GOP Bills Would Ban Critical Race Theory in Wisconsin Schools
Legislation is similar to other Republican bills being pushed around the country.
Rufus King. File photo by Christopher Hillard.
Wisconsin Republicans have drafted bills that would limit how race and racism are taught in K-12 and University of Wisconsin System schools across the state.
The proposals follow a national trend of GOP legislators advancing bills on the state and national level that they say are aimed at protecting students from harmful and divisive lessons about racism. Opponents argue the proposals will have a chilling effect on important teaching about systemic racism in the United States.
School boards or private school operators that oversee teachers who violate those requirements would lose 10 percent of their state funding.
Speaking at a Capitol press conference on Thursday, one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Chuck Wichgers, R-Muskego, argued the proposal would protect children from discrimination in the classroom.
“Children should not face state-sanctioned or psychological distress in an educational environment based on immutable characteristics (like race),” Wichgers said.
The proposal also gives parents or guardians the power to bring a legal challenge against a school district or private school operator that violates the law and requires school boards to post online all curricula used in the school district.
Several supporters of the bills spoke at Thursday’s press conference, arguing they are necessary to provide safe classroom environments for children and young adults.
“As parents, we must protect our kids from the psychological distress in an educational environment which divides them into villains and victims,” said Scarlett Johnson, a Hispanic parent in the Mequon-Thiensville School District who has previously been involved in advocacy about race education in Wisconsin.
However, Angela Harris, who is part of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association’s Black caucus, said the bills are an uninformed and harmful attempt by lawmakers to involve themselves in the education system.
“This is just another attempt to silence the truth rooted in white supremacy and to perpetuate the white dominant narrative as well as white comfort,” Harris said via email. “There are no educators that we are aware of (in) K-12 that are teaching that any sex or race is inherently superior than any other race.”
“This legislation strips away a founding principle in Wisconsin education — that local school boards, closest to and elected by their communities, are best positioned to determine and approve the curriculum necessary to enable students who graduate from their schools to be critical thinkers, college and career ready,” Stanford Taylor said in a prepared statement.
Two other bills unveiled Thursday include the same race-related teaching and disclosure requirements for the University of Wisconsin System, state technical colleges, and local and state governments that provide training for workers.
A spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin System said the system is reviewing the bill that would limit its instructors.
The three new Wisconsin bills and similar measures across the country are sometimes characterized as cracking down on critical race theory, the study of how racism functions in social institutions like the legal system, housing, health care and education.
Critics of critical race theory argue it encourages harmful stereotypes, while proponents say it helps students understand and examine how racism has and does hurt communities in the past and present.
Discussions of race in the classroom and other education settings, like workplace anti-discrimination training sessions, gained substantial national attention last year when former President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning federal contractors from conducting racial sensitivity trainings. President Joe Biden rescinded the order shortly after taking office
Listen to the WPR report here.
Republican Bills Would Limit How Race, Racism Are Taught In Wisconsin was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
It is telling that a right-leaning think tank in Washington has a goal to make “critical race theory” a toxic phrase. Not on the merits (or lack thereof) but to creat simple, knee jerk, revulsion and opposition of the term.
i am so tired of the republicans and wonder why wisconsinites aren’t sick of them enought to vote them out of office. okay, so republicans don’t want to teach history when it may make some uncomfortable. we don’t want our children to really understand the trail of tears, ;the small pox blankets, jim crow and the realities of enslaving other humans. when it makes white kids uncomfortable then parents can get up in arms. we have ignored for too long what our black and native children have endured. don’t let the republicans perpetuate their fear and hate.
In depending on those think tanks to author right-wing racist messaging, the Wisconsin GOP demonstrates yet again it’s lack of originality. Goebbels would be ashamed of them.
The GOP should really admit that they are not protecting students from lessons about racism but they are protecting themselves from our finally acknowledging and shining a light on white supremacy and their part in maintaining it. We are at a turning point in our society of addressing systemic racism and the horrible impact it has had on millions of individuals and families. Stop ignoring the truth thinking it will go away. If this wasn’t so tragic, I would laugh at the lengths these individuals are willing to go in protecting the status quo.
Parents who like to argue with teachers about most anything will have fun with this. They can object to most anything and right wing organizations like WILL will threaten to litigate most anything on their behalf. Schools will be paralyzed with hearings and in many cases just give in to the agitators and not go court while watering down the curriculum. Belief in local control as a base principal for Republicans was tossed many years ago.
Of course the flunky RepubliKKKans in Madison would follow the neo-fascist agenda fed to them by their puppet masters! As a retired Social Studies teacher, I’ve followed this appalling campaign to deny our youth the true history of this country. Educators of conscience will reject this BS, no matter what the morons in Madison do.
Under one of the bills, teachers at public and independent charter schools in Wisconsin would be barred from teaching “that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex and that an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for acts committed in the past by other individuals of the same race or sex.”
It is interesting that this is what Republicans believe is Critical Race Theory. It is not. It is the message behind the teaching of American History for decades. Unlike the subtle implications behind the CRT legislation, it has been the “White” race deemed superior to all others.
What exactly are the Republicans trying to do with this legislation? It is pretty obvious to me, they are looking to drive another wedge between working whites and BIPOC. It is more of the same targeted fear mongering that has characterized US races relations for centuries. Republicans do not want their rural constituents to realize the extend of the devastation Republicans have wrought on working-class white American community in the name of protecting “traditional American values.” The only “values” being protected are those that enable a select elite–rooted in status, power, and wealth) will continue to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.