By Brandon Nguyen
As the United States becomes increasingly polarized and the nation battles over social policies and standards, schools have become a battleground for culture wars. Since last year, conservatives have been campaigning on “anti-woke” legislation, removing certain books and recruiting parents to run for school board positions. They argue that these topics oversexualize or teach a dishonest account of American history, while many liberals argue this is anti-bias training and a holistic retelling of American history.
“Critical Race Theory is basically teaching people to hate our country, hate each other. It’s divisive and it’s basically an identity politics version of Marxism,” Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is at the forefront of this issue said in a press conference.
Many Democrats including Representative Jamaal Bowman who is black and represents New York’s 16th Congressional District are pushing back.
“It is our moral imperative to tell the truth about our past to finally reconcile with this nation’s history of racism and white nationalism,” Bowman said.
A byproduct of this culture war has been more hostile attitudes towards teachers and the profession itself. Some parents are calling for certain school board members to be recalled, requesting more transparency in curriculum and scrutinizing the behavior of the faculty. Here is the breakdown.
2021 Virginia gubernatorial election
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin successfully beat previous incumbent, Democrat Terry McAuliffe by two percentage points in Virginia, where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 10 points. Youngkin’s campaign made a large appeal to parents who were concerned about the way race was taught in school, and he vowed to ban “critical race theory,” fire Virginia’s parole board and increase teacher pay.
This issue became only more intensified when in a debate, McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
McAuliffe later clarified his stance saying that he was referencing the fight over CRT. “We know good schools depend on involved parents,” McAuliffe said in an ad. “That’s why I want you to hear this from me. Glenn Youngkin is taking my words out of context. I’ve always valued the concerns of parents,”
While critical race theory was not present in Virginia’s K-12 curriculum, it did provide an important caveat to Democrats and bolstered Republicans who saw these culture wars as a winning issue.
Critical Race Theory
Over a span of four months, Fox News has mentioned “critical race theory” over 1300 times. It is important to understand what critical race theory is and why both sides of the aisle are so passionate about this issue.
Critical race theory (CRT) is a theory that says U.S. institutions such as the criminal justice system, education, job market and more are embedded with racism from the way laws, regulations and rules are inherently structured. It believes that racism can exist without there being racists since the institutions that govern us are racist.
Meanwhile, many opponents of CRT argue that this places blame on white people for being oppressors and that it teaches children, especially white children, that they should be guilty for their white skin. Many opponents also rebuke the notion that U.S. institutions are naturally laced with racism and argue that CRT instead classifies black people as victims.
Impact of CRT
So far the only declared Republican 2024 presidential candidate, former President Trump has been fiercely opposed to CRT and told his supporters to “lay down their very lives” to combat CRT because it teaches children to “hate America.”
Many teachers unions, which have been wary about these topics due to receiving backlash similar to the Virginia elections, have been lobbying Democrats to defend against these efforts. According to NBC News, a Democrat pollster on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers found that voters wanted their kids to be taught the good and bad about race relations, but less about gender identity.
The battle over LGBTQ protections in schools
In March 2022, Governor Desantis passed the Parental Rights in Education Bill, termed the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” This bill limited discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten to third grade classrooms and sparked massive protest and attention throughout the country.
Just in 2022, South Dakota, Alabama and Florida have restricted schools from teaching about gender identity or sexual orientation.
Now, 22 states are considering banning any transgender medical care for children under 18 such as hormonal treatment or transgender surgery. This has prompted more liberal states such as California to promise to provide transgender healthcare and allow children from other states to get transgender healthcare.
2022 school board elections
While school board elections are considered nonpartisan, Republican-supported school board candidates fared decently in the 2022 midterm elections winning in mostly white districts.
While neither side dominated the school board elections, Republican-dominated territory had their school boards shift further to the right, while Democrats stood their ground.
Conservative school boards have already gotten to work enacting their promised policies. Here in Orange County, the Orange Unified School Board has fired its superintendent after a heated debate over social curriculums and vaccines.
Takeaway
With the 2024 elections looming ahead and former President Trump making school curriculum a core tenet of his campaign, it is only expected that debates over these issues will heighten. Students who want their own opinions expressed can volunteer in local school board elections or get involved in advocacy clubs at school.
Over curriculum, the Huntington Beach Union High School District (HBUHSD) board allows students to make public comments during its meetings. Additionally, Fountain Valley High School is home to Orange County’s first Gay-Straight Alliance club and currently has support resources for LGBTQ students.
Two HBUHSD members are up for reelection to the school board in 2024, Susan Henry and Dr. Michael Simons. However, with national culture war attention trickling down, these seats are sure to be closely scrutinized.
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