BY WHAT THEY HATE SHALL YOU KNOW THEM:

Should college professors be permitted to assign writings by Martin Luther King? If you've been listening sympathetically to opponents of critical race theory, you'd expect them to answer with a resounding yes, while woke identitarians equivocate. You'd be disappointed, as a comprehensive new report from PEN America demonstrates. CRT's opponents claim to be carrying on King's work, but a series of pending and enacted red-state laws ostensibly aimed at keeping critical race theory out of the classroom explicitly ban the teaching of 'divisive concepts', like King's demands for radical structural change and his critiques of white resistance to equality. An America in which we would be judged by the content of our characters not the colour of our skins was Martin Luther King's dream. His reality was the vicious racism that killed him, but in states across the country teachers will point that out at their peril. It's too divisive, apparently.

Never mind that one purpose of education is teaching people to debate intellectual and ideological divisions, instead of resorting to violence (as many Americans, right and left, are increasingly apt to do). Consider the vague meaning but clear intent of a ban on discussing 'divisive concepts'. As the PEN report explains, it's drawn from a former Trump executive order banning diversity training by federal agencies and private entities contracting with the federal government. '[T]he United States is fundamentally racist or sexist' was one verboten concept in the executive order. It is indeed divisive, which is precisely why it should be subject to classroom debate.

You don't have to defend or harbour any sympathy for the preachings of diversity, equity and inclusion consultants to view with alarm the legal campaign against teaching whatever the right calls critical race theory. 

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