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Dangerous legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory in Ohio schools advances in the state legislature. House Bills 322 and 327 are ill-conceived and dishonest displays of right-wing ideology. Imitating other states, they closely follow sample legislation from organized national campaigns by Heritage Action for America, 1776 Project, and Citizens for Renewing America.

The bills authors and their sources (handbooks and toolkits) are ignorant of critical race theory and American history. They create straw figures to criticize with biased ideology. For example, Christopher F. Rufo, a leading propagandist, falsely asserts that reputable scholars are Marxists calling for the overthrow of capitalism. Claiming to defend children, they promote ignorance. They fear that children will gain an accurate, shared knowledge of the complicated American experience. They are anti-democratic and un-American.

The partisan effort to ban teaching about race is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment free-speech rights of teachers and students. It is also unenforceable. There arent K-12 courses called critical race theory. They exist principally as required mainstream courses in law schools. More broadly, critical race theory is a general approach that views race and slavery as central to American history, an undeniable point.

We must oppose this attack.

Harvey J. Graff,

Columbus

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Assault on critical race theory is an attack on democracy itself - cleveland.com