A woman who has filed suit against a Missouri school district for pushing critical race theory curricula has said she believes that school districts in general that are using the materials are doing so to drive a wedge between parents and their kids while striking fear into educators in an effort to prevent them from meting out discipline.
In her lawsuit, Brooke Henderson seeks to force the Springfield, Mo., school district to eliminate CRT materials that she was subjected to last year, part of which inform educators they could be practicing white supremacist or oppressive behavior by insisting that students use English in the classroom, if they said things like “all lives matter,” or if they call police on a black student.
In an interview with Just The News’ John Solomon Reports on Monday, Henderson said she started getting concerned about the materials when she realized that they are designed in a way for teachers to portray adults as oppressors, which would undermine parental authority over their kids.
The materials suggested principle American institutions like churches were allegedly part of a cycle of repression, but “I think it’s even worse, that we’re teaching our kids to not trust their parents,” Henderson told the podcast.
“If you look at one of the oppression matrixes, it says that adults are the oppressor,” she added. “And, you know, the border groups are the young adults, but the elderly, and the younger children fall into that, you know, oppressed category. … I cannot think of anything worse than telling your child to not trust her parents and that their parent is oppressive to them.”
She went on to say that she is fearful one long-term effect on teachers who were forced to undergo the CRT training are now more reluctant than ever to discipline certain students even if they are being disruptive or otherwise uncooperative.
“I think across the board, it sends a message, you know, not only do we not call the police, we don’t discipline students for inappropriate behavior,” she said.
“And so now teachers are afraid to discipline any student for inappropriate behavior,” she added.
“And, you know, I think across the nation, you’ll hear teachers saying the same thing, that discipline is a concern, because nobody wants to be called a white supremacist. Nobody wants to be seen as a racist,” said Henderson.
As for the training materials, Just The News provided details:
The materials, provided to Just the News, include a 40-plus slide training deck that proclaimed its goal was to train teachers on how to address “systemic racism and xenophobia” in the school district and to understand the difference between oppressors and the oppressed. Critics say the slide deck is part of a larger Critical Race Theory curriculum that parents are increasingly rejecting.
It included an “oppression matrix” that identified privileged social groups capable of oppression as including “white people,” “male assigned at birth,” “gender conforming CIS men and women,” “heterosexuals,” “rich, upper-class people” and “Protestants.”
The victims of oppression, the slide stated, included minorities, gays, transgender people, working class and poor Americans.
Instructing teachers that “systemic racism” was a real phenomenon in America, the training defined systemic racism as a system characterized by “public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other social norms that, while not practiced consciously, reinforce and perpetuate racial group inequity.”
Critical Race Theory researcher Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute describes it this way on his website: “Critical race theory is an academic discipline that holds that the United States is a nation founded on white supremacy and oppression, and that these forces are still at the root of our society.
“Critical race theorists believe that American institutions, such as the Constitution and legal system, preach freedom and equality, but are mere ‘camouflages’ for naked racial domination. They believe that racism is a constant, universal condition: it simply becomes more subtle, sophisticated, and insidious over the course of history,” he noted further, adding that CRT is simply a rehash of “old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of White and Black.”
