Bari Weiss hosts a debate between David French and Christopher Rufo. They are arguing about state laws directed against Critical Race Theory. But they do not debate the same laws.
French argues against laws that would prevent a teacher from presenting Critical Race Theory. Rufo argues in favor of laws that would prevent a teacher from forcing students to adopt racialist tenets, whether those of CRT or others.
As each formulates it, I would support both French and Rufo. It boils down to what the laws actually say.
David French argues that it is illiberal to be passing laws about what can and cannot be taught in schools. Even if you find Christopher Rufo’s counter-arguments persuasive, I think that “ban the teaching of X” is a bad look for those of us fighting on behalf of liberal values.
I would prefer to approach this as a “freedom of conscience” issue. Just as students should be protected from religious indoctrination in public schools, they should be protected from having to subscribe to a particular racial doctrine.
Is it illiberal to ban the teaching of *creationism* in K-12? Why or why not?
1) Ultimately, some school board or legislature gets to make the call. And, they make those calls all of the time. Why else do they exist except to approve curriculums and school budgets?
2) CRT has about as much scientific evidence to support its primary claims as creationism does, which is to say…not much.
3) CRT is the philosophical basis for most of what is described as DEI and “anti-racism” education. You’re not going to be able to unbundle them.
4) Diversity programs (broadly defined) have zero evidence to support their effectiveness in solving the problems that they are trying to address.
Based on this, I see no issues whatsoever in banning CRT in K-12.
Maybe the schools should figure out the how to teach the 3Rs first and then get back to us once that has been accomplished?
Actually, schools do a pretty good job of teaching the 3Rs to students who are smart and motivated. Alas, they are a minority of students.
The argument against it is often grounded in separation of church and state, with creationism regarded as an essentially religious teaching. Since we don’t have ‘separation of politics and state,’ schools have more freedom to teach political ideologies. They can teach feminism progressivism, in older times, they could teach social conservatism. I think this is why a public school teaching even fairly gently critical material of Christianity is probably far more difficult than teaching overt collective racial guilt, even though non-Christians probably outnumber ultra-‘woke’ people in the US. Christians are also better organized on this issue than opponents of left-wing racialism (I hate using the term ‘woke’).
Meanwhile over in the blue states…
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Ending years-long and often divisive debate over ethnic studies coursework in California’s K-12 schools, the State Board of Education on Thursday unanimously approved a model curriculum…
But its lessons stand to become a flashpoint for debate again in the months ahead, as a bill to make a high school ethnic studies course a graduation requirement — believed to be the most far-reaching law of its kind nationally — makes its way through the Legislature.
Another focal point of debate was “critical race theory,” a lens to examine how race and racism are embedded in institutional and systemic inequities. Frequently attacked by former President Trump and misinterpreted as creating divisions among groups, critical race theory is seen by ethnic studies practitioners as ***inseparable from the field***, and the board recommended adding a definition to clear up misconceptions about it.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-18/ethnic-studies-finally-approved-california-schools
Notice it doesn’t occur to Kling to question the central government in a gigantic state requiring every school to teach CRT. He’s only stirred to question attempts in a few states to stop public schools (which are run by political subdivisions of the state, and chiefly funded by local taxpayers, who only theoretically control local school boards) from teaching this garbage.
No doubt Kling still thinks there are “non-woke progressives” somewhere who oppose this stuff.
As per the usual, the libertarians will outsource all of the heavy political lifting on this topic to the conservatives.
The libertarians will enjoy the anti-CRT outcome that the conservatives procure (at least in the red states), but at the same time they get to maintain their moral purity by objecting to the various (democratic) means used to accomplish it. It is a natural win-win for them.
“If only we had a conscientious objector opt out clause to these CRT classes…”
“If only we had school choice…”
These aren’t viable options in the current CRT debate and they never will be unless you’re living in the libertarian utopia.
Is new law necessary? Civil Rights Act Title VI:
No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
Also:
https://www.aei.org/education/critical-race-theory-pedagogy-already-illegal-montana-attorney-general-holds/
So, should we just wait around for the SCOTUS to rule on this or should we be more proactive? Seems reasonable to do both at the same time.
BTW – the SCOTUS has a somewhat mixed track record in enforcing that clause from the 1964 CRA, including allowing institutional racism against certain high achieving minorities.
***
The consequence of considering Asian-Americans unfavored minorities is clear: less qualified individuals from other social groups get their shot before Asian-Americans with higher qualifications do. According to Students for Fair Admissions’ analysis, a black applicant to Harvard in the 40th academic percentile of all applicants has a higher chance of admission than an Asian-American in the 90th academic percentile. Asians in the 90th academic percentile are unfavored compared with Hispanics in the 60th percentile and whites in the 80th percentile as well.
https://www.city-journal.org/harvard-race-conscious-admissions-policy
How should disputes over what public schools teach or don’t teach be resolved? Kling saws laws shouldn’t be used to resolve these disputes. That seems unreasonable. The legal system is society’s primary mechanism of resolving disputes.
Kling expresses his view that, “students should be protected from religious indoctrination in public schools”. I presume this crowd is overwhelmingly non-religious, but obviously, many people disagree and absolutely want their children taught religion. I believe the non-religious side won that issue with legal and political battles, not with “freedom of conscience”. BTW, David French opposes the forced secularization of schools.
The word choice “indoctrination” is a pejorative assigned to things you oppose being taught. Kling says “religious indoctrination” because he doesn’t want religion that taught in schools, but the application of that word is arbitrary.
On politically charged issues of race: Many left wing groups are fighting for legal leverage to push things like CRT, Ibram X Kendi, and the 1619 Project in public schools. For example, read:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-set-to-push-critical-race-theory-on-u-s-schools/
I have kids in a public elementary school that has been pushing Ibram X Kendi and BLM ideology. Some parents are very angry, but they have no say, their opinions are deliberately suppressed.
Kling isn’t explicitly endorsing the tactics of the left here, but he seems to be turning a blind eye to aggressive lawfare tactics of the left and exclusively criticizing the right for doing anything legally to fight back. That seems unreasonable.
The underlying problem is the monopolization of indoctrination in the public school classrooms by teachers who are carefully screened by the university schools of education so that only ardent advocates of NEA dogma enter the profession. The only solution to the indoctrination issues and generally subpar performance of the public schools is to eliminate them completely and replace with funding for families to enroll their children in the schools that the parents deem most suitable for the child in question.
I would ask French (and Arnold) if it should be legal to teach students that black people are inferior to white people, not in an innate sense, but rather if schools teach that black culture is inherently prone to poverty and criminality, the school seeks to train black children to abandon their ‘blackness,’ and recognize and atone for all the harm ‘they’ have done to society through crime and burdening the welfare state, and that they deserve to be discriminated against by employers, landlords, etc. because, on average, their race has higher rates of crime or delinquency. Would banning such teaching in public schools be illiberal? Would it be illiberal to bar it under current civil rights law?
If not, I would salute the internal consistency, but if so, much of the racial material taught today (and perhaps soon enough, in nearly every school in the country) is already illegal, and to the extent that courts refuse to acknowledge it, new laws reifying this illegality are fine.
Some things taught under the banner of CRT of course don’t constitute discrimination and shouldn’t be banned, but I see no reason why the obviously discriminatory aspects of it shouldn’t. State legislators should be circumspect about it, but again, insasmuch as courts refuse to acknowledge that discrimination is indeed discrimination when white people or Asians are at the receiving end, new legislation may be the only way.
In his previous post, our deep-thinking host complained about the media environment being an “outrage machine,” as if there is nothing outside of cyberspace and the media to be outraged about (other than some foolish yahoos still caring more about their children’s future than whatever libertarian principle it is that requires open borders and completely free trade).
In this post, he says that the people who pay for the public schools, and send their children there, should have no right to prevent their kids from being taught racist pseudo-science if that’s what the educrats and teachers unions want to teach the.
That’s a good example of why, when I visit this site, I just glance at the post (unless it’s specifically on economics) and then skip down to the comments.
A local elementary teacher just got suspended because he won’t affirm the transgender identity of kindergarteners.
Thanks for absolutely nothing Arnold.
In that scenario there is an ideological dispute about transgender pronouns in public education. The issue is resolved through political combat. One side has more leverage and terminates employment of rivals and give positions of public employment and authority to ideological allies. They didn’t pass a new law regarding the dispute over pronouns, but this solution is illiberal, and based on political leverage and combat.
I completely agree with Kling in other posts, when he speaks of more libertarian, and lower-l liberal solutions, involving exit, moving school decisisions towards regular families, and virtual secession from public systems, where you can use your money elsewhere.
I don’t think Kling explicitly supports terminating employement of ideological rivals, but he is less eager in noticing and criticize it, then he is willing to criticize the loser of such a fight who tries to pass a law on the issue.
And why is Kling so willing to criticize the “loser” of a curriculum fight with the educational bureaucracy for going to the state legislature to try to override them? We are talking, after all, about the choice of a curriculum for government schools, in which libertarian principles (whatever they are) don’t really apply. Every curriculum decision in the pubic schools is inherently a political decision, whether made by a state legislature, a state education department, a local school board, or the federal government.
My impression from reading this blog over the last five years is that Kling is an authoritarian technocrat much more than any kind of consistent “libertarian.” He apparently thinks it preferable to live with the the rule of “experts” through the permanent bureaucracy, even when he strongly disagrees with particular decisions they make, than to allow the dominion of the establishment to be politically challenged through what he derides as “populism.” Thus, one of this blog’s main themes since the rise of Trump has been bitter lamentation over the (now apparently defeated) “populist” rebellion against America’s largely feckless and self-serving bureaucratic/corporate/academic/professional/journalistic ruling class. Kling keeps trying to dismiss this rebellion as an unfortunate consequence of the rise of social media, rather than as an understandable and predictable reaction to a ruling class that regards about half the country as internal enemies whose interests and concerns are entitled to no weight.
+1. Excellent comment.
Kling sides with the left-wing authoritarian technocrats against right-wing populists, but Kling isn’t an authoritarian technocrat himself. Why? Maybe the left wing authoritarian technocrats that win power and run the universities and corporations are a more exciting group to socialize and debated amongst than the right wing populist losers.
Thanks for the compliment. I guess we disagree on whether Kling can be classified as an authoritarian technocrat. IMHO, Kling is a kind of authoritarian technocrat, since he seems to regard certain government policies – particularly unlimited immigration and unlimited international commerce – as absolute moral imperatives, regardless of what the public thinks of his favored policies and regardless of the effect of those policies on the existing society, and even though the contrary policies (limiting immigration and free trade) do not violate anyone’s individual constitutional rights.
I agree very much that there’s a social snobbery element to the libertarian preference for their supposed leftwing opponents over their potential conservative/”populist” allies.
@djf I was going to disagree with you until I found this.
“I want to put my own positions out there, for the record.”
“On college admissions, as you know, my position is that they should be done by lottery.”
“On immigration, my position is that we should have a more open front door and a less open back door.”
https://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/race-and-immigration/
@Kurt B – Certainly, I’m not saying that anyone who opposes some popular, legislatively-enacted government policy is an authoritarian. I am basically in Kling’s camp, for example, when it comes to government intervention in housing finance. What bothers me about Kling’s position on immigration and trade is that he seems to think his position should prevail regardless of the consequences for the general public and for the future of America as a society, and that argument to the public on these issues should be “shut up, haters.” There seems to be some sort of “moral” principle involved for him, but he does not articulate it very well. Even when he’s closer to the “populist” side than the establishment (as in the CRT debate), he shrinks from any political challenge to the establishment. That’s enough for me to consider him an authoritarian.
I’ve read Kling for many years. Bryan Caplan was Kling’s former coblogger who is the open border zealout and evangelist.
In the past Kling was turned off by Caplan’s immigration evangelism and was sympathetic to restrictionist arguments. Then the populist immigration restrictionist crowd repulsed him more, he lost patience for the restrictionist arguments, and Kling came to favor larger levels of immigration. He’s allowed to do that and have his own opinion. That doesn’t make him authoritarian. Kling also didn’t advocate the dirty tricks employed to push immigration against strong voter opposition, which is whether other pundits cross into a morally gray area.
Kurt B, What’s wrong with school admission by lottery? I prefer open admission, but I prefer Kling’s idea over the status quo.
djf, advocating a policy and not thinking through the consequences is bad policy but it isn’t authoritarian. There are dictionary defintions, but my quick + casual definition of an authoritarian is simply someone who tries to take more authority than they deserve. That’s not Kling.
My criticism is that Kling is often unreasonable in his criticisms and praise, like on this CRT issue. It really seems unreasonable to level these libertarian-minded criticisms at the right, when the right really is on the libertarian side of this issue. School choice is basically a partisan right issue in today’s landscape, and it seems a more reasonable libertarian minded pundit would recognize that.
@Niko+Davor,
I acknowledge that opposing a policy of a democratic government (which I frequently do, and everyone does from time to time) does not make a person an authoritarian. But, after reading this blog for years, it is evident to me that Kling attaches no value and no weight to the factor of democratic self-government – and, beyond that, no weight and no value to the real world interests of the bulk of the population, when those conflict with his abstract “libertarian” principles. This is what I take away from his consistent denigration of “voice.”
I agree that, a few years ago, Kling was more reasonable on immigration, but that reasonableness has long since disappeared, replaced by periodic whining that the Republicans have thrown the tiny libertarian voting block “under the bus” (to use the current cliche). That the Republicans may have greater need for the votes of non-libertarian middle class voters does not seem to occur to him.
Djf,
I don’t think that’s it.
Kling loves exit and hates voice. In his ideal world we would just exit whatever we didn’t like. I mean I’d like that to.
But there are lots of situations that people can’t pragmatically exit from. Sometimes voice is all they have. I’d note to that ability to exit is a kind of “privilege”. People with fuck you money can do it, but by definition most people don’t have fuck toy money. It’s notable that Trump got away with acting as he did because he had fuck you money.
Voice is grubby though. You have to win power struggles and make compromises. Such things are often “unprincipled” and involve who/whom horse trading.
This isn’t new. There were philosophies in Ancient Rome which amounted to “ignore all that politics stuff and get on with your life”. Problem was every once in awhile somebody came along and added you to the proscription list anyway because they wanted to confiscate your estate. When that happened, who would stick up for you and lend their voice?
“Kling loves exit and hates voice.”
I love exit too (e.g. school choice) and much prefer it over the often bundled package of voice.
However, within the blue states, unbundling choices to optimize exit locally is just not a viable approach. Voice > exit and you’d better get your coalition ready to engage at the polls (e.g. Prop 16 in CA).
At present, exit is expressed most effectively *across* state lines vs. locally. Move to a red state and then vote in line with those values.
Let the great ideological sorting process continue, but across state lines.
Kling has repeatedly and sincerely praised “exit” over “voice” and supports virtual secession from institutions. However, when push comes to shove, he pushes in the opposite direction, like we see here.
In the CRT battle that is the focus of this thread, the left is the political juggernaut, it knows it has the upper hand, it’s on the offense, and determined to crush the opposition. The right knows it is likely to lose a political fight and is desperate for libertarian compromises. A more principled advocate of “exit” and virtual secession would side with the right. Kling does not formally endorsing the left, but he’s turning a blind eye to the left and focusing negative criticism on the right.
Yes, asdf, we’re all familiar with Kling’s “exit over voice” mantra. As you aptly point out, that’s basically a fantasy, except maybe for the handful of people with “fuck you” money. As relevant to the CRT-in-schools debate, school choice is basically a political non-starter (even with Republican voters), school choice would not magically make an alternative to public schools available to every kid whose parents want it, and the state could always impose CRT as a curriculum requirement on private schools, anyway (to the extent private and parochial schools aren’t already teaching it on their own, as many are). And besides that, we all have to pay for public schools, and will be affected in the future by people who have been indoctrinated with it as high school students (even if they’re not our kids), so what’s wrong with the interested public taking political action to stop the schools from teaching this drek? I don’t think “politics is yucky, and political conservatives are really yucky” is much of answer, but that’s really all that Kling has.
“I think that ‘ban the teaching of X’is a bad look for those of us fighting on behalf of liberal values.”
So don’t bring a knife to a gunfight unless you look good doing it?
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Now teachers are pushing back. On Saturday, groups in more than 22 cities are organizing rallies and other events to protest legislative efforts to restrict the scope of such conversations.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Teachers Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, said the organization is weighing legal action against laws restricting how racism and history are taught.
“And we’ll defend any teachers brought up on charges,” she said.
The National Education Association is supporting the effort.
Organizers of Saturday’s Day of Action said the goal isn’t to declare the country racist, but to push back against the pro-white, nationalistic history education that’s long dominated classrooms, in large part thanks to the legacy of school segregation. Many of the textbooks still used today were influenced by pro-Confederate groups.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/education/2021/06/11/critical-race-theory-bills-nationwide-teacher-protests/7620025002/