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Sherian Spencer
Moderator
The Fight over CRT
(Critical Race Theory)
(From Patch.com December 14, 2022 by Staff Writer, Toni McAllister)
Someone, anyone, PLEASE help me understand this!! What is wrong with teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT)? To the opposers on the Temecula Valley Unified School Board, CRT “is an ideology based on the false assumptions about the US and its population; is a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race and, therefore, is itself a racist ideology; assigns generational guilt and racial guilt for conduct and policies that are long in the past.” WTH?!
“False assumptions” about the US, seriously? What false assumptions? Let’s be honest – slavery still exists in this country. Just look at the prisons that are overpopulated with Black men and women – many wrongly accused or serving ridiculous sentences for drugs – while there are White people serving much less time for killing someone. As Roland Martin states in the book White Fear, “These White leaders do not want race; they don’t want diversity; they don’t want any of this stuff being
taught; and their strategy is to put everything under the Critical Race Theory umbrella.
The big picture: The battle against CRT, often mixed with teachings on systemic racism, is not letting up in public schools across the country. At least 14 states enacted legislation to limit the teaching of
“divisive concepts” or CRT in 2021 and 2022, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Why it matters: The graduate college-level framework, rarely taught in grade school, was a lightning rod issue in the 2022 midterms and helped launch a new slate of conservative school board candidates. Fights over CRT have gotten so tense in recent years, they’ve led to death threats and
doxing (publicly revealing individual’s private information such as addresses and phone numbers) of teachers and protest against school boards.
Between the lines: CRT rarely came up as an issue in school board elections before the Trump presidency. Trump and other Republicans started to complain that CRT was a problem in schools after
the 2019 publication of “The 1619 Project” in the New York Times magazine. They were upset some teachers discussed the project about slavery with students.
Reality check: Critical Race Theory – which hold that racism is baked into the formation of the nation and ingrained in our legal, financial and education systems – was developed in law schools in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. While almost never taught in grade school, some teachers have endured criticism and threats for merely mentioning systemic racism in class or bringing up the Black Lives Matter movement. According to the US Census, around half of the nation’s K-12 students today are students of color. Districts have faced pressure to offer more inclusive social study classes to accommodate the growing, diverse student body.
What they’re saying: “Much of the debate around CRT is as much about distraction as it is a strategy,” NAACP president and CEO states Derrick Johnson. Johnson said the NAACP anticipates more fights around diversity education and believes “accurate history is the history that should be taught, and that science is real.”
Amid a chorus of boos and jeers, and more than a few damning comments from dozens of TVUSD students and educators, recently the CRT argument hit close to home when the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) voted 3-2 to ban teaching CRT in Temecula public schools. The board also adopted a resolution condemning racism (help me understand how those aren’t of the same cloth). With the same vote, the board also adopted another resolution condemning racism because,
according to the resolution, current TVUSD policy “only cites discrimination and bigotry through the lens of equity.” Talk about political posturing – isn’t not teaching the truth about racism, slavery, and any other -ism, in of itself bigotry? One of the school board meeting speakers said CRT has been
weaponized by far-right politicians and ideologues to scare white voters. CRT opponents argue the theory marginalizes white children and makes them feel guilty for atrocities carried out against minorities throughout US history.
The votes in favor of the resolutions came from new elected and first-time governing board members Dr. Joseph Wayne Komrosky (appointed governing board president, Trustee Area 4), Jennifer
Wiersma (Trustee Area 3), and Danny Gonzalez (Trustee Area 2).
The campaigns of all three board members were backed by the Inland Empire Family PAC, which works “to stop the indoctrination of our children by placing candidates on the school boards who will fight for Christian and conservative values.” (Is that not indoctrination in its own form?) Komrosky has promised to recruit “a panel of CRT experts” to address concerns (we’ll see how unbiased they turn out to be and I won’t hold my breath for neutrality).
With their majority on the TVUSD governing board, it’s not clear where the three new members will go next. The trio hinted that some district policies will be changed. Komrosky also suggested that the board is considering hiring outside attorney to review some yet-to-be-named items that might be coming before the board. I
t’s a benign name: Inland Empire Family PAC. The aim of this Southwest Riverside County political action committee is anything but – and the latest election returns in Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, and Temecula show just how strategic the organization’s campaign to “Take Back School Boards” is. The IEF PAC works to stop the indoctrination of our children by placing candidates on the school boards who will fight for Christian and Conservative values,” the IE Family PAC website reads. (again, isn’t
that its own form of indoctrination?)
Each candidate seeks to unseat incumbent school board members deemed “weak” in fighting “problems” on campuses, according to the PAC. The PAC identifies some of those campus “problems” as “perverted sexual training”, “forced” LGBTQ acceptance, “encouraging transgenderism” state
mandates and “critical race theory” – all buzzwords that seem to resonate with some SW RIV county parents who may feel disenfranchised.
“I am positive that together we can restore parental rights in our schools and be a force of truth and transparency in education. I truly believe the conservative voice will become the dominating voice in California politics” according to a quote on the IE Family PAC website from Pastor Tim Thompson of 412 Church Temecula Valley. Thompson has become a player is SW Riverside politics. Besides the PAC he networks on the ground and made vote recommendations up and down the ballot for his followers. He’s linked to several high-profile conservative figures and throws his backing behind like- inded politicians. He was on hand recently in support of Temecula City Councilmember Jessica Alexander’s failed attempts to have the city officially denounce abortion.
The political maneuverings of the PAC and Thompson were omnipresent in Temecula during this year’s election cycle. After weeks of politicking and door-to-door campaigning by PAC supporters, residents of TVUSD Trustee Area 4 were mailed flyers that attacked incumbent Adam Skumawitz on a
personal and professional level. Joseph Wayne Komrosky, Skumawitz’s challenger, took to Facebook and attempted to distance himself from the flyers, saying that he neither gave permission for the group to share his likeness nor approved of the political ad’s negative content.
Skumawitz came out swinging on his Facebook page, blasting Komrosky and the PAC for the tactic. “I reject the all-out culture ware and the outrageous lies the IE Family PAC, the 412 Church, and their candidates for TVUSD School Board are throwing at me, my fellow incumbents, and my family. Attempting to save face now, trying to distance yourselves from this group who has funded and endorsed you, to play the victim in all this is laughable… and this pathetic attempt to stoke fear and win votes is shameful. The ends do not justify the means.”
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