Senator Josh Hawley will introduce a new bill to balance the promotion of Critical Race Theory in American schools.
The Missouri Senator told Tucker Carlson last week that “We’re a nation of liberators. It’s time to reclaim that and to teach our children who we are, who they are, and that’s why my bill would say, ‘Listen: If a school district gets federal money, you’ve got to teach the basic truth about the country, [such as] the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration, [and] the Pledge of Allegiance...These are the things, the documents, that express the ideals that unite us as Americans. You’ve got to replace the lies with the truth, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Specifics of the ‘Love America Act’ are not clear. Hawley is one of many Republicans, including Senator Tom Cotton and Texas gubernatorial challenger Allen West, to take a public stand against the philosophy.
“Republicans have expressed opposition to critical race theory, which holds that the U.S. is inherently racist and that skin color is used to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, saying that the philosophy relegates all white people to the role of oppressors and all people of color to that of victims,” reports the Washington Examiner.
Critical Race Theory was developed in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by a group of Ivy League law professors. This notably included Harvard’s Derrick Bell, Roberto Unger, Duncan Kennedy, and Morton Horwitz. The Federalist’s Kenny Xu wrote in June 2021 that “the main tenets of the philosophy included that justice is inherently subjective, the law is nothing but a political tool, and the system will only ever provide good outcomes for the wealthy and privileged. Their proposed solution was to overthrow Western liberal society.”
Critical Race Theory’s role in elementary education has become a point of political debate. Some Democrats regard teaching philosophy as an essential component of dealing with racial bias in America.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with CNN host Don Lemon, “Critical Race Theory is not taught in elementary school. It is barely taught in law schools, frankly, in the level that it should be taught. We know that Republicans have started to now use these laws curtailing critical race ‘curriculum’ that's not even being taught in the first place, as a proxy to saying we can’t teach anything about race in our schools beyond just some of the most minimal, minimal, minimal facts.”
Senator Hawley is unpopular among Democrats. Uproxx describes him as “one of the chief lawmakers accused of helping foment the failed insurrection of Jan. 6.”
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