And why those who argue otherwise misunderstand both the nature of laws and the nature of political movements.
And why those who argue otherwise misunderstand both the nature of laws and the nature of political movements.
T he push by Republican state legislatures to restrict or ban the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) and its intellectual progeny has met with a number of arguments, ranging from denial that CRT exists or is taught in schools to critiques of the specific language of anti-CRT bills. To some anti-anti-CRT critics, especially among current or former conservatives, there are also structural arguments against the entire project. I have written previously about one of those arguments: the contention that dictating what is taught in public schools run by the government is none of the government’s business.
Fine, say the anti-anti-CRT crowd; maybe CRT is bad and should be kept out of schools. But it still should not be the job of state legislatures. State laws, they say, have two problems.
First, they do too much. Some of the bills are heavy-handed, taking a sledgehammer to curricular decisions that can be more finely tuned by reworking curricula themselves at the state or local level, or by taking control of local school boards. Some argue that this is not just a matter of poor draftsmanship but of the inherent difficulty in writing laws to pin down an ideology that is itself somewhat protean. Some also argue that conservatives on principle should dislike state-level mandates almost as much as they dislike federal mandates (remember the long battle over Common Core?) and should recognize the diversity of local community standards by getting states out of the picture.
Some contend that the best way to protect students from CRT-based lessons that actively target individual students on the basis of their race, or that preach doctrines such as “white fragility” that are actively hostile to a race, is to file federal civil-rights lawsuits. The first major, high-profile example of such a suit was recently filed in Evanston, Ill., following a finding by the Department of Education against the Evanston/Skokie school district. Then again, that finding was retracted by the Biden administration, which will not be eager to lend support to such suits.
The other problem, we are told, is that anti-CRT bills do too little. Legislation is a blunt instrument, and creative teachers and school districts will work around it. Conservatives can pass all the laws we like, but the schools will remain in the functional control of the people who actually operate them. Anti-CRT bills focused on racial division also do nothing to address other aspects of the insane indoctrination the Left seeks to force on children. Conservatives should just forget about state legislatures and get busy electing the members of school boards, or push for structural solutions such as school choice.
These are not entirely misguided criticisms, and in some cases, they are offered in good faith. But they misunderstand both the nature of laws and the nature of political movements.
One, legislation is not pointless or ineffective; it’s just not a complete or perfect solution. We should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. True, we already have federal and state antidiscrimination laws that can address some of the problems with CRT education, but when a specific problem arises, legislatures routinely address the specific issue — sometimes with the sorts of legislative compromises that the democratic process produces — rather than trust that courts presented with yes-or-no questions based on general language will get the right answer. That is especially the case when we are talking about laws that guide the decisions of local government actors. A school might get any number of answers from its lawyers — if it even hires them — about what federal antidiscrimination law forbids, and it could take years to get definitive answers from the court system. Children do not have years to wait. A new law that directly addresses the issue will focus the attention of school administrators in a hurry.
Two, is there a risk that the laws will not get all the right answers the first time? Yes. But state legislatures are not Congress. They can actually get things done, and that includes the ability to pass further fixes as they see what develops. This is not a one-shot thing; it is an ongoing process. Very few political movements of any importance get everything they want, and get everything perfectly right, their first season in the field. Passing a round of laws that put the CRT movement on the defensive — especially the outside consultants who are most openly peddling this nonsense to schools — is a positive first step, and the political system can build on it from there.
Three, state legislatures are where Republicans and conservatives currently hold power. That is why the fight begins there, rather than have everyone sit on their thumbs until more school boards can be won over for the cause. Not every lever of power is appropriate to every task; CRT could not be banned from local public schools by executive order if Republicans still held the White House, for example. But there are times when a political movement needs to use the best tools it has at its disposal.
Four, the state legislative battles are mobilizing and polarizing. They show that this is a serious issue. They rally support from people who care about the issue — not all of whom are regular Republican voters. They give ordinary citizens a language in which to express things that already bothered them, but that they can now discuss with like-minded neighbors in a framework that allows for organizing. They encourage people to think about other steps to become active. They bring the issue to smart people’s attention, which draws not only money and activism but also new ideas about how best to craft laws and strategies. They compel the other side into playing defense on turf it did not choose, raising the potential for errors.
Choosing a mobilizing battle is especially important to a political movement that has the chronic mistrust of leadership that plagues the conservative movement. The Tea Party started off as a grassroots movement, and lots of forces — conservative- and libertarian-movement activists, the political establishment, unprincipled grifters — did their best to make hay from that. But far too often, the Tea Party promised things that were always over the next hill. “Repeal Obamacare” was its most concrete goal, but that required control of all three elected branches of the federal government, including 60 senators. In the meantime, a decade passed with disappointingly little to show. One of the oft-noted reasons for the rise of Donald Trump was that Republican voters stopped trusting their leaders to actually do the things they had promised.
Starting a movement at the state legislative level in states where Republicans have the power to turn the initial round of agitation and slogans into law is the best cure for that. It also compels the movement to take responsibility for turning out a governing program — a healthy process that encourages more sober leadership. As people see that their grievances are being partly addressed by state legislatures, it encourages them to go the further step and get to work on reforming their local school boards, too. Victories are good for morale, and build on themselves.
All of these insights have long been well-known on the left, which is nothing if not expert in managing its voters and keeping its eye on the uses of power. Conservatives should be excited, not dismayed, to see that process under way here. The laboratories of democracy are working. We should encourage them to keep at it until they master the formula.