Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there: A critical race approach to policy implementation in the wake of anti-CRT rhetoric

Abstract

School communities across the United States are experiencing increasing calls to remove the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) from their curricula despite not actually doing so in practice. This anti-CRT push is part of a larger, conservative agenda to ban teaching “divisive” topics in public schools and exemplifies the underlying racial politics existent in educational policy implementation. In this article, we analyze the legal efforts to ban CRT and anti-racist teaching in one state through a framework that situates policy implementation within CRT, which seeks to advance how whiteness, interest convergence, racial realism, and the erasure of people of color are continual to policy implementation. Through a critical discourse analysis of anti-CRT rhetoric, we illustrate how predictable patterns such as white backlash, overt racism, racial violence, and racial trauma are brought to light in policy implementation. We then offer an example of CRT as critical race praxis (CRP) in another state that works to counter racism and create anti-racist change in policy design and implementation. CRP is perhaps one tool school leaders have at their disposal to subvert whiteness and white supremacy in policymaking, especially policy implementation.

The Vital Necessity of Critical Education Policy Research

“…13950, 2020). Despite CRT not being taught in PK–12 schools, it has been weaponized “by white conservatives to downplay and outright deny the import of race in society” (Pollock et al, 2022; Welton et al, 2023, p. 3), effectively restricting or banning the teaching of race and racism in the classroom (Stout & Wilburn, 2022). Vue et al (2024) emphasize that attempts and successes to ban CRT are entwined with racialized emotions and the perpetuation of White supremacy, prioritizing White people’s comfort and maintaining “white innocence” through race-evasive language in legislation.…”

“All Students Matter”: The Place of Race in Discourse on Student Debt in a Federal Higher Education Policymaking Process

“…This hesitance has been attributed to the sector's meritocratic ideology, which seemingly conflicts with CRT's focus on structural inequities (Baber, 2016;Tichavakunda, 2024). Previous studies have shown how the policymaking process excludes persons of color without using CRT (Harris, 2018;Welton et al, 2023). More recently, Mustaffa and Dawson (2021) applied a framework of racial capitalism to examine Black student loan debt.…”

Tracing the History: Language Education Policy and Emergent Bilingual Learners in the United States

“…That means, emergent bilingual learners can end up being served with very different programs depending on state and local policies. In this sense, the diversity in approaches to educating bilingual learners are across different states offers valuable insights into the political discourse within specific contexts (Welton et al, 2023).…”

“…The subtractive schooling for bilingual students in the U.S. reflects a symbolic politics that relegates Latinx and other minoritized communities to second-class status in society (Valenzuela, 2010). In other words, policies are subject to power relations in the broader society and can be used as a mechanism to maintain social dominance of some over others (Wagenaar, 2011).…”