Republicans want to criminalize teaching students about racism. Here's why

Ricky L. Jones
Opinion contributor

Earlier this year, Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio and University of Louisville President Neeli Bendapudi decided to offer a college-level “Introduction to Black Studies” class to high schoolers. It’s been discussed for years but will now finally happen. For the first time, JCPS students will have the opportunity to engage in advanced intellectual engagement around this subject matter while also earning college credits.

A lot of people talk about diversity and anti-racism. Pollio and Bendapudi are actually doing something about it with the best tool available to them — education.

Sadly, if Republican Kentucky state Reps. Jennifer Decker, Joe Fischer and Matt Lockett have their way, this class and others like it will never happen. These legislators have pre-filed separate but almost identical bills that would prohibit the state’s public K-12 schools and colleges and universities from offering any curriculum or classroom discussions that seriously deal with race and racism.

K-12 schools found in violation would lose $5,000 a day in state funding. Colleges and universities would also suffer stiff penalties.

While sex and religion are mentioned in their bills, the real issue here is race. The Republicans' educational equivalent to Black Lives Matter is now “critical race theory” (CRT). They are demonizing it. Even though Fischer probably can’t intelligently discuss CRT, he specifically targeted it when opining in a press release, “Critical race theory is not based on facts or evidence but rather serves as a dangerous diversion from education priorities that are actually proven to eliminate disparities.”

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Of course, the centering on critical race theory is a canard and everything Fischer said is a lie. Informed scholars know CRT is a relatively new name for an old educational practice. We simply argue that discussions of race and racism should not be framed in elementary individualistic terms. In its most dangerous form, racism is indeed systemic. And yes, despite the claims of many Republicans (and some Democrats), America still suffers from systemic racism.

The rigorous study of history and society from more views than the mendacious Eurocentric triumphalism and American exceptionalism that dominate this country’s educational curricula since time immemorial is not diversionary or damaging. It is liberating, because it is more accurate and works toward real truth, justice, freedom and equality.

Contrary to the claims of many conservatives, educators who study and teach about race and racism are not trying to “indoctrinate” students with some malevolent liberal agenda. In reality, we are simply exposing our students to America’s truth — both the good and the bad, the light and the dark. We do not demand that our young people think like us. We do, however, demand that they THINK for themselves once armed with complete information. How is that bad?

And so U of L, which houses one of the nation’s oldest Black Studies departments, and JCPS, one of the nation’s largest school districts, are moving forward with the “Introduction to Black Studies” class.

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U of L’s Pan-African Studies department has offered the introductory class since 1973. Therefore, President Bendapudi’s request that I work on the U of L side made sense. I am happy to serve. Ten brave JCPS teachers (both Black and white) from across the district are partnering with me to teach the first course at their schools. They form quite a crew.

Two are graduates of historically Black universities (Clark-Atlanta and Fisk) with great legacies. “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” composer James Weldon Johnson attended Clark-Atlanta. Titanic intellectual W.E.B. DuBois was a Fisk alum. One white Kentucky native told the story of how she was pressured to participate in a “Ms. Confederacy” beauty pageant as a youngster. She didn’t. She went from that to now instructing this Black Studies course. Quite a journey.

One teacher is Black but grew up in affluence and was teased by his poorer Black peers as a child. Another is a jovial white fellow who was educated in New Mexico. Yet another is a JCPS educated white woman who hilariously recalls how she stayed in trouble as a student. She now wields impressive knowledge of the Black experience and, as Fisk graduate John Lewis instructed, is still making trouble — the good kind this time around. It is a fabulous group of educators.

But be clear, all these teachers and I will be considered criminals if Decker, Fischer and Lockett have their way. Our crime? Teaching legitimate knowledge to our students that will make them more informed students, good global citizens and better human beings.

We now live in the most multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural America ever. That demographic shift isn’t changing. As a result, many of our white brothers and sisters are very worried about losing what they see as their God-given place of dominance and are deploying myriad insidious measures to preserve it. This attack on education is one of them.    

Joe Gerth:Kentucky lawmaker's attack on critical race theory reeks of Scopes-era ignorance

Ricky Jones.
March 14, 2019

On June 11, 1963, Gov. George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in support of white supremacy. Fifty-eight years later, Reps. Decker, Fischer and Lockett are continuing that mission in a more veiled way. Even though they claim systemic racism and white supremacy don’t exist, they are reaffirming them by trying to stop educators in Kentucky from discussing these evils in substantive and honest ways.

It’s truly scary that people like them have political power. It’s even scarier that many other politicians and citizens support them. All people of good conscience should join us in resisting their attack on education — for our children’s sake.  

Ricky L. Jones is professor and chair of the Pan-African Studies department at the University of Louisville. He is also the host of iHeart Media’s award-winning “Ricky Jones Show.” His column appears bi-weekly in the Courier-Journal. Visit him at rickyljones.com.