July 23, 2021 – A nationwide push by conservatives to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools has now hit Washington County. The theory, which was developed in the 1970s to explain why Blacks and other people of color have not made more gains after the civil rights movement, maintains that legal and other institutions in the U.S. uphold social, economic and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, particularly Blacks. However, educators in the state, including local teachers, say they are not teaching critical race theory but are encouraging discussion about racism during this country’s history and today.
During the monthly meeting of the Washington County Republican Committee at the Whiting Community Center on July 16, former state legislator Lawrence Lockman of Amherst in Hancock County gave a talk about critical race theory, and the discussion included numerous attacks on teachers and the public education system in the state. Lockman, who is president of the Maine First Project, had been asked by the committee to give his presentation, which was attended by 25 people.
During his talk, titled “Leftist Indoctrination in Maine’s K 12 Classrooms: Marxist Hate Dressed Up as Racial Justice,” Lockman stated that critical race theory “is the latest incarnation of the leftists’ contempt for America and the Judeo-Christian beliefs on which this country was built.” He argued that critical race theory is based on a Marxist ideology, with proponents substituting racial conflict for the class conflict of Marxism. Lockman said the model it’s based on maintains that “the oppressors are the white race and the oppressed are everybody else.” But he argued there is no systemic racism in America, as it was outlawed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964; instead, the only systemic racism lies in affirmative action policies that discriminate against white and Asian Americans.
During his talk, Lockman referred to critical race theory as “poisonous, toxic, anti-American criminal ideology” and said that those who are promoting it have “shown they hate America” and are “teaching kids to hate their country and hate themselves.”
Lockman stated that the Maine Department of Education “is pushing critical race theory relentlessly” and that their recommended reading lists “are exclusively left-wing material.” He noted that home-schooling is one option for parents, but, even so, he said, “Your tax dollars are going to brainwashing kids next door who are going to grow up to be voters.”
The former legislator urged those at the meeting to run for their local school boards to stop the teaching of critical race theory and “expose this to the light of day.” One person in the audience urged the formation of parental committees so that parents could take turns going into classrooms to find out what their children are being taught in school. Another person at the meeting, Jon Reisman of Cooper, the assistant vice president of academic affairs at the University of Maine at Machias, stated that the Maine Education Association “is responsible for so much evil in this state over the past 20 years.”
Lockman bases his arguments on the ideology promoted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative think tank based in California. Other conservative groups that are pushing for state lawmakers to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory are the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The California foundation provided the model legislation that Lockman introduced in 2019 in the Maine Legislature that would have prohibited the teaching of critical race theory in Maine’s public school system. The bill was unanimously killed by the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee.
This year, the same bill was introduced again by Rep. Meldon Carmichael of Greenbush, who represents the same House District 137 seat that Lockman represented until he ran for the Maine Senate District 8 seat in 2020 and lost by 52 votes in the Republican primary to Kimberley Rosen. This time the bill ended up being defeated in the House by a vote of 82 to 63 and in the Senate by a vote of 22 to 13. An attempt ‘to stifle our students’
Rep. Carmichael’s bill would have directed the state Board of Education to adopt rules prohibiting teachers in public schools from engaging in political, ideological or religious advocacy in the classroom or from introducing any controversial subject matter that is not germane to the topic of the course being taught. The bill stated that the rules would need to prohibit teachers from “singling out one racial group of students as responsible for the suffering or inequities experienced by another racial group of students.” Although penalties for violations could include termination of the teacher, Rep. Carmichael later proposed an amendment to the bill so the penalties would be limited to additional training for the teacher.
During the hearing on the bill, Eileen King, deputy executive director of the Maine School Management Association (MSMA), which opposed the legislation, stated that in Maine it is the role of local school boards, not the state Board of Education, to regulate the teaching of controversial issues. She provided the MSMA’s sample policy on the teaching of sensitive issues, which states, among many other points, that teachers should ensure that the subject belongs within the curriculum covered, strive to present a balance among many points of view, not use the classroom as a personal forum and emphasize keeping an open mind, basing one’s judgment on known facts.
King stated that “one of the most important roles of education is to help students discern between fact and fiction and come to their own informed decisions and opinions. This has become even more critical in the age of Facebook and other social media where what is true, or false, or something in between, is not obvious. Our ultimate goal is when students leave our schools they will be well prepared to think for themselves.”
Grace Leavitt, president of the Maine Education Association (MEA), testified that the nearly 24,000 members of the MEA are strongly opposed to the bill, since teachers in public schools do not engage in political or religious advocacy in the classrooms. “Teachers encourage all views and perspectives to be shared and heard, and they encourage students to think critically and to form their own views,” she stated. “It seems the maker of this proposal is actually attempting to stifle our students, to inhibit their learning, to keep them from questioning and seeking to understand the world they live in.” Discussing all points of view
Paul Theriault, the principal of the Eastport schools, says critical race theory is not taught per se in the Eastport schools. “We don’t proselytize our own personal beliefs.” However, trying to prevent any discussion about critical race theory “is ridiculous,” he says, as the history of systematic racism in this country should be part of discussions in the classroom. Referencing the proposal to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory, he says, “We don’t want to say, this is the only thing we’re going to teach.” The former history and government teacher says it’s good to allow debate to occur in the classroom and to have all points of view be discussed. “We don’t want politicians to get in the middle of what we teach.”
Theriault notes that students may pick up racist or homophobic ideas from home, and schools need to educate students in a way that allows discussion about all sides of an issue. He notes that process has occurred in his own life, as when he was growing up he only heard that those races who were not white were inferior. “We need to hear all sides to get to a place of understanding. When you start limiting yourself to hearing only one side of any issue, you can’t get educated that way. I know I had thoughts that were racist when I was growing up. How can I get educated if I can’t hear all sides?”
Noting that the effort to tell schools what they can teach is being pushed by the current Republican Party, Theriault, who has been a Republican since he first could vote in 1975, says this year he withdrew from the party after being a member for nearly 50 years. “It’s not my Republican Party as I remember it. I don’t believe in anything they say.” Department not pushing critical race theory
The Maine Department of Education (MDOE) also says it’s not advocating the teaching of critical race theory. Kelli Deveaux, director of communications for the department, states, “Unlike many other states, there is no mandated curriculum for schools in Maine.” While schools must teach to standards in the Maine’s System of Learning Results, a broad framework of concepts for each content area, each school district makes decisions on curriculum, including what materials, content, instructional strategies and assessments are used in their classrooms. The state’s standards for social studies make no mention of critical race theory. The standards are based on numerous topics, including freedom and justice and conflict and compromise.
Deveaux points out, “In accordance with Maine’s constitution, each community has the responsibility to provide for the PreK 12 education of students and is governed by the local school boards, who set policy and make financial decisions on behalf of their communities.”
Concerning critical race theory, Deveaux states, “This recycled concept, which began as a legal theory in the 1970s, is a political construct, not an educational one. It is not a curriculum nor a program of study. The recent use of the term seems to expand its scope and meaning to include anything to do with diversity of ideas, experiences or mention of race.”
She adds, “It is unfortunate that this coordinated national effort is being used to create fear and mistrust of the same public education system and its educators who worked tirelessly over this past year to feed, nurture and educate our children during a global pandemic.” |
