Ilhan Omar denies Critical Race Theory is being taught in schools
Heritage Action Executive Director Jessica Anderson says tools like research and FOIA requests can help reject Critical Race Theory in classrooms.
A new digital book aims to help parents stand up against what has become known as "critical race theory," or CRT, teachings in U.S. schools.
Critics of CRT, which is formally understood as an academic and legal analysis of race recognizing racism as a systemic problem affecting certain areas of society, argue that the movement is divisive in classrooms and separates children into groups of oppressors versus oppressed, privileged and underprivileged.
"Rejecting critical race theory is one of the most important fights for conservative grassroots since the Tea Party movement," Jessica Anderson, executive director of conservative grassroots organization Heritage Action, told Fox News. "With the e-book Heritage Action is rolling out today, we are giving the power back to concerned parents by equipping them with information on what critical race theory is, how to spot it, and how to combat it in their communities."
She added that CRT "is electrifying the conservative movement and Heritage Action is leading the fight against the left’s radical agenda."
"Reject Critical Race Theory" e-book (Credit: Heritage Action)
Parents can sign up the get an emailed version of the e-book, which gives them "background info" and "activist resources" to push back against the academic movement through Heritage Action's website.
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Parents across the country have been speaking out against so-called CRT in private and public schools or school districts and working to garner support from others who take issue with the movement. The new Heritage e-book aims to give parents the right tools to do so with a toolkit that helps them better understand their schools and how to request public information.
"The name of the game is transparency," Anderson told FOX Business' "Varney & Co." on Monday. "What we're calling on parents … to do is to start by researching their schools, and the toolkit walks through how to do this; submitting [Freedom of Information Act] requests to school board members, superintendents, principles. All of this information is available to them."
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The vagueness of the term "CRT" has played out nationwide, with institutions and even politicians disputing constituents' claims that they're implementing CRT. There even seems to be confusion within institutions like Loudoun County Public Schools, in Virginia, which despite denying teaching CRT reportedly coaches its employees on that very concept.
In the fallout of mass confusion, many have focused their criticism on what they say CRT manifests — divisive ideas about race, collective guilt for dominant groups, and assigning racial significance to seemingly neutral concepts. The previous U.S. administration and various states attempted to restrict the theory's spread by referring more generally to those ideas.
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Most notably, states like Oregon and Virginia have come under fire for promoting ideas about racist structures in mathematics. One program, in particular, alleged that white supremacy infiltrated math classrooms and manifested itself in the focus on finding the "right answer." It similarly blamed white supremacy for objectivity as "the belief that there is such a thing as being objective or ‘neutral.'"
Defenders argue that CRT-type training helps enhance dominant groups' understanding and empathy of what the oppressed experience on a regular basis. These types of trainings have also been promoted as ways to "dismantle" or weaken alleged structures imposing burdens through bias and discrimination.
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Janel George, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University who teaches a graduate course on racial inequities in K-12 education, previously told Fox News that there appears to be "some conflation of [CRT], which is a theory arising out of the legal academy that is taught at the graduate level, and ethnic studies efforts at the K-12 level."
"It seems that many school districts are working to include the history and experiences of people of color that have long been excluded from schools," she said. "… Students who aren't exposed to history or experiences of people of color often feel deprived of the opportunity to develop a full understanding of people and history."
Fox News' Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
