ARK: Not Even Pretending Any More

Arkansas kicked off the year with the LEARNS Act, a big legislative smorgasbord of every bad policy idea the right has pushed for dismantling public education. So of course it includes a gag law to restrict "indoctrination":

Steps required under subdivision (a)(1) of this section shall include the review of the rules, policies, materials, and communications of the Department of Education to identify any items that may, purposely or otherwise, promote teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory, otherwise known as "CRT", that conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law or encourage students to discriminate against someone based on the individual's color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law.

That language is more than vague enough to justify the state's going after the AP African American studies course. 

And go after they have, declaring first that there would be no graduation credit for the course--and doing so with just a few days left before the start of the school year. Then, when school districts said, "Screw it--we're doing this course anyway" the right wingers ensconced in the state capital demanded that school superintendents hand over "all materials, including but not limited to the syllabus, textbooks, teacher resources, student resources, rubrics, and training materials" so that they could sift through it all in search of proof that the course violates the state's gag law. After all, "given some of the themes included in the pilot, including 'intersections of identity' and 'resistance and resilience,'" the department is "concerned." 

What's remarkable about this latest attempt to shut down a particular area of study is that after a few years of CRT, folks are not even trying to offer a plausible explanation of what the issue is here. 

Back a couple years ago, when CRT panic first started to spread, there was at least an attempt to pretend that there was some sort of specific objection about how exactly the subject of race was handled.

Two years ago in Tennessee, complaints explained objections to a book by Ruby Bridges about her experience desegregating schools; it upset them because it portrays raging white opponents to desegregation (aka "reality") and because the story doesn't end with redemption (aka "reality"). There were convoluted arguments about how CRT perpetuated some kind of divisive reverse racism-- folks trying to teach about the dark side of racism in the country were causing division, they said, in an argument that resembles the abusive spouse complains that his partner is tearing apart their home by reporting his abuse.

These were all, it has to be said, terrible arguments. But at least they acknowledged by their existence that if you want to suppress Black American history and an honest and full discussion of our country's history with race, you ought to have some kind of argument for doing so.

The Arkansas case marks the latest evolution of this argument. First, it was a stand against CRT. Not that any of the objectors knew what that was, but that suited folks like Chris Rufo who promised to broaden the meaning of the term until, like "evolution" 100 years ago, it simply stood for an "entire range of cultural constructions" that pissed off people of a particular cultural bent. Then it was SEL, then anything mentioning empathy or tolerance, until we reach the ludicrous point of a Twitter wing nut accusing the right tilted American Enterprise Institute of being a "cartel smuggling Woke Marxism into schools."

But in Arkansas, there is no argument. Subtext is text. Governor Sanders simply declares

We cannot perpetuate a lie to our students and push this propaganda leftist agenda teaching our kids to hate America and hate one another.

Note that this is what she had to say before the state went through the course materials. She points to nothing specific in the course of studies, gives not even a ludicrous argument. From the days of "critical race theory is bad because of the way it frames particular parts of the race narrative of America," the argument has now been reduced to "it's talking about Black Americans, so it must be illegal." 

The fig leaf is worn and tired and lazy, and it's only appropriate that it be dropped in the state where 66 years ago the governor called out the national guard to prevent nine high school students from integrating Little Rock Central High School, declaring that they were needed to "maintain order" and concluding that "the schools must be operated as they have in the past." In other words, to "keep the peace," Black students must be denied their rights, because their coming to school "caused" a bunch of conflict and divisiveness. 

It was wrong 66 years ago, and it's wrong now. Lord knows there are a dozen reasons not to defend the College Board and their AP programs, but now that Sanders and her people are becoming so transparent about what's really going on, maybe a few more people will recognize them for what they are.