If you listen to leftists, the critical race theory (CRT) scourge is a figment of our imagination. The head of the second-largest teachers union in America recently said, “Critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or high schools.” Vox accused anti-CRT conservatives of engaging in a “disinformation campaign,” while the Guardian called it the right’s new “bogeyman,” and Virginia Democrat gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe called it a “right-wing conspiracy.”
Even our military commanders have denied that CRT is permeating the U.S. military, claiming “We do not teach critical race theory.” And then there’s Joe Biden, who — in response to President Trump’s explanation of his executive order banning the teaching of CRT in federal agencies — retorted, “Nobody is doing that.”
Of course, Biden was lying through his dentures. How do I know? Because I worked on the front lines of Trump’s fight to eliminate critical race theory from U.S. government agencies.
In summer 2020, thanks to the groundbreaking reporting of Christopher Rufo, the cancer of CRT in our federal government began to be exposed. In response, the Domestic Policy Council, along with my agency, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), began work on crafting the language of an executive order aimed at identifying and eliminating all trainings based on “divisive concepts” that indoctrinated federal bureaucrats with race and sex stereotypes.
Once President Trump signed the order, I and my colleagues at OPM were tasked with implementing it. First, we gathered all the training programs related to diversity and inclusion from every agency in the federal government. Then, we examined the materials to assess whether they contained language or were based on concepts that violated the president’s order (e.g., whether they taught that an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive). It was up to us to determine what to cut.
The first thing I remember was the sheer volume of the material. A single agency produced nearly 1,000 pages of documents on “unconscious bias” training alone. We had to hire additional staff just to get through all the material. Another agency had several in-person seminars on “whiteness” which cost tens of thousands of dollars scheduled for that month alone. The agency petitioned for expedited review and pushed us for approval. We refused.
Naturally, some agencies did not take kindly to our directives, especially at the State Department. We even had political appointees attempting to flout the executive order and refusing to turn over their training materials.
Once they did submit them, it was obvious why. Our nation’s diplomats were being taught that the United States was “systemically racist” and one of the worst human rights offenders in the world. How can we expect these individuals to advocate for U.S. interests abroad when they are taught to hate the very country they represent?
As my time in the Trump administration showed me, critical race theory is not only real, it is pervasive. It is being taught in our government agencies, in our workplaces, in our children’s schools, and even in the U.S. military. It is the equivalent of a fifth column, infiltrating the minds of American citizens and turning them against our own country by guilting them into believing that America is fundamentally racist and evil.
The evidence abounds. Thanks to investigative reporters like Rufo, the public now has access to source materials — many of which my OPM colleagues and I personally reviewed and rejected — being used to indoctrinate federal employees and our men and women in uniform.
Seminars at West Point teach future soldiers about “white rage.” The Navy’s reading list includes “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” and “Sexual Minorities and Politics.”
Top scientists at Argonne National Lab (which handles national security matters) circulated documents arguing that “we live in an institutionally racist society” and that meritocracy should be traded for “equity of outcome.” At the Department of Homeland Security, employees are taught that the “myth of meritocracy” and “color blindness” are racist concepts.
It’s not just adults. Critical race theory is pushed on children as young as six years old, raising them to feel guilty for being white, to apologize for their country, and to question their self-worth.
These training sessions and curricula are not intended to promote racial harmony – they seek to stoke racial division. Critical race theory is a conscious and deliberate effort by radical leftists to rewrite American history and pit races against one another for electoral gain. Unsurprisingly, that’s why Biden repealed President Trump’s executive order on his first day in office and implemented his own executive order based on a discriminatory understanding of “equity.”
The good news is that we are witnessing the start of a grassroots movement rising up against the poisoning of America’s young minds. At the local level, parents are taking their concerns, their anger, and their indignation to school board meetings and the ballot box. Some are even running for school board.
For these parents, it is not a conservative or a liberal issue. And it’s certainly not a bogeyman or a conspiracy. It is a fundamental tenet: “all men are created equal.”
Thankfully, some members of Congress are fighting back, too. Just recently, Republicans introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would ban the teaching of critical race theory in the U.S. military. Let’s see how Democrats explain voting against that amendment.
If there is one thing I learned from my time in the Trump administration, it is that we, as conservatives, don’t have to keep accepting failure and retreat. We can fight back, and we can win. On critical race theory, it is up to each of us to call it out for the poison it is and fight to eliminate it.
There is no middle ground. From the federal government to the military to corporate boardrooms to university campuses to our elementary and high schools, we have a duty to speak out and fight back.
