In the Montessori analogy, we looked at a direct quote from Dr. Gooden (the District’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant). If you’d like to hear his words for yourself, they are from the Eanes School Board Special Meeting on May 11, 2021. Fast forward to the 2:11:11 mark.
If you prefer to read his words, they are transcribed in italics below.
Even in these four paragraphs, Gooden reveals his deception. We could fisk every sentence of his defense, but for now, here are just a couple of observations.
Gooden’s argument:
Contention 1: Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a theoretical approach.
- Rating: SOMEWHAT TRUE. CRT is just a theory, that much is true—but not a theory akin to a scientific theory. Rather, it’s a theory in the way Scientology is a theory. It’s just an assertion about the world with no way to prove its truth. And this is why opponents so strenuously object to it. Applied CRT is being taught in the classroom as if it is capital-T Truth when it’s just someone’s cockamamie assertion.
Contention 2: CRT is a scholarly approach.
- Rating: FALSE. This is another reason opponents so strenuously object to CRT. It’s not scholarly. CRT is unscientific and unfalsifiable. It rejects the universality of science and replaces it with the relativism of personal experience. It replaces reproducible, evidence-based conclusions with narrative storytelling.
Omitted fact: Critical Race Theory depends on praxis—that is, the application of CRT.
- Critical Race Theorists know that the theory is just half their battle. To be successful, they must move CRT from theory to practice. It must be applied in the classrooms. And that is what you see in Dr. Gooden’s program for the District. Of course he’s not teaching theory, but he most certainly is applying the theory.
Please note: As you read the excerpt below, note how he cleverly denies the thing no one thinks he’s doing—that is, teaching the theory of CRT to high-school students. But he never addresses the fact that his work is saturated with applied CRT from top to bottom. The easiest example of the that saturation: when he acknowledges that the focus of the training is a “deepening understanding of equity.” At this moment—and every time he mentions equity—he’s given away his game. Equity (not equality) is at the heart of Critical Race Theory.
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An excerpt of Dr. Gooden’s words during the School Board Special Meeting (May 11, 2021):
2:11:11
These three points [about CRT], I think, really don’t do this justice, but
- CRT, as I’ve said, is not DEI training and it’s not DEI work. It’s a theoretical approach, typically used by scholars to interpret happenings in society through scholarly engagement. I have used this in my work to analyze legal cases, but not exclusively. It’s been used in education. It’s been used in a number of other fields, as well. It’s been around for at least 3 decades, longer than that as a matter of fact. That process which originated in the legal academy involves interrogating race and racism in society, and it has spread to other fields of scholarship as I’ve noted.
- And while our DEI training does address race and racism, as I said earlier, in response to a problem that we talked about last June, meaning there were specific charges around race and racism. That was the route that we concluded we should take. Even though we’ve done that, that’s not the same as Critical Race Theory that’s commonly used in the academy. Might there be some overlapping themes? Yes, when you’re talking about race, yes, but those are not the same.
- Finally, the focus of our DEI training is to develop racial awareness as an initial step to deepening understanding of equity and how it can be used to improve access and increase belongingness of all students. To me, that will be what I call a narrowly tailored focused response to the issue that we were talking about in July. The initial conversation was around that needs assessment we’ve done to support that’s the work that we’ve been doing, that we’ve tried to do as a part of DEI. We’ve had a focus on building a community of trust through racial awareness as a starting point. We had that on the website and that’s been the aim.
- This is not a slight of Critical Race Theory. This is not some charge to say that it’s bad, but that’s just simply not what we’re doing. I’ve had people ask are we teaching high schoolers Critical Race Theory. We’re not. We’re not doing that, but I just want folks to understand that that response to race and racism being charged in the District is why we have designed what we’ve designed the way we have designed it.