Critical race theory undermines national unity and threatens to take the country “backward in time,” said Sen. Mike Lee.
The “dangerous” philosophy about systemic racial discrimination has infiltrated institutions, including schools and the military, and teaches a rejection of the country’s founding principles, the Utah Republican said Tuesday.
“Critical race theory is based on the premise that the United States is a fundamentally racist country and that American hallmarks such as the Constitution, property rights, color blindness and equal protection under the law are vestiges of white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalist oppression,” Lee wrote for Deseret News. “It categorizes people as either oppressors or victims based on skin color, making race the prism through which American life is viewed.”
VIRGINIA PARENTS DECRY ‘PERVERSE’ CRITICAL RACE THEORY
Critical race theory, which has come to represent a variety of concepts about race and the history of discrimination in the U.S., has led to parents of students protesting curricula in their school board meetings.
Republican-led legislatures have also considered or passed bills prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory and concepts adjacent to it, such as that a person is inherently racist by virtue of their racial identity, in public schools and state employee trainings.
Two Republican Wisconsin lawmakers, state Rep. Chuck Wichgers and state Sen. Andre Jacque, introduced a measure in June aimed at “prohibiting race and sex discrimination” and asserted that the concepts are being used “to redress the injustice of racism and sexism by employing racism and sexism, as well as promoting psychological distress in students based on these immutable characteristics.”
Lee acknowledged the U.S.’s troubled record on racial equality, but he noted that activists “are calling America fundamentally racist and the flag a symbol of hate and bigotry” rather than embracing its founding principles.
“The beauty of the American founding was the promise of a character-based meritocracy, in which no matter who you are and where you come from, you could have an ‘unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life,'” Lee wrote. “The promise was that through hard work, perseverance and personal responsibility, everyone could build a happy and productive life for themselves and their families.”
“Sadly, this is exactly what critical race theory seeks to destroy, and this toxic ideology is spreading like a cancer throughout our schools, politics, workplaces, universities and military,” he continued.
School officials, as well as some congressional Democrats and legal scholars, have disputed whether public schools are teaching children critical race theory, including one of its founding scholars, University of Alabama law professor Richard Delgado, who called it a “boogeyman.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It’s a name for everything they love to hate,” Delgado said in June. “It makes them feel things are slipping away and not in control anymore, that the country is changing.”
Democratic Wisconsin state Rep. LaKeshia Myers said Republican lawmakers in her state were trying to “bastardize” critical race theory “and frame it in a way that changes what critical race theory is.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Myers said. “They don’t even understand what critical race theory is.”
