Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on Friday scrapped a proposed regulation that would have promoted and funded Critical Race Theory in the nation’s public K-12 schools.
Concerned citizens flooded the Education Department with 33,967 mostly negative comments about the Biden administration’s decision to teach Ibram X. Kendi’s anti-white doctrine in American history and civics-education programs, PJ Media reported.
Cardona’s policy change would have mandated that schools, in order to qualify for federal grants, incorporate black-liberation dogma similar to Kendi’s so-called anti-racist ideas, the New York Times‘s widely debunked “1619 Project” or the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History.
In a letter to Cardona, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, objected to the policy change for two reasons: that the federal government should have “no role” in dictating curriculum and that Critical Race Theory “seeks to divide” America “based upon race and identity.”
Lee said Critical Race Theory pushes for “equity”—often called equality of results—rather the American ideal of equality under the law.
He noted that Democrat Kamala Harris, then a senator, said equity gives “people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing, and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.”
Lee also criticized specific doctrines from the National Museum of African American History in an op-ed for Deseret News.
The museum “produced a document for use in schools that claimed ideas such as ‘hard work is the key to success’ and that trying to ‘be polite’ are evidence of an oppressive,” white-dominated, patriarchal society.
Lee tweeted in response to the Education Department’s decision not to condition grants on teaching Critical Race Theory.
The only thing more troubling than Critical Race Theory in public schools is Miguel Cardona mandating that it be there. These decisions should be handled by states and communities not the federal government. I’m glad to see Sec. Cardona U-turn. https://t.co/WOocnt46Xy
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) July 19, 2021
