North Carolina proposed a model bill other states should use to seek the banning of critical race theory (CRT) and avoid censorship in schools, a new report says.
American Enterprise Institute's Max Eden on Monday issued a report in which he said North Carolina had employed the best approach — banning promotion of CRT — in legislative efforts to combat the theory in public schools, the Washington Examiner reported.
Progressive activists and Democrats have insisted that CRT is not taught in public schools despite what some critics say is evidence to the contrary.
Republican-controlled state legislatures have focused on legislation banning CRT.
Eden said state legislatures aiming to ban CRT have focused on prohibiting "compulsion," "inclusion," or "promotion."
He said banning promotion is the best route. It prohibits school districts from using CRT in teacher training programs or contracting speakers or consultants that integrate it into their programs.
"This approach encompasses the prohibition against compulsion," Eden wrote. "But most importantly, it threads the needle of preventing the politicization of the classroom without presenting any barrier to honest and accurate classroom instruction."
The bid to ban critical race theory in North Carolina fell short after Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C., vetoed the legislation. Cooper said the bill "pushes calculated, conspiracy-laden politics into public education," WTVD reported.
"It's perplexing that Gov. Cooper would veto a bill that affirms the public school system's role to teach students the full truth about our state's sometimes ugly past," GOP state Senate Leader Phil Berger said, WTVD reported.
"His invented excuse is so plainly refuted by the text of the bill that I question whether he even read it."
In saying CRT bans are needed nationally, Eden disagreed with columnist and author David French, who said the theory would be banned if existing federal civil rights laws were properly enforced.
"Until such time as the federal government signals that it will faithfully enforce the Civil Rights Act, states have a constitutional duty to act," Eden said.
"The state surely has an interest in assuring that the next generation is not educated in state-run schools to oppose the foundational principles of the state," Eden continued. "The state has an even higher obligation to act on behalf of the parents whose children it educates. CRT-inspired pedagogy at times aims to subvert the family itself, teaching ideas such as 'it [is] important to disrupt the Western nuclear family dynamics as the best/proper way to have a family.'"