Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has joined a coalition of attorneys general asking the Biden administration to abandon proposals that would introduce Critical Race Theory to U.S. classrooms.
Biden’s proposal would issue educational grants to introduce Critical Race Theory and the New York Times’s “1619 Project.” Yost and other attorneys general urged U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in a letter to review directives outlined in the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act.
The attorneys general say that while the grants do not explicitly mention Critical Race Theory, they are “prioritizing teaching this highly controversial ideology.”
“This is hardly what Congress intended when it authorized this program,” the letter said. “CRT focuses how our current government mechanisms are irretrievably flawed. Its theorists posit that our Nation’s values, ideals, foundations and institutions — the things Congress intended to promote — instead produce ‘inequity’ demanding actions to modify this result.”
The letter was signed by 20 attorneys general, including Yost. In addition to alleging that it goes against what Congress originally intended, the coalition also claims that the proposal would harm both students and teachers.
“We need to learn from the real evils of slavery and racism, but these proposals will only create more misunderstanding,” Yost said in a statement. “Critical Race Theory is nothing more than ideology posing as history and we should not confuse the two. ”
The Every Student Succeeds Act legislates that education policy is decided by parents, teachers and local communities.
“This is just more federal overreach,” Yost said. “Decisions about curriculum should remain a primarily local matter and not subjected to political whim out of Washington. Certainly, a fringe view that is not generally and widely accepted should never be mandated out of Washington, D.C.”
Read the letter to Cardona here.
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Jordyn Pair is a reporter with The Ohio Star and the Star News Network. Follow her on Twitter at @JordynPair.
