As Phil Magness, author of The 1619 Project: A Critique, has explained, Critical Race Theory is a terrible framework for studying racism.
Critical Race Theory’s defenders currently package it as a necessary tool to examine institutional racism, going so far as to claim that if you doubt CRT, you must also doubt whether institutional racism exists. This is of course utter nonsense. It could also be the case that CRT is also an incredibly shoddy tool to examine institutional racism—one marked by extremely low rigor, a propensity to conspiracy theorize, and a tendency to offer inadequate explanations of the patterns it purports to diagnose. [Emphasis added.]
In this sense, CRT’s argument of a proprietary claim over the study of institutional racism is directly akin to claiming that “astrology studies the movement of the planets. Therefore, if you question astrology, you deny that the planets move.”
This analysis applies to the work of Mark Gooden, the Eanes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant. Gooden’s version of applied Critical Race Theory is a terrible framework for studying race in Eanes. Of course, Gooden and the members of the School Board say that somehow we need Gooden’s DEI program because racism exists. But the argument is ridiculous given the shoddy quality of both the underlying framework of Gooden’s DEI program and the program itself.
Is astrology a good tool for assessing the movement of the planets? Of course not. Astrology is not backed by science. Likewise, is Gooden’s DEI program a good tool for assessing racism in Eanes? Of course not. It also is not backed by science.
And yet the School Board is expanding the program to every level of the District.
******
Am I wrong? Then show me. I challenge you to find any place where Gooden has offered any evidence that his program is grounded in science or that he has ever made racism in any school district better.