Paranoia about critical race theory is today’s version of the Red Scare

Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021 | 2 a.m.

A recent story from Carson City illustrates how deluded some Americans have become amid the extremist right’s fear-mongering about critical race theory.

At issue was a proposal before the Carson City school board to approve a memorandum of understanding to offer a college-credit elective course to high school students in the district. The subject of the online class is American poetry from the 1850 to present, and it is taught by a Harvard University professor.

Sounds great, right? Allowing students from small-town Nevada to learn about some of the nation’s most influential poets — the likes of Langston Hughes, Marianne Moore, Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg — and earn college credit?

Well, not to two members of the school board and some in the audience. They didn’t like that it was offered through a partnership between Harvard University, Arizona State University and the National Education Equity Lab, a New York-based nonprofit that specializes in bringing higher education opportunities to high school students. The word “equity” in the nonprofit’s title set off alarms among the conspiracy-theorist opponents, who apparently saw it as some sort of code for critical race theory.

“I’m trying to make sure they’re not teaching critical race theory,” the board’s president, Joe Cacioppo, said before voting against the memorandum of understanding, as reported by the Nevada Appeal. Another board member, Richard Varner, joined him in voting in opposition.

The good news here is that the four other board members in attendance — Laurel Crossman, Stacie Wilke-McCulloch, Mike Walker and Donald Carine — did what was rational and responsible. They voted in favor of the memorandum of understanding, and it passed.

“With CRT that people have, the awareness, there are issues, I mean, you talk about Martin Luther King as early as kindergarten, and that’s something racially discussed but that doesn’t mean there’s critical race theory going on,” said Crossman, offering a voice of reason.

But on its way to passage, the matter drew a discussion showing that critical race theory has become a 21st-century version of the Red Scare in our society.

“Students do not need to be indoctrinated in K-12 schools,” one member of the audience said.

True. But they do need to be educated, and the poetry course provides an excellent opportunity for high school students to gain an inroad into college.

That’s the mission of the National Education Equity Lab, which facilitates opportunities for students in areas that are lightly represented in higher education to take college courses.

The “Equity” in the name refers to educational equity, as in trying to ensure students can share educational opportunities across all districts, no matter how small or isolated or well-funded their districts might be.

While the poetry course has nothing to do with critical race theory, the controversy highlights the misunderstandings about the theory. The folks who have been misled by the extremist right on critical race theory believe the point of the theory is to demonize white students for the sins of their predecessors and turn their classmates of color against them. In reality, the purpose of critical race theory is to enlighten students about systemic racism and how it has shaped the nation. It is about understanding how we arrived at this point in time and helping students to understand subtle ways discrimination — against many different groups — might appear in a society.

In Southern Nevada, fortunately, the Clark County School District has staunchly defended its current curriculum in response to attacks from parents who have falsely criticized it as liberal indoctrination. CCSD says it does not teach critical race theory, but it’s serving students well in resisting efforts to whitewash its curriculum.

But it’s sad that anyone in Nevada would be as misguided as those in Carson City who opposed the poetry course.

Offering a sanitized education to our children not only hurts them, but it hurts our entire society by extension.

Kids need to learn the facts, presented in a comprehensive and unflinching way. Only then will they understand the mistakes of our past and gain an understanding of how not to repeat them.