BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Continuing our Black History Month coverage, we turn to examine the controversy behind an educational term, originally coined in the 1970s and 80s, that has recently become a hot-button issue.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a movement among law students and lawyers that focuses on the intersection of race and the law, and looks at how the law has played a role in creating racial categories in a variety of social systems.
Now, the use and application of CRT is being fiercely debated in American public school classrooms. Director of Student Access and Support at California State University Bakersfield Darius Riggins says responses to CRT are as variable as the people encountering the idea.
"Depending upon how somebody expresses or explains Critical Race Theory, will generate different types of emotions in people, because one of the things about Critical Race Theory you have to understand is; it does assume that race has been utilized as a way to keep people separated as a social construct," said Riggins.
Riggins also points out that CRT acknowledges the intersection of race and history.
"But then it also addresses that there are laws and policies that had to have created disparities in society because of race, so Critical Race Theory uses those two premises, as it is able to be applied to a situation," said Riggins.
Bakersfield College professor of history Oliver Rosales explains one recent example of an historical racial disparity that is still being seen today.
"The Federal Housing Administration redlined American cities in the 1930s and 1940s and subsidized bank loans, essentially, for Americans to keep their homes," said Rosales, "but banks distributed that wealth, those low-interest loans, on the basis of race. Black folks were kept out of those low-interest loans. Consequently, over time, white folks built equity in their homes. Black people were kept from building equity."
Rosales says it's the untold history like this that people need to know about, which he believes starts with education.
"I think the way that we get around this is by reading more, is by studying. Having this idea that the university is this place for the elite - it's not," said Rosales. "All Americans should be reading. All Americans should be educated. All Americans should be accessing Black history and people of color and understanding the history of race and ethnicity in this country."
As a concept, CRT has become widely controversial across the nation following the death of George Floyd in 2020, the rise of Black Lives Matter, and the push to make sure a more complete history is taught in schools.
As a matter of policy, 7 states have outright banned the use of CRT in public schools, with another 16 states in the process of banning it. 28 states, including California, have no restrictions on CRT.
This is not stopping individual schools from deciding where they stand on CRT. In 2021, the Kern High School District announced it will not be teaching CRT in their Ethnic Studies course. However, educators at the college level say there is no escaping history.
"Here's the reality," said Riggins. "History is history. What happened happened. So to say that you can't talk about it or not bring it up, I think that's a little too inclusive on control."
Rosales agrees, saying CRT is a legal term that came from the intersection of race and the law.
"Critical Race Theory is about foregrounding the role of systems of oppression as they exist in American institutions, and in particular the way that people of color, African Americans in particular, have experienced systems of oppression over the 2,300 years of the history of this country," said Rosales.
According to education industry publication Education Week, critics of CRT say discussion of the theory leads to "negative dynamics," including focusing students on group identities instead of the social traits shared across cultures, which they believe encourages students to divide themselves into "oppressor" and "oppressed" groups, fostering a climate of intolerance.
Darius Riggins says he understands why CRT is not taught in grade school.
"Critical Race Theory is not taught K-12. That is taught in graduate-level courses, and just to let you know, the first time I even coined the concept of Critical Race Theory and read the book was while I was taking a doctorate-level course here in the city of California State University Bakersfield," said Riggins.
Riggins adds that there will be times in teaching American history where CRT can play a role.
"For example, when you talk about history and you get to the Civil Rights Movement and things that were happening there, obviously race was an issue," said Riggins. "So don't deny it. Don't say that, 'Oh, it was just about Civil Rights,' but it was rooted in the fact that there were people that were so-called citizens that were treated as second-class citizens."
Oliver Rosales says he believes CRT is now being used for political gain.
"As a historian, I don't find much of a debate over CRT. A lot of the scholarship that has been produced regarding race in the United States is widely accepted, so there's a difference between the scholarship and the political football that CRT has become in this country at this particular moment to turn out voters," said Rosales.
For both Rosales and Riggins, understanding Critical Race Theory is not about separating one group's history from the other. It's about observing all of history.
"If I were to go back 50 or 100 years ago to see how African Americans or Native Americans were discussed in American curriculums, a lot of people would be disgusted by the stereotypes by Black people or Indigenous peoples, so curriculum itself changes over time," said Rosales. "And again, I don't see any difference. Chicano history, Black history, is American history, and people who want to separate that, I don't think have a good understanding of what history actually is."
Riggins agrees, and also says it's important to understand that a theory can be accepted or not accepted, and that is the process CRT is undergoing right now.
"It's more about exposing and allowing everyone to understand, this is what happened, these were the situations, here's what we learned from that, and so I don't think it's so much a matter of trying to suggest, "Oh, is this Critical Race Theory?' I think it's a matter of 'Okay, did this happen?'" said Riggins. "If it happens to fit within a context of Critical Race Theory, and that's how it can be explained, okay… but not necessarily."
In continuing the conversation about Critical Race Theory, BC's Social Justice Institute is hosting a Zoom webinar entitled Allensworth, Black History, and Reparations on Monday, February 27. Registration for the webinar is open now.
