Thread by @JeffreyASachs

Late last Friday, after about one week of debate, North Dakota became the 56,618,877th state to pass an anti-CRT law covering K-12 schools. I want to talk about it real quick.

inforum.com/news/governmen…

The ND law is unique in that it specifically targets (what it takes to be) instruction related to Critical Race Theory. Most of the other anti-CRT bills are both grander in scope and more jumbled (e.g. by targeting a laundry list of "divisive concepts").

legis.nd.gov/files/committe…

Why this approach? According to Janne Myrdal, who sponsored the bill in the senate, CRT is "a political ideology…It is an ideology that if we can indoctrinate it into our children young it would have a political consequence on our children later.”

breitbart.com/politics/2021/…

Side note: You may remember Myrdal's name from that time last April when she deliberately torpedoed a North Dakota State University prof's career because the prof had partnered with Planned Parenthood on sexual health research.

insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/0…

Just kidding! Of course you don't remember Myrdal's name. You've never even heard about this episode. And why would you? It's not about Yale.

(It worked, btw. Myrdal's bill passed and the prof was forced to move to Montana State University last June).

Anyway, the ND anti-CRT law is interesting for a few reasons. First, note that it prohibits "instruction RELATING to Critical Race Theory." Not endorsement or teaching as objectively true. Not compelling student speech or affirmation.

Relating.

And CRT is defined as "the theory that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but that racism is systemically embedded in American society and the American legal system to facilitate racial inequality."

That's what teachers are banned from discussing.

I know that you, being a smart person, can easily imagine all the quite uncontroversial topics and respectable facts that this would take off the table in North Dakota's US history and civics classrooms, so there's no need for me to spell them out for you.

Instead, I want to highlight the fact that in North Dakota, teachers will now only be permitted to talk about and reference racism as a product of individual bias. And I think that's quite interesting!

I am reminded all of the sudden of @JohnHMcWhorter's theory of "Third-Wave Anti-Racism." According to McWhorter, the Woke believe that racism must be fought on the battlefield of the human psyche, as opposed to at the social or governmental level.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

@JohnHMcWhorter Now personally, I don't find that claim very persuasive, but it is interesting nonetheless how deeply committed the North Dakota legislature (clearly no bastion of wokery!) is to that particular theory of racism.

@JohnHMcWhorter I can imagine a few potential ways of reconciling this dynamic. Of explaining why anti-CRT and pro-CRT factions have settled on a common or over-lapping way of tackling racism (assuming that McWhorter is right, of course), but this thread is too long already.

@JohnHMcWhorter Maybe another day. For now, I just wanted to draw attention to the ND bill, which again is now law! It received absolutely zero media scrutiny outside the state, but that's pretty much par for the course with these debates. I guess I would just like to raise a belated fuss now.