Amid a political battle in recent years over academic and administrative terms turned into right-wing buzzword acronyms — DEI, CRT, etc. — the locus of that fight has manifested itself one place above all: the classroom.
Education has been at the forefront of many voters’ minds over the past five years as the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered the state of schooling throughout the country. Many — and in some ways justifiably so — view these changes as negative.
The GOP and its allies, such as the education-focused right-wing network Moms for Liberty, have used this as a political opportunity to impose their history-revisionist and anti-intellectual agenda onto public education.
Among the most hardline and radical right-wingers — spearheaded by conservative activist Christopher Rufo — there is near constant bellyaching over the supposed brainwashing of children in public grade schools with critical race theory, an academic concept only taught in graduate programs at universities, which rightly asserts that racism is pervasive throughout American society.