Trump To Sign Anti-Critical Race Theory Executive Order, Seek Reinstatement Of His ‘1776 Commission’

Student Samaya Robinson, 17, holds a sign in protest of the district’s ban on the critical race theory curriculum at Great Oak High School in Temecula on Dec. 16, 2022. | Source: MediaNews Group/The Riverside Press-Enterprise via Getty Images / Getty

When President Donald Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20, and he immediately started signing executive orders to ban DEI from the federal government, we should all have been waiting for the other shoe to drop — that “shoe” being critical race theory.

According to the LA Times, Trump is expected to sign an executive order that would pull federal funding from any school that teaches CRT, a college-level academic framework for studying systemic racism that Republicans have demonstrated time and time again that they know nothing about.

MORE: The Critical Race Theory Explainer Every White Person Should Read

Trump is actually the man who popularized white conservatives’ propaganda-reliant attack on CRT, and none of them can offer an accurate description of what it is or why they just started talking about it in 2020 when the framework has existed in academia since 1989. They also have never offered any tangible evidence that the study is being taught in K-12 schools, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from demanding that the schools end those largely imaginary teachings under penalty of defunding.

From the Times:

The order will include a 90-day deadline for the secretary of Education to present a plan on how to end the alleged practice within K-12 schools, the memo reported by the outlet details. “This Executive Order prohibits federal funding of the indoctrination of children” reads part of the draft.

The administration says it’s seeking to educate “patriotic citizens ready for the workforce, not political activists.” It will also look to reinstate the 1776 Commission, set up under Trump’s first term to “work to improve understanding of the history and the principles of the founding of the United States among our Nation’s rising generations.”

“Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda — an ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together,” Trump said when announcing the group in 2020, a response to The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which sought to explore the role of slavery in building the United States.

The administration says it’s seeking to educate “patriotic citizens ready for the workforce, not political activists.” It will also look to reinstate the 1776 Commission, set up under Trump’s first term to “work to improve understanding of the history and the principles of the founding of the United States among our Nation’s rising generations.”

The 1776 Report released days before Trump left office was criticized by most historians for containing errors and being politicized. Former President Joe Biden ended the commission on his first day in office.

So, just to recap: Trump will sign an order demanding that the secretary of education draft a plan to rid K-12 schools of college-level material they are largely not teaching. He’s doing so because CRT is “indoctrination,” but also, he’s requiring teachings that prioritize “patriotism” and will exclusively create “patriotic citizens ready for the workforce, not political activists,” which, in his mind and that of other jingoists, doesn’t amount to indoctrination at all. Also, the Trump administration is calling educator, historian and activist Nikole Hannah-Jones’ The 1619 Project, which was published in the New York Times in 2019 and earned her a Pulitzer Prize, “toxic propaganda,” but is also seeking to reinstate the “1776 Commission,” which was denounced by historians for, among other politicized inaccuracies, excusing slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise as practices that were necessary at the time to make America great.

It’s all just further proof that MAGA conservatives really have no issue with “indoctrination” as long as it’s the right indoctrination. If you have to inspire American students to be “patriots” by mandating “educational” materials that enforce patriotic ideology (read: jingoism) while eliminating any materials that present America as exactly what Trump wants to return it to — a nation of white supremacy reinforced by white nationalism — you’re not actually creating patriotism, you’re forging a doctrine and trying to force students into your congregation.

When Republicans talk about CRT, they’re not even addressing the academic framework; they have reimagined CRT into an umbrella term for any race-involved narrative that makes white people uncomfortable. They’ve applied the same propagandist tactics to the very concept of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Everything about Trump is “toxic propaganda,” and he and the rest of the GOP have made it clear they intend to push their legislative efforts centered on white fragility into overdrive.

Resistance will be difficult these next four years, but we must resist.

SEE ALSO:

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw Breaks Down The True Essence Of Critical Race Theory

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