Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Thursday wrote a letter to the state Board of Education opposing the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its “dangerous ideology” in public schools.
“This divisive, anti-American agenda has no place in Georgia classrooms,” the Republican governor said in a statement on Twitter.
Today, I wrote a letter to the State Board of Education opposing critical race theory in our schools. This divisive, anti-American agenda has no place in Georgia classrooms. pic.twitter.com/iDFFUmge0n
— Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) May 20, 2021
He urged educators in his letter “to take immediate steps to ensure that Critical Race Theory and its dangerous ideology do not take root in our state standards or curriculum.”
Kemp said that parents, students, administrators, and educators in Georgia have come to him in recent weeks with concerns about the teaching of CRT in state schools.
“Like me, they are alarmed this divisive and anti-American curriculum is gaining favor in Washington D.C. and in some states across the country.”
CRT has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors”—white people—and the “oppressed”—everybody else—similar to Marxism’s reduction of history to a struggle between the “bourgeois” and the “proletariat.” It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as racist and “white supremacist.”
Like Marxism, CRT advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market economy, and orthodox religions, while demanding that they be replaced with institutions compliant with the theory’s ideology.
Proponents of CRT have argued that the theory is merely “demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in March denounced critical race theory as hateful, while Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, and West Virginia have said that they aim to ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools, workplaces, and government agencies.
Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a bill mandating the teaching of CRT in schools, while Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill banning its teaching in the state’s public and charter schools.
