Governor’s Office Clarifies CRT Opposition

Lincoln, NE (August 11, 2021)  On Tuesday, Governor Pete Ricketts, Lieutenant Governor Mike Foley, The State Treasurer and State Auditor, and 22 members of the Legislature made public their letter to the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.  In their letter, the group asked the Regents to adopt a resolution, to be introduced at their Friday meeting, which proposes forbidding the imposition of Critical Race Theory, or “CRT”.

The letter makes clear, however, that the resolution, proposed by Regent and Gubernatorial Candidate Jim Pillen, “does not prevent discussion of CRT just as other diverse philosophies, religions, and perspectives are discussed every day on campus.”

KFOR News asked the Governor’s Office for guidance or examples that would clarify the distinction between “imposing” and “allowing discussion” of CRT.  These are the examples provided:

All came from publications by commentator Christopher Rufo: https://christopherrufo.com/crt-briefing-book/

Critical race theory in schools

• Seattle Public Schools told teachers that the education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children and that white teachers must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgement of [their] thieved inheritance.” Link.
• San Diego Public Schools accused white teachers of being colonizers on stolen Native American land and told them “you are racist” and “you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.” They recommended that the teachers undergo “antiracist therapy.” Link.
• A Cupertino, California, elementary school forced third-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” They separated the eight-year-old children into oppressors and oppressed. Link.
• A middle school in Springfield, Missouri, forced teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” claiming that white heterosexual Protestant males are inherently oppressors and must atone for their “covert white supremacy.” Link.
• A Philadelphia elementary school forced fifth-graders to celebrate “Black communism” and simulated a Black Power rally to “free Angela Davis” from prison. At this school, 87 percent of students will fail to achieve basic literacy by graduation. Link.
• Buffalo Public Schools taught students that “all white people” perpetuate systemic racism and forced kindergarteners to watch a video of dead black children warning them about “racist police and state-sanctioned violence” who might kill them at any time. Link.
• The Arizona Department of Education created an “equity” toolkit claiming that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and that white children become full racists—”strongly biased in favor of whiteness”—by age five. Link.
• The California Department of Education passed an “ethnic studies” curriculum that calls for the “decolonization” of American society and has students chant to the Aztec god of human sacrifice. The solution, according to one author, is “countergenocide.” Link. 
• North Carolina’s largest school district launched a campaign against “whiteness in educational spaces”—and encouraged teachers to subvert families and push the ideology of “antiracism” directly onto students without parental consent. Link. 
• Santa Clara County Office of Education denounced the United States as a “parasitic system” based on the “invasion” of “white male settlers” and encouraged teachers to “cash in on kids’ inherent empathy” in order to recruit them into political activism. Link. 
• Portland Public Schools trained children to become race-conscious revolutionaries by teaching that racism “infects the very structure(s) of our society,” and telling students to immerse themselves in “revolution.” Link.
• The principal of East Side Community School in New York sent white parents a “tool for action,” which tells them they must become “white traitors” and then advocate for full “white abolition.” Link.
• Students at the elite United Nations International School launched an anonymous social media campaign denouncing their teachers as “racists” and “oppressors”—and school administrators immediately caved to their demands. Link.

 

Critical race theory in government

• The Treasury Department told employees that “all white people” are racist and that children become racist by 3 months old. Link.
• A Department of Education-funded conference advocated for “abolition” of American institutions and told whites they must “give up” their “wealth.” Link.
• The National Credit Union Administration told employees America was founded on “white supremacy.” Link.
• The Department of Homeland Security told its white employees that they have been “socialized into oppressor roles.” Link.
• The CDC hosted a 13-week training program declaring that “racism is a public health crisis” and denounced the US as a nation of “White supremacist ideology.” Link.
• The State Department, EPA, and VA pressured staff to denounce their “white privilege,” become “co-resistors” against “systemic racism,” and sign “equity pledges.” Link.

 

Critical race theory in corporations

The Walt Disney Corporation claimed that America was founded on “systemic racism,” encouraged employees to complete a “white privilege checklist,” and separated minorities into racially-segregated “affinity groups.” Link.

• Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sent key executives on a mission to deconstruct their “white male privilege” and encouraged them to atone for their “white male privilege.” Link.