FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced Friday two bills aimed at empowering parents and defunding schools that promote racial division.
He frames the legislation as combatting critical race theory, a lens by which teachers tell students to view America as institutionally racist in favor of whites and against blacks. While proponents either deny that schools are teaching CRT or say it is necessary to combat racism, critics condemn CRT as divisive, oversimplified, and historically false. They say it glosses over the complex tapestry of America’s diverse racial makeup and minimizes the impact of civil rights laws, while encouraging students to judge one another by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.
“Critical race theory has poisoned the minds of America’s youth and represents a direct attack on the core values that made America great,” Roy told The Daily Signal in a statement Thursday. “No one in America—students, teachers, government employees, or anyone else—should be indoctrinated to hate our country, its founding, or their fellow citizens.”
“At the same time, if a school, bureaucrat, politician, or union boss continues their agenda to morally corrupt the hearts and minds of students, parents should be able to fully be in the driver’s seat of their children’s education and be able to choose to have their child educated elsewhere,” the congressman added.
“In November, parents said, ‘enough is enough’ and gave Republicans a mandate to strip the federal government of its power over education and return it to the states and parents,” Roy said. “These two bills will help bolster the actions taken by the Trump administration and help fulfill the mandate given to us in November.”
Roy had previously introduced both bills—the Combatting Racist Teaching in Schools Act and the Support Children Having Open Opportunities for Learning Act—in previous Congresses but he introduced the bills in the 119th Congress Friday.
The CRT Act would block federal funding for schools that “promote certain race-based theories to students.” The bill, if passed and signed by President Trump, would codify part of Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order on “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.”
The SCHOOL Act directs that federal K-12 education funds follow students if their parents choose education options besides public schools. The bill aligns with another Jan. 29 executive order, “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families.”
Republicans have a slight majority in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, and Democrats are unlikely to support these bills. Since each bill involves federal funds, however, the legislation may fit in the reconciliation process, which only requires a majority vote in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes required to break a filibuster.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states. The order directs that programs or activities remaining any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts. The department’s essential functions shall be reassigned to other executive agencies.
The Order also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology.
As for the claim that CRT involves teaching kids to hate the Founding, The New York Times’ 1619 Project initially claimed that the Founders declared independence from Britain in order to protect slavery. The project later retracted this claim after historians noted its falsity.
