Everyone has been focused for the past two days on the story in The Atlantic, attributed to anonymous sources, about things Trump supposedly said about troops two years ago, something so far that every person who has gone on record has denied. While you were focused on that Crisis News Cycle, Trump took a step the implications of which could be devastating over time to the peddlers of racial conflict under the academic construct of Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory, and its components such as “antiracism” and “white privilege” is something we will be writing a lot about. In fact, Legal Insurrection Foundation will be rolling out soon a research report on how deeply and coercively those doctrines are being forced onto students, faculty, and staff at colleges and universities across the country.
The role of CRT in federal employee training has received a lot of attention lately thanks mostly to the efforts of Christopher Rufo, who exposed deeply racist and offensive anti-white training at federal nuclear labs, and the airing of those findings on Tucker Carlson’s show.
The result was that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, at Trump’s direction, has started the process to identify and terminate such training in the federal government.
Here is the OMB Memorandum announcing the move (emphasis added):
September 4, 2020M-20-34MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIESFROM: Russell Vought, DirectorSUBJECT: Training in the Federal GovernmentIt has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date “training” government workers to believe divisive, antiAmerican propaganda.For example, according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that “virtually all White people contribute to racism” or where they are required to say that they “benefit from racism.” According to press reports, in some cases these training have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job.These types of “trainings” not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce. We can be proud that as an employer, the Federal government has employees of all races, ethnicities, and religions. We can be proud that Americans from all over the country seek to join our workforce and dedicate themselves to public service. We can be proud of our continued efforts to welcome all individuals who seek to serve their fellow Americans as Federal employees. However, we cannot accept our employees receiving training that seeks to undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce.The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions. Accordingly, to that end, the Office of Management and Budget will shortly issue more detailed guidance on implementing the President’s directive. In the meantime, all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege,” or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. In addition, all agencies should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these unAmerican propaganda training sessions.The President, and his Administration, are fully committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in the United States. The President has a proven track record of standing for those whose voice has long been ignored and who have failed to benefit from all our country has to offer, and he intends to continue to support all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed. The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.
Whether this gets done will depend on whether Trump is reelected. CRT is the intellectual beating heart of the Democratic Party, and there is zero chance of reform if Biden is elected. To the contrary, CRT training and enforcement will be driven deeper into the heart of the bureaucracy under a Biden-Harris administration.
But Trump’s move is viewed as a mortal threat by the CRT movement. One of the leading academics on CRT, UCLA and Columbia law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, certainly is worried. Crenshaw, my former law school classmate who invented the term and ideology of intersectionality, tweeted in desperation that she wondered if CRT’s allies would come to their assistance:
So woke up to the news that CRT is banned as the greatest threat to Western Civilization. This is McCarthyism 101. I’ve often wondered what our allies would do when they came for us. Now we’ll see.
Of course, this is hyperbole. CRT isn’t “banned,” the federal government simply will no longer impose that ideology on federal employees.
But it does present a grave threat to CRT, which is the unchallenged ideological champion of radical faculties and students, and increasingly corporate human resources departments. If this is how the head of the federal government reacts to such training, how will Republican governors? And will students, parents, and alumni at public and private universities start to question why CRT is being shoved down the throats of the entire campus through the proliferation of mandatory coursework and training.
So Trump’s move doesn’t change anything yet. But it could be the spark that lights the fire. The fear of speaking up and pushing back may be over.
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