The Critical Race Theory juggernaut moving through our schools can be beaten. In the Anaheim Union High School District, last July the School Board approved $80,000 to hire a progressive advocacy group, the Center for Racial Justice in Education, to inculcate teachers and students in Critical Race Theory at Katella and Cypress high schools. CRT is a type of Cultural Marxism that divides different ethnic groups against one another, spawning hate.
However, writer Matthew Cunningham published a series of articles in the Anaheim Independent and OC Independent, with more in the works based, on e-mails obtained via the California Public Records Act.
It’s not clear exactly when or why the AUHSD abandoned the CRJE program. At publication time, neither the district nor the AUSHD has responded to our requests for an explanation. But the Independent filed a California Public Record Act request about the contract.
On Dec. 10, a response came from John Bautista, the district’s Public Information Officer, who wrote, “AUHSD is no longer partnering with the Center for Racial Justice in Education, consequently, the Center for Racial Justice in Education has removed access to these documents (Launch Community Letter and the REA Community Letter) and you will need to contact them for access.”
Well, let’s turn to the New York City-based CRJE’s own documents, then, to see what it’s about. CRJE’s Mission Statement boasts, “Racial justice is our guiding principle for a world in which white supremacy is abolished, and all systems of oppression are dismantled.”
And on Facebook, it advertised for a position, “CRJE is hiring for an Executive Coach! The RJIO Executive Coach will work with the CRJE team and school leaders to drive systemic change by creating and developing a shared vision of what excellent instruction grounded in racial equity looks like.”
“White supremacy,” “systems of oppression,” “systemic change” and “racial equity” – all are CRT buzzwords for turning schools into cauldrons of racial animosity. And note how “equity” has replaced the similar-sounding “equality.”
Equality means everyone is treated fairly and given an equal chance to excel and achieve. It’s Dr. Martin Luther King’s stirring words from his 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech”: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.”
Equity is a socialist word, meaning everyone is forced to be exactly the same – and equal only in sharing poverty and misery.
AUHSD should be focused on education, not indoctrination. It is wrong and totalitarian to take teachers, segregate them by race/ethnicity, as CRJE does in its indoctrination sessions, then force them to accept radical doctrines on which they disagree. It’s also wrong to force that nonsense on children.
Except for Oxford Academy, a selective school, AUHSD needs to concentrate on improving its academics. On state test scores, Katella High scores just 55 percent proficient in reading and 17 percent in math. Cypress High is better, 79 percent in reading and 48 percent in math. But that still means less than half of students are proficient in math, the key to the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – building America’s future.
I’m glad the AUHSD cancelled the agreement, but they deserve no credit because they obviously did so due to our reporting and fear of parental outrage. And parents must remain ever vigilant because, according to the Locke Society, “CRT does not show up with flashing lights and bolded slogans every time it is present. It is often subliminal and infused throughout the materials that make up the lesson or training session.”
Let’s savor this is a victory over CRT. But this is just one in a long battle.
John Seiler is a longtime columnist for The Orange County Register and other publications
