology and concepts, as defined in the bill, are not espoused, embraced, or endorsed by either a student or employee. Each public institution will be required to survey students and employees biennially and publish those results for accountability to parents and taxpayers.
Soon in Tennessee, discrimination, even that approved by activists and some faculty, will be illegal. All speech will be protected and not compelled, and all employees and students will be protected from adverse treatment on the campuses of public institutions of higher education. This is America at its best again: Civil Rights protections from discrimination and constitutional protections of speech. Tennessee seems to get it.
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~~Reprinted with permission. See the original article here and leave some comments!
