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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Jackson, MS): One of America’s largest conservative think tanks is partnering with the Mississippi Center for Public Policy to debate Critical Race Theory.

On Tuesday, November 9, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy will host Mike Gonzalez, a Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and America’s leading expert on Critical Race Theory, at an event in Jackson.

“As the leading conservative advocacy organization in the state, we are delighted to be partnering with the leading conservative think tank in the United States,” said Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

“Critical Race Theory is deeply divisive and risks reversing many of the advances made in America since the Civil Rights era,” Carswell added.  

“Our recent report on Critical Race Theory revealed that this ideology is being advanced in our education system, perhaps most aggressively in public universities. While the education establishment often seeks to deny that they are pushing this radical, progressive agenda, we uncovered incontrovertible evidence that they are.”

Author of The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics is Dividing the Land of the Free and, most recently, BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution, Mr. Gonzalez has crisscrossed the country, advising lawmakers and citizens alike on what we need to do to safeguard America from this Left-Wing dogma.

At the seminar, Mr. Gonzalez will present the audience a number of resources and evidence on Critical Race Theory to:



For more information or to request an interview with Mississippi Center For Public Policy President & CEO Douglas Carswell, please reach out to Stone Clanton, [email protected].

On practically every level, America has been a shining display of freedom and prosperity. According to the vision of its Founders, the nation has shined as a beacon of hope to a world full of tyranny and hardship. Despite these successes, America’s legacy has been under attack over the last several years.

With a focus on the failures of an imperfect but inspiring history, revisionist historians have attempted to paint the nation as a society that was ultimately built on oppression and evil. Yet, such claims do not hold validity when you look at the track record of the country.

In 1630, the world was filled with empires and monarchs. In Europe, several wars overwhelmed a continent plagued by imperial rivalries. The Ottoman Empire stretched from Turkey to Sudan with the rule of an iron fist. Spain and Portugal imposed a reign of terror over Latin America. The nations existed for their rulers. Meanwhile, far from the centers of world activity, a few dozen settlers quietly sailed up the Charles River into Massachusetts, led by John Winthrop. With a vision for a righteous society of liberty and justice, Winthrop proclaimed his aim that the settlement they established be a “city on a hill” and that “the eyes of all people are upon us.”

That settlement would become the city of Boston. One hundred forty-five years later, the War for Independence would begin 10 miles away with “the shot heard around the world.” In the wake of American victory and the founding of the nation, 245 years of history have shown that America has indeed been a “city on a hill” placed prominently in the view of the whole world.

In January 1989, President Ronald Reagan spoke of America in his farewell address as a “city on a hill.” True to its legacy, America had recently stood up to the might of the Soviet Union and led the free world in the fight to preserve freedom from the tentacles of Communism. Less than a year after Reagan’s farewell address, the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. By 1992, the Soviet Union itself had collapsed and America still stood as “the shining city.”

The year is now 2021 and most of the tyrannical regimes of the last 245 years have been resigned to the dust bin of history. Direct assaults on Winthrop and Reagan’s shining city have all proved to be futile. But the enemies of liberty have not yet given up.

Instead of trying again to attack the shining city directly, new ideologies have instead questioned whether the shining city ever existed in the first place. Defining America as a nation of racism, oppression, and subjugation, this revisionist history threatens the very foundation of America through philosophies such as Critical Race Theory. The opponents of liberty know that the only way the nation can ever lose its exceptional legacy is by the destruction of its history. This is why so many advocate for the deconstruction of history.

The fact that America has truly been “a city on a hill” stands firm. The success of the nation refutes any claims to the contrary. The nation that is called “the land of opportunity,” the nation that countless scores have built their lives in, the nation that has stood for freedom of religion and speech, this country’s historical legacy cannot be changed.

Yet, this legacy can only continue if America looks back to the foundations of former days. Americans must teach their history so that future generations can know the nation’s exceptional story. Efforts must be made to push back against the revisionism of those who assault the nation’s legacy as a city on a hill. The future of the nation depends on it.   

Critical race theory is a deeply divisive ideology that threatens to tear America apart. It demands that we stop seeing fellow Americans as individuals, and instead regard them in terms of racial identity. It is a rejection of the principle that all of us are created equally.

While lots has been said about critical race theory in more progressive parts of America, it is often assumed that in supposedly conservative states like Mississippi, this extremist agenda does not exist.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. This Marxist-like ideology is being taught in Mississippi’s educational system.

According to our report, Combating Critical Race Theory in Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Education suggests teachers make use of professional development programs provided by organizations such as the Zinn Education Project and Facing Ourselves & History. Both these organizations promote radical ideas associated with Critical Race Theory. The Zinn Project even advocates for the abolition of Columbus Day and for the payment of reparations for African Americans.

Critical race theory is even more explicitly promoted at college level. Universities in our state are not only administered in accordance with critical race theory, but it also impacts what students are taught. 

Mississippi State’s English Department website refers to “systemic racism” perpetuating “white supremacy” in America. It demands “structural change” to achieve “racial justice.”[1] The department goes on to explain how it has “begun re-envisioning our curriculum to address its emphasis on white authors and literary traditions” and how it is responding to the fact that the “demographics and dynamics” of the department are those of a “Predominantly White Institution (PWI).”

The University of Mississippi’s Department of Writing and Rhetoric teaches courses that explore “how whiteness is constructed.” There, students analyze “whiteness as it has evolved over time” and consider the relationship between white identity and “white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege and whiteness.”

One of the reasons why many Mississippians are unaware of the extent to which critical race theory is being taught is the fact that those who promote this agenda seldom characterize what they are teaching as being "critical race theory." Often, they will reject the term entirely.

This means that we need to look beyond the label and better understand what it is that educators are actually teaching.

In our report, we identify some of the underlying ideas behind this ideology. 

We then go on to recommend a series of practical steps that can be taken to tackle critical race theory. 

You can read our full study and recommendations to Mississippi leaders HERE.

[1] https://www.english.msstate.edu/news/mississippi-state-department-english-statement-protest-against-racism-and-police-violence/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Jackson, MS): Critical race theory is being taught and promoted in Mississippi, according to a new report out today from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

The report defines critical race theory as an ideology that maintains the United States is founded on racial supremacy and oppression. 

The report shows that critical race theory is a Marxist-like belief system. While conventional Marxists divide society between the oppressors and the oppressed, critical race theorists have replaced the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of white and black. 

“This makes critical race theory a deeply divisive ideology, as well as an extremist one,” explains Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. “Critical race theory ultimately seeks to overthrow the existing economic and political order and fundamentally change America.”

Today’s report reveals that:

“For all the assurances that critical race theory is not being taught in Mississippi, when you look at the evidence, it clearly is” added Carswell. “Mississippians need to know that a deeply dangerous and divisive ideology is being advanced through our public education institutions. Mississippi leaders need to take action to combat this.”

Today’s report sets out a six point plan to combat critical race theory. Included in the report’s recommendations are:

Read the full report HERE.


For more information or to request an interview with Mississippi Center For Public Policy President Douglas Carswell, please reach out to Stone Clanton, clanton@mspolicy.

I used to laugh at the absurdity of "woke" academics. So much of what they advocated seemed so ridiculous.

I am not sure we should be laughing any more. "Woke" ideas have become dangerous, not merely daft.

Take, for example, critical race theory, which argues that the United States is founded on racial supremacy and oppression. This radical idea has spread out from college campuses into the workplace, government and even the military.

A form of Marxism, critical race theory divides society between the oppressors and the oppressed. But unlike old school Marxism, with its categorization by class, critical race theory categorizes Americans by race. 

This ideology is obviously deeply divisive. But so long as only a handful of academics thought like that, we could largely ignore it.

The trouble is that the "woke" ideas are increasingly becoming a kind of belief system for many of America’s elite. They now permeate many aspects of life in America – and if unchecked they risk tearing the republic apart.

This week the Mississippi Center for Public Policy publishes a report that looks at how widespread these ideas are within the public education system in our state.

We then set out a series of practical steps we believe our leaders need to take to ensure that this extremist agenda is not promoted using public money.
 
The United States was founded on the ideal that everyone possesses their own "inalienable rights." That principle, however imperfectly applied, helped to define the United States as a country that respected people as individuals. 
 
Critical race theory stands that ideal on its head, insisting instead that we define ourselves according to immutable characteristics. This ideology is profoundly un-American and anti-American. 

America is such an extraordinary success story. The USA, while not perfect, is a moral as well as a material achievement.

Our report sets out how we might replace a bad idea – the notion that America is intrinsically racist – with a good idea – that America is "the last best hope of earth.”

The primary purpose of a business is to generate capital through the production of goods and/or services. But big businesses have also become increasingly involved in the political and ideological battles of the day.  Some have supported the foundational principles the nation was founded on, while others have chosen the path of "political correctness."

In recent years, there has been a reaction among some that big business itself poses a threat to the values and priorities of the common man. While some big businesses have caused a great deal of harm, big business itself is not the real problem. In fact, a large portion of Americans provide for themselves through employment at these large companies. The problem is when big businesses embrace bad ideologies.

On the fundamental level, the larger a business is, the greater its capacity is for good or for evil. This goes both ways. For instance, American industrial companies were so successful in their production for the World War II war effort that they became known as "the arsenal of democracy.”  On the other hand, several big businesses in Germany used government-sanctioned forced labor. They justified it with the Nazi logic of "German superiority.”  

While many may gasp at such complicity with evil, these German companies simply did the same thing that many companies do today. They bought into the “politically correct” ideology of their time and context. In the Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, this was the Nazi ideology of racism and world conquest. These companies then used their strength to generate profits in bad faith through forced labor. On the other hand, the American companies used their economic position in the market to rally behind the American ideals of liberty and patriotism while producing honest profits for their companies. The contrast is striking.

America is no longer at war with an evil foreign power set on taking over the world. Yet, the threat of certain ideologies in corporate America is more real than ever. History teaches us the immense danger of large corporations simply going along with whatever ideology of the day happens to be in fashion. But these lessons have not been learned by all.

While the politically correct corporations of today are not embracing the ideology of Nazism, many of them have embraced other evils that are popular in our day. Companies have supported the breakdown of society through critical race theory. Some have used their dominant market share to censor certain views that go against the orthodoxy of the Left. While others have leveraged their political and cultural clout to campaign against the rights of unborn children, contribute to the breakdown of the family, and support the election of political leaders that will expand government and oppose freedom.

Many of tomorrow's business executives are indoctrinated in schools and colleges with the tenants of the Left’s orthodoxy. So we should not be surprised when the companies they lead become more concerned about being “woke” than producing quality products. When a large company contributes to the breakdown of the nation, the fault does not lie in the size of the business. The fault lies with the decision of the company to mix “political correctness” with its profits.

Bad ideologies are damaging no matter where they are found, not just in big business. These ideologies have infiltrated into America’s government, media, corporate world, public opinion, and universities. To protect the nation from the dangerous consequences of such ideologies, America needs hearts and minds that are grounded in the principles it was founded on. This is the true key to victory against the assault on the nation’s founding ideals.

America has faced plenty of external threats before.  Each time the United States came through triumphant and stronger.  

Today, however, we face a threat that is internal, rather than external; Critical Race Theory.  We need to work out how to respond to it as a threat to the American way of life.  

Critical Race Theory encourages Americans to lose faith in their own country.  Instead of celebrating America’s Founding Ideals, Critical Race Theory teaches young Americans that their nation is founded on hate.

Far from marveling at how people from every country, culture, and creed want to come to the USA, Critical Race Theory insists instead that America is inherently racist.  

We ought to applaud the progress that has been made towards achieving Martin Luther King’s vision of a country where people are defined by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.  Instead, Critical Race Theorists want to racialize everything.

Critical Race Theory is a form of race-based Marxism.  Old school Marxists divided the world by class, capitalist oppressors Vs oppressed workers.  Critical Race Theory’s new variant Marxism divides America into oppressor Vs oppressed base on skin color.  Critical Race Theory specifically rejects the principle of equal protection under the law.  

Nowhere is Critical Race Theory more dangerous and destructive than in our education system.

In California, public schools have accused white teachers of being colonizers on stolen Native American land and told them “you are racist” and “you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.”  North Carolina’s largest school district launched a campaign against “whiteness in educational spaces”—and encouraged teachers to subvert families and push the ideology of “antiracism” directly onto students without parental consent.

How do we ensure these this divisive ideology is not being advanced in public schools here in Mississippi?

Critical Race Theory in the classroom opposes meritocracy, and has caused some school boards in parts of America to abandon standardized testing.  It teaches young people that the government must actively discriminate against racial groups deemed privileged.

Most obnoxious of all, it advocates neo-segregation and turns schools into a race re-education program.

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy believes these neo-racist theories have no place in the classroom.  What can we do about it?  

Step one is to find out how prevalent this kind of ideology-based teaching actually is.  Then we need action to ensure that public schools do not use public money to indoctrinate students about fringe racial theories that claim one race is superior to another, or that individuals should be treated differently on the basis of race.  We are working on producing a draft bill that we believe will go some way to achieving this.  Our think tank is leading the way on this.  

But tackling Critical Race Theory cannot be done just by passing a law.  Whether we like it or not, America is engaged in a battle for her future – and it is a struggle being waged for the hearts and minds of millions of young Americans.

Rather than simply forbid a divisive ideology being taught, we need to make a concerted effort to teach people why America is such an exceptional country.

Young people growing up today, like every generation before them, seek to make sense of the world around them.  Why, some will ask, are some people more successful than others?  How come some parts of America are prosperous yet others poor?  What explains the fact that America is so rich relative to most other countries?

Critical Race Theory offers a superficial, if deeply flawed, explanation.  We need to offer young people a better way of understanding the world.  It is an absence of freedom and liberty that explains why some societies are less successful than others, not any fringe theory about ‘white fragility’.    

As Mississippi’s free market think tank, we aim to educate tens of thousands of young Mississippians, through our online engagement, about liberty, limited government and the American Founding.  We seek to show the rising generation that it is individual character, not any intersectional identity, that matters most.

If you would like to learn more about our work combating Critical Race Theory, please sign up for our updates at www.mspolicy.org.

This article was first published in the Northside Sun.

Resolutions have been filed in the Mississippi House and Senate opposing the controversial concept of “Critical Race Theory.”

House Concurrent Resolution 62 and House Concurrent Resolution 87 both make clear their opposition to critical race theory. These resolutions were introduced by Representatives Chris Brown, Dan Eubanks, and Dana Criswell. Senate Resolution 56 deals with the same issue and was introduced by Senator Angela Hill.

Critical Race Theory has its roots in academia. It has been festering in the halls of our colleges and universities for decades but has only recently taken on a new energy as its students have entered public life in institutions across the nation.

Its core teaching is that people are separated into classifications of “oppressed” and “oppressor.” It categorizes America as a fundamentally racist country whose every institution is designed to maintain white supremacy, and thus it concludes that those institutions must be overthrown.

The Theory erases the notions of personal responsibility and individual liberty. It crushes the agency and dignity that is unique to each person and ascribes the results of one’s life to the color of his or her skin.

The Heritage Foundation created a brief overview of the Theory and its implications here.

The House and Senate resolutions cite the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and the 14th Amendment before lambasting the foundational teachings of critical race theory.

The resolutions state that, “critical race theory and related ideologies propagate divisive and untrue concepts that teach one race or sex is inherently superior to another and that individuals of one race or sex should be deprived of basic rights simply because of their race or sex.”

They further note that, “it is contrary to the laws of God and nature that an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex and that individuals should thus be discriminated against in the classroom, the workplace or any public forum or place.”

The resolutions will now have the chance to be considered by the Mississippi House and Senate over the coming days.

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