Senator Cruz, Rep. Owens introduce bill to ban teaching of CRT in institutions that accept federal funding
Owens grew up in the Jim Crow South and has stated that CRT 'undermines civil rights.'
This bill could affect public universities that accept federal funding.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) introduced the “End CRT ACT” to the Senate and House respectively.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Cruz on June 24, would “restrict executive agencies from acting in contravention of Executive Order 13950.”
These restrictions include the teaching of “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex”, that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist,” and that individuals are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive” simply based on race.
Sen. Cruz stated in a press release that Critical Race Theory divides Americans based on race, and shouldn’t be federally funded.
”The federal government has no right to force a political agenda onto Americans, especially one that aims to tear down our institutions and divide us based on race,” Sen. Cruz said. “Critical Race Theory originated out of the critical race studies movement. It is a Marxist ideology that sees the world as a battle, not between the classes - as classical Marxism does - but between the races. This is inherently bigoted.”
The press release states that the bill would block any federal agency or “recipient of federal funding” from receiving federal funding if they teach CRT.
Many American institutions accept federal funding and would be affected by this bill. Consequently, public universities may find themselves subject to the bill’s restrictions should the legislation become law.
Senator Cruz further elaborates that since President Biden’s first day, the new commander-in-chief has rescinded the Trump administration’s commonsense executive order that banned theoretical frameworks such as CRT from being taught. Cruz states that he is “proud to introduce this bill to block federal funding for CRT and ensure the U.S. government doesn’t contribute to this radical ideology.”
Upon introducing his companion bill, Owens spoke on growing up in the Jim Crow South. Owens states that CRT preserves the thinking behind Jim Crow which “undermines civil rights, constitutionally guaranteed equal protection before the law, and U.S. institutions at large.”
Jonathan Voos, a student at Austin College, told Campus Reform that he mostly agrees with Senator Cruz and thinks “Critical Race Theory is divisive and immoral and would prefer that workplaces do not teach it to their employees as a factual means of analyzing our politics and history.”
Voos prefers if American universities actively worked against CRT infiltration of University curriculum. Voos further stated he is “perfectly fine with Critical Race Theory being discussed and analyzed from an academic perspective—much in the same way I think it is important to read Marx, Rousseau, and the viewpoints of others that I tend to find contemptible—but I would prefer that it is looked at as a tool at most.”
Voos further elaborated that “The last thing we need in this country is more division, so allowing such a polarizing—and quite frankly, incorrect—ideology to foster and grow within the ranks of our academia and the minds of my generation seems suboptimal to say the least.”
Voos does, however, have his reservations when it comes to the ban. He questions whether it “would be constitutionally sound if enacted and worry that efforts to ban CRT totally will only give it more legitimacy as such bans are unlikely to go into effect at the federal level while a Democrat is in the Oval Office.”
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