The Unintended Consequences of Using Crisis Discourse in School Board Deliberation to Ban Critical Race Theory

• In Event: School Districts Navigating the Racial and Equity Politics of Education

Abstract

When a school board in California voted to ban CRT, the media did not cover the credibility behind the crisis discourse that the board majority used to bring the resolution to a vote. A case of winning by losing- i.e., the board majority secures a symbolic victory, but loses on substance- being exposed on public record of struggling/failing to: 1) define CRT, despite having written a resolution proposal trying to ban it; 2) determine guidelines to enforce the ban at the classroom level; and 3) keep from unwinding their entire position when in-house counsel posed clarifying questions, meant to act as a stress test and to imply that their entire discussion could expose them to legal challenges.

Authors

• Daniel Sung-Yeol Choi, California State University - Fullerton

• Sally Jarvis-Lubbe, California State University - Fullerton