MACKINAC ISLAND — Speakers at a Saturday GOP panel sought to link “critical race theory” with efforts by universities and K-12 school districts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, and Republicans at the conference say a fight over the concept is shaping up as a major Michigan political issue in 2022 and beyond.
Two panelists from The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., told Republican attendees at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island that critical race theory is “watered down Marxism” contrary to basic American ideals. They said parents across the country are becoming energized to fight against it, in some cases by running for school boards and lobbying state egislatures.
But neither Jonathan Butcher, an education fellow at the foundation, nor Jay Greene, a foundation senior research fellow, cited any examples of critical race theory being part of the curriculum in any Michigan school district, despite moves by lawmakers to ban it in this state.
Instead, Greene said the theory has taken root in public universities, including the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, through their hiring of chief diversity officers and related staff, and it is expanding into school districts, particularly large ones, through their hiring of officials with similar titles and responsibilities.
Education Week magazine defines critical race theory, which is a way of analyzing U.S. history, as the concept that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.
But Butcher and Greene said it is more radical and disruptive than that. Butcher called it “a map to activism,” and a world view that sees everything in public and private life through the prism of race.
Greene cited foundation studies of the hiring by universities and school districts of employees responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Those words sound like good things, he said, but their growth instead represents cowardice by universities wanting to mollify a minority of student agitators on the issue of race, he said. Once hired, those officials are articulating an ideological orthodoxy and politically organizing both students and faculty, Greene said.
“You are paying for a staff that organizes politically against you,” he told the gathered Republicans.
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U-M President Mark Schlissel launched a strategic plan for diversity, equity and inclusion in 2016, when he appointed the university’s first chief diversity officer. Schlissel did not mention critical race theory or political organizing as part of the plan, but said it was about “fostering the types of activities that help us learn as a community and better understand our differences.”
Schlissel said: “We cannot be excellent without being diverse in the broadest sense of the word. And we must also ensure that our community allows all individuals an equal opportunity to thrive.”
Greene said his foundation looked at the 65 universities in the Power 5 conferences and on average, each had more than 45 employees responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion.
The University of Michigan has the largest such staff in the country, with 163 people who have formal responsibilities in those areas, he said. That is 15 times more employees than U-M assigns to compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, which is a legal requirement, and more than double the number of history professors the universities have.
MSU has smaller numbers, but ones still above the national average, with 51 employees with responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion, he said.
Greene’s numbers could not be immediately verified with U-M or MSU.
What began in universities is “making its way to K-12 schools,” Greene said.
Looking at school districts nationwide with 15,000 students or more, at least 39% have a chief diversity officer, he said. For school districts with at least 100,000 students, 79% have one, he said. Greene did not break out any data for Michigan school districts.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are increasingly common in private sector corporations as well as the public sector. In their verbal presentations, neither Greene nor Butcher demonstrated a direct link between such efforts and critical race theory or backed up their claims that chief diversity officers are involved in political organizing.
But Michigan Republican leaders such as state party co-chair Meshawn Maddock have made it clear at the conference that schools and school policy are expected to be a major political battleground in 2022, not just over critical race theory but over school closures during the pandemic and COVID-19 mitigation efforts such as school mask mandates and restrictions on school sports.
Greene said teacher unions generally embrace critical race theory but made a tactical error when they fought so hard to halt in-person schooling during the pandemic.
Parents, who were previously ignorant of what was being taught in schools, got firsthand views through their children’s lessons on Zoom, he said. “They were shocked,” he said, both at how “radical” and how “low quality” the lessons were.
The panel discussion was modified by Terris Todd, a former Calhoun County educator and Democratic candidate for the state Legislature who served as GOP ethnic co-chair and as executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans under former President Donald Trump, after switching political parties.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.
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