During consideration of the Budget Resolution for fiscal 2022 (Senate Concurrent Resolution 14), Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) submitted an amendment to allow for “prohibiting or limiting Federal funding from being used to promote critical race theory or compel teachers or students to affirm critical race theory in prekindergarten programs, elementary schools, and secondary schools, by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes.”
The Senate adopted Cotton’s amendment on August 11, 2021 by a vote of 50 to 49 (Roll Call 342). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because nowhere in the Constitution is Congress authorized to allocate federal funding for education or to promote any particular curriculum in schools. Furthermore, critical Race Theory (CRT) is a radical and divisive theory that forces students to see and acknowledge others primarily by their skin color and racial ancestry, rather than by individual merits. CRT is part of the broader Marxist-inspired “Black Lives Matter” agenda and has its roots in Marxist “Critical Theory” originating from the Frankfurt School and Fabian Socialists. The federal government has no business promoting this extremist, anti-American agenda in our children’s schools.
