Three years ago, Republicans were reluctant to take direct aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion. It just sounded too nice to oppose. Better, political strategists thought, to go after the toxic concepts and practices by a different name: critical race theory.

After years of public debate and controversy, a substantial share of the public understands the core ideas, be they labeled CRT, promoted as “social justice,” or implemented as DEI. And as policymakers ponder how to root out this ideology from higher education, it is important that they also revisit K-12 education for places where their policies failed to bear fruit because they didn’t use quite the right words.