‘Every teacher I've talked to is completely freaked out by it': Trump's order on critical race theory thrusts White House into the classroom

Boston Globe

06-02-2025

Critical race theory is an academic s
In Massachusetts, the largest teachers unions, including the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, and the Boston Teachers Union, have denounced Trump for trying to politicize the nation's schools.
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'If we're not taught that history and we don't know what happened, then we don't understand why things are the way they are today,' said Jessica Tang, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts. 'And then I think it undermines democracy in the longer run.'
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While lessons involving race and racism are taught in public schools, many K-12 school systems, including those in Massachusetts, said critical theory is not. 'The simple answer is, 'no,' we do not teach CRT,' according to the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, in a 2021 position paper.
Trump's order said federal money can't be used on the 'indoctrination' of children, including 'radical gender ideology and critical race theory.' Trump's order, which also calls for a bar on many sexuality issues, describes critical race theory as an 'inherently racist policy.'
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Bridges said students benefit from a complete telling of the nation's history.
'It really doesn't set children up to be responsible adults and citizens,' Bridges said. 'All of those moments of American history really provide context for understanding the present.'
During his last presidential run, Trump campaigned on stripping federal funding from schools or programs that Trump said
MacRae, a Bourne School Committee member,
'We need to focus on spending the taxpayers' resources on education not indoctrination,' MacRae said.
William A. Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell Law School and president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, also supported Trump's order. Jacobson's organization is a Rhode Island nonprofit that operates
'Teaching children in public schools to focus on and assess their lives based on skin color is extremely damaging to the children, sets children against each other, and tears the country further apart, particularly when parents are excluded and demonized for objecting to such doctrines,' Jacobson said in a statement.
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While federal grants are only a portion of local education budgets, Trump's order could be far-reaching, some educators said.
For Marcus Walker, a humanities teacher at Fenway High School in Boston, Trump's order not only threatens academic freedom for educators, but he says students will also lose out if their schooling is curtailed by political decree. And that's damaging for a democracy, he said.
'As citizens, we are obligated to be responsible. We're obligated to understand our government, to learn how the government works, and we're obligated to get accurate information,' Walker said. 'All of that gets short-circuited if we're teaching history that is dishonest.'
Trump's order on education was part of a
leaders
spinning.
He tried to freeze
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K-12 schools and universities across the country have been scrubbing references to diversity and equity, after Trump decreed that organizations with diversity, equity, and inclusion policies could lose access to federal contracts and grants.
And K-12 schools have also found themselves on another political fault line —
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Rajesh Sampath, an associate professor of the philosophy of justice, rights, and social change at Brandeis University in Waltham, argued Trump's recent orders are meant to push the power of the presidency as far as possible.
'He'll push the constitutional limits of the executive branch,' Sampath said.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a law professor and dean of Boston University's School of Law, criticized Trump's order. She said she knows of no CRT scholar who teaches that members of one race, color, sex, or national origin 'are morally or inherently superior' to someone else.
'If the executive order is intended to target or ban CRT, it is misguided in its efforts and displays a lack of understanding about CRT. Critical Race Theory focuses on structural racism, and the Executive Order does not,' Onwuachi-Willig said.
Eliminating critical race theory from the nation's schools was a priority included in Project 2025, a conservative outline for overhauling government. Trump repeatedly distanced himself from the document as a candidate, but many who contributed to it have joined his current administration
The Project 2025 report said the 'noxious tenets of 'critical race theory' and 'gender ideology' should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country.'
Trump's order against critical race theory called for schools to offer 'patriotic education' to students, and reestablished the 1776 Commission from Trump's first term.
The commission's guide for teaching history plays down the role of slavery in the United States, and criticized the civil rights movement for taking actions that 'ran counter to the lofty ideals of the founders,' according to the document.
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Learning about these subjects is vital to creating informed voters, said Jordan, the retired Haverhill teacher.
'If you simply say to students, we have never had a problem, everything is fine, then the fundamentals of democracy start to come off its wheels,' Jordan said.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
John Hilliard can be reached at