After receiving pressure from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and many other Americans, the Department of Education announced a reversal of previous plans to require teaching of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 project for schools to be eligible for certain government grants.
Of the reversal, Sen. Lee tweeted, “The only thing more troubling than Critical Race Theory in public schools is Miguel Cardona mandating that it be there. These decisions should be handled by states and communities not the federal government. I’m glad to see Sec. Cardona U-turn.”
Sen. Lee submitted a comment to the Department of Education which read in part, “The federal government should have no role in the creation of an American history and civics curriculum for K-12 education, and this very proposal is evidence of why the involvement of federal bureaucrats in education is misguided. … We have seen in recent years what happens when we indulge the cultural fragmentation of our national community. The critical race theory does not celebrate diversity; it weaponizes diversity.”
Sen. Lee additionally wrote an opinion piece featured in the Deseret News highlighting the dangers of Critical Race Theory. The piece reads in part, “Critical race theory is seeping into our foundational institutions and attacking what it means to be American. This dangerous philosophy undermines our founding principles, institutions, social mobility and history itself — threatening to take us backward in time, not forward. … The path forward will not be found in tearing down the precious truths and beliefs that unite us. Instead, it will be building on their sure foundation.”
