No, Mr. Petrilli—The Left Doesn’t Undermine Equity. The Right Does.

Friends:

Some claim the left rarely engages the right, so here is my response—prompted by Michael J. Petrilli of the Fordham Institute, who seems to be deliberately baiting such engagement. If that was his aim, it’s a calculated provocation, given how deeply flawed portrayal of the left.

In any case, for starters, the claim that some equity advocates view excellence as the enemy of equity is both misleading and unsubstantiated. The vast majority of progressive scholars and equity-focused educators do not reject excellence. We instead challenge exclusionary definitions of excellence that ignore structural inequities.

Many of us believe that excellence must be redefined through an asset-based lens, one that recognizes and values cultural wealth, resilience, multilingualism, biliteracy, community engagement, and other forms of brilliance too often overlooked in dominant, test-centric models.

Programs like gifted-and-talented initiatives or exam schools frequently reflect opportunity gaps, not innate ability. Access to such programs is strongly correlated with resources like test prep, enrichment opportunities, and parental advocacy, rather than untapped genius. Progressives regularly call for greater equality of opportunity as the antidote to wasted potential.

Second, I have never encountered any serious equity advocate who seeks to "level down" high-achieving students. On the contrary, the call has always been to broaden access to excellence by dismantling the barriers that prevent marginalized students from accessing high-level opportunities.

It is also inaccurate and reductive to claim that the equity debate should center exclusively on prenatal-to-age-five interventions, where ideological consensus might be easier to achieve. While early childhood investments are critical, this framing evades the long arc of inequity that persists across the K–12 and higher education systems, manifest in segregated schools, inequitable school funding models, discriminatory discipline practices, biased standardized, high-stakes tests, academic tracking, and curricula that erase or ignore students' languages, cultures, and lived realities.

Equity advocates are not ignoring early childhood. Rather, they are expanding the conversation to name and challenge systemic racism and classism across the entire educational pipeline that hurts low-income white children, too.

I further reject the suggestion that the political left and right are offering equally valid contributions to the equity project. So many of the right’s current policies—bans on ethnic studies and critical race theory, censorship of discussions about race and gender, book bans, attacks on DEI, and the systematic defunding and privatization of public education—undermine any meaningful pursuit of educational equity.

Yes, personal responsibility and family stability matter. But invoking these concepts without addressing racialized poverty, generational trauma, and systemic disinvestment is historically shallow and dishonest. 

For the record, I am proudly on the left, and I do not reject personal responsibility. I embrace it as part of my patriotic commitment to perfecting this nation. The simplistic suggestion that the left shirks responsibility is a tired rhetorical device—one designed not to clarify debate but to dismiss structural injustice. It begs the question: why are you and others on the right so eager to reduce complex social realities to individual failings, rather than confront the systems that perpetuate inequity?

Let’s reframe the issue clearly: the real problem lies not with those advocating for equity, but with the dominant, assimilationist educational model itself—one built on standardized testing, academic tracking, and decontextualized, frequently uninspiring curricula and promoted by the right. 

This model doesn’t uplift excellence. It manufactures mediocrity. It lowers expectations, rewards the manipulation of metrics, and consistently fails to nurture the full range of human potential, particularly among students from historically marginalized communities.

If the vision you’ve laid out is indeed the right’s blueprint for education, then we should be gravely concerned. A system that prioritizes compliance over critical thinking, test scores over learning, and exclusion over opportunity places not just our children’s futures, but the very health of our democracy, at risk.

-Angela Valenzuela

The true enemy of equity

Michael J. Petrilli 1.19.2023 | The Fordham Institute



Last fall, Stephen Sawchuk published an Education Week article exploring why “educational equity” had become a “trigger word”—even though the notion has been baked into federal policy for decades. “Equity may be the law,” he wrote, “but we don’t agree on what it means.”


I can understand Sawchuk’s confusion because, properly construed, the call for greater equity can and should command widespread support from Americans across the ideological spectrum. A potentially unifying argument might go something like this:

In a great country like ours, we should aspire for every child to grow up to achieve his or her full potential. Anything less is a waste of talent and a blemish on human dignity and flourishing.

Schools have a particular role to play in helping children achieve their full academic potential, and supporting roles in helping children develop socially, emotionally, artistically, and athletically, as well.

Yet we know that our country is failing to live up to this aspiration because millions of boys and girls are failing to live up to their full potential. And we know that most of the reasons have to do with what happens between conception and kindergarten—that the strains of poverty, family instability, parental substance abuse, and other social ills mean that many children enter schools far behind what their cognitive trajectory otherwise could have been.

We know this in part because of the evidence of achievement gaps that can be measured at school entry, if not before. If we reject the notion that genetic differences drive racial achievement gaps as morally and empirically dubious—which we absolutely should—then the explanation for their existence as early as age five must be differing life circumstances, including the gaping chasms in socioeconomic status and its associated opportunities.

A major focus of “equity work,” then, is to close these gaps in the zero-to-five years—both because it’s the right thing to do, and so that all children have the opportunity to achieve their full potential—cognitively, academically, and otherwise.

This project has tended to be the domain of the political left, with its calls for better pre- and post-natal healthcare; the eradication of environmental pollutants like lead paint; direct financial supports for families with young children, like 2021’s expanded and fully refundable child tax credits; and expanded public support for high quality childcare. Yet the political right has contributions to make, as well, with its calls for greater personal responsibility; greater family stability, especially via married, two-parent families; and for welfare programs that encourage—rather than discourage—marriage and work, which have been shown to lead to better outcomes for kids.

Schools also have a critical role to play, especially at the elementary level, where students are still young enough for a great education to make a significant difference in their academic trajectories. Schools may not be able to overcome all of the damage of poverty, family instability, and their associated ills, but they can do a lot, as we know from the markedly different achievement trajectories of children in the highest-performing high-poverty schools—many of them public charter schools—compared to kids in more typical school settings.

Educational equity, then, means providing children, and especially poor children, with excellence—excellent instruction, excellent curricula, excellent teachers, excellent tutoring, excellent enrichment. Some of that costs more money in high-poverty settings, so yes, educational equity demands that we spend more public dollars on the students who need it most.

The greatest enemy of equity, then, is mediocrity. It’s the everyday bureaucratic dysfunction that remains all too common in American education. It’s the decisions that public officials take that block excellent schools, including excellent public charter schools, from growing or replicating. It’s the inertia that keeps traditional public schools from retaining many of their best young teachers. It’s the refusal to intervene when a principal is not up to the task of creating a culture of excellence.

Note what is not an enemy of equity: excellence. Indeed, far from it—excellence is the antidote to inequity.

And yet—back to the puzzle that Sawchuk presented in his article—some “equity advocates” have turned the notion into a “trigger word” by arguing that excellence is indeed the enemy. By their line of thinking, anything that helps a subgroup of children achieve at high levels, or even just celebrates that achievement—such as gifted-and-talented programs, exam schools, or National Merit Scholarships—is at war with equity. These advocates see equity as a zero-sum game. Rather than focus on helping every child achieve his or her potential, potential that inevitably varies from individual to individual, they seek a world in which the outcomes children achieve are closer to equal—even if that equality comes by leveling-down the high achievers.

Needless to say, this conception of equity is highly unpopular, and not just on the political right. As well it should be because it’s also morally bankrupt. It is simply wrong to embrace policies and practices and seek to put a ceiling on any child’s achievement—just as it is wrong to block efforts to get all students to a floor of basic literacy and numeracy.

John Gardner once asked if we can “be equal and excellent too.” The answer is an unequivocal “yes!” And in the domain of racial equity, the way to do that is to ensure that all children, from every racial and ethnic group, get what they need to live up to their full potential. And for high-potential children from underrepresented groups in particular, it means identifying their talent early, cultivating it through gifted-and-talented programs and the like, and keeping them on a trajectory of high achievement all the way through high school and beyond.

It bears repeating: Excellence is not the enemy of equity, it is the antidote to inequity. Equity advocates would do well to keep that in mind.

How social-emotional learning became a frontline in the battle against CRT

I came across this earlier piece and read it in tandem with this one in Vox titled, "Conservatives’ war on emotions in the classroom." While it's not always a good thing to give outrageous ideas any oxygen, both pieces point to how this remains an issue in various legislatures throughout the country while clarifying how SEL has turned into a "boogeyman." The reason seems to be that it, like CRT, is mis-represented as an identity-based curriculum that is not actually taught as such in schools. Moreover, identity-based curricula, it is presumed, equates to "indoctrination." This is an off-putting word that works primarily to put folks on the defensive.

Even if these were somehow "identity-based," it's mystifying how that's a horrible thing. We all have multiple identities. I'm not just a Mexican American, Chicana, or Indigenous, I am also a woman, a mother, grandmother, university professor, policy advocate, scholar, a loving wife, daughter, preacher's kid, military brat, and a member of the human race who dreams of an Earth-conscious, loving world of unity consciousness where our differences are honored and where all, beginning with children, are treated with dignity and respect.

Why not make all of this and more part of the curriculum? That's where it's at anyway, where the action is. It may be technically "soft," but clearly among the hardest work imaginable considering the seemingly interminable violence, war-mongering, and wars that threaten our very existence as human beings on this planet.

SEL is but a step in this direction as stated:

"You can't have those [SEL] conversations without talking about identity ... Social-emotional learning is so that people can get along better. We also have to talk about why people don't get along," Simmons says.

The story below about a school member who faces parents' concerns over SEL in actual conversations, resonates as a way to steer them in positive directions. This actually proves the point that directly addressing emotions in conflictive situations is a kind of skill and practice that helps build trust and that more of us need to have. SEL puts us on just such a path of being more intelligent with our lives and emotions.

-Angela Valenzuela

How social-emotional learning became a frontline in the battle against CRT

September 26, 2022 5:01 AM ET

Heard on All Things Considered

Meg Anderson

Lucy Engleman for NPR

It's hard to pinpoint when exactly the questions started coming in. Angelyn Nichols, an administrator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools, thinks it was sometime in early 2021.

What she does know is that no one really expected them in the first place, and no one expected them to keep coming – week after week, and now, year after year.

That's because the questions involved a decades-old teaching concept many educators thought was settled, uncontroversial territory: the idea that, in order to learn, students need to know how to manage themselves and get along with others.

"Principals were being asked, 'Can you talk to me about how you use social-emotional learning in your school? Are there connections to critical race theory?" says Nichols, who coordinates professional learning for the district. "Families were asking at a PTA meeting. Parents were asking their child's classroom teacher."

But one of the most visible places these concerns emerged was at the school board meetings.

"Our school board meetings have been tense and they've gotten heated," says Natalie Allen, the district's chief communications and community engagement officer. "We saw multiple terms being linked to critical race theory. Social-emotional learning just seems like the latest."

Virginia Beach is not an anomaly.

Although its core concepts have been around nearly as long as public education itself, social-emotional learning is emerging as the latest lightning rod in the battles over what gets taught in schools nationwide.

Across the country, parents and community members have protested angrily at school board meetings, administrators have distanced themselves from the term and legislators have introduced bills trying to ban it. In the last two years, NPR found evidence of disputes specifically concerning social-emotional learning in at least 25 states.
What is social-emotional learning?

Essentially, social-emotional learning teaches students how to manage their emotions, how to make good decisions, how to collaborate and how to understand themselves and others better.

It's more common in younger grades: All 50 states have standards related to SEL in preschool, and more than half have standards in K-12.

It has existed under different names across the decades: character education, 21st century skills, noncognitive skills. In the adult world, they're often called soft skills.

"It was just part of what a good teacher does," says Aaliyah Samuel, president and CEO of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.

Samuel says social-emotional learning can be broken down into five areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.

"Let's say a student is working on a really difficult algebra problem and they get so frustrated because they can't remember what the next step is," says Samuel. "They have to be self-aware enough to say, 'You know what? I'm feeling frustrated. How do I handle this?' "

A student solving a hard math problem, for example, might use all these skills to recognize and deal with their frustration and ask another student or a teacher for help. Think of any situation that happens in a school, and social-emotional skills probably come into play.

"All academics also have a social-emotional component," says Lisa Xagas, an assistant superintendent for student services in Naperville, Ill. "It's impossible to tease them apart because you can't have academics if you don't have social-emotional learning."

Research shows this type of approach pays off. In 2011, researchers looked at more than 200 SEL programs across the country and saw improvements in behavior and academic achievement. A 2015 study found students deemed more socially competent in kindergarten were more likely to graduate from high school on time, complete a college degree and get a stable job in young adulthood. From an economic point of view, another 2015 study found SEL programs yield $11 for every $1 spent on them, by reducing crime, increasing earnings and contributing to better health.
Conservatives began connecting social-emotional learning to CRT

All of which is why the educators in Virginia Beach were puzzled when those questions started coming in.

"Everything related to social-emotional learning that we are putting out there is research-based and it's in demand," says Allen, who handles community engagement at the district. "Very often there's been a narrative created that's not accurate."


In the last year, in states across the country, parents and community members have increasingly been fighting the teaching of social-emotional learning in schools – largely because social-emotional learning has become linked with another flashpoint in public education: critical race theory, or CRT.

Critical race theory, a decades-old legal framework, is the concept that racism goes far beyond the individual: It is systemic and deeply entrenched in our laws, policies and institutions. Nearly 900 school districts experienced anti-CRT protests between September of 2020 and August of last year, according to a report released this year from the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"We've seen a real freak-out on the right about the so-called teaching of critical race theory in schools. And usually the terms of that freak-out are white children are being taught to hate themselves and all children are being taught to hate America," says Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an associate professor of history at the New School in New York City and the author of Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture.

But critical race theory itself is not something that is explicitly taught in K-12 schools.

"The defense of most educators has been: 'I don't even know what critical race theory is. I've never heard of it until you, the conservative at the school board, brought it to my attention,' " says Andrew Hartman, a professor and historian of educational trends at Illinois State University. "But of course, all educators now know what social-emotional learning is. It's something much more tangible. It's a curriculum that is officially being implemented in schools all across the country."

A few years ago, conservatives began to connect the two concepts. A 2021 article in the Washington Examiner said conservative activists were calling social-emotional learning a "Trojan horse" for both critical race theory and transgender advocacy. In April of this year, a conservative group referred to it as a "new variant of the "CRT-virus."

"It will be concealed as a number of different things," another article published on the right-wing website The Federalist says. "Most common is something including 'social justice,' 'equity and diversity,' 'multicultural education,' or 'social-emotional learning,' which is the most deceptive because it doesn't sound like it involves race at all!"

An "IndoctriNation Map" on the website of the conservative group Parents Defending Education tracked "incidents" in schools related to gender ideology, ethnic studies and social-emotional learning. The conservative Center for Renewing America includes social-emotional learning in its glossary of "CRT-related terms."
How the SEL-CRT narrative is impacting schools

In some places, these attacks have had real consequences. In Georgia, an administrator tasked with leading a district's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts was forced to resign before she even started, with one protester referring to social-emotional learning as "synonymous" with critical race theory.

In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill last year trying to limit how educators talk about race and racism in the classroom. One of those lawmakers, Rep. Chuck Wichgers, added an addendum of terms he thought were associated with CRT, including social-emotional learning.

And when the Florida Department of Education issued specifications for this year's social studies textbooks, it indicated: "Critical Race Theory, Social Justice, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Social and Emotional Learning, and any other unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination are prohibited."

Rick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, says some of the angry debates about social-emotional learning are a direct reaction to the stories about SEL that conservatives are seeing on social media, Fox News and elsewhere.

"I think a lot of people wind up wedged into these debates about something like SEL, not because they necessarily have paid a lot of attention and have decided that, 'Gosh, you know, in good faith, we really disagree,' " Hess says. "It's more a gut level reaction to the other team and to be with your guys, than it is to really parse like, 'What are we arguing about here? And is there a more constructive way to solve this?' "

For some parents, the outrage is rooted in mistrust – particularly of organizations that provide SEL resources and recommendations to school districts.

Hess says many parents feel "this is a case of big, deep-pocketed, liberal, coastal foundations coming in, led by people who went to elite colleges who aren't from their communities, pushing ideological agendas that they find problematic and then calling them racists and idiots when they push back."

"If there's anything more likely to turn skepticism into full blown rebellion, it's hard to think of what it might be," he added.
SEL has always had an identity component

Hess says many conservatives ultimately feel social-emotional learning spends too much time talking about identity.

But Hartman, the Illinois State University historian, says there actually is an important identity component to teaching students how to get along with others.

"It's pretty impossible to do social and emotional learning without larger social issues coming into play. It's not just about individuals. It's about how an individual is situated in a society," Hartman says. "If you're going to be a healthy, emotional individual, you're going to have to understand your own identity relative to society."

CASEL is quick to emphasize that social-emotional learning is not tied to any political viewpoints. But the organization acknowledges that questions of identity and culture might come up, for example, in conversations about social awareness, one of the organization's key SEL competencies.

"Social awareness is about developing a better understanding of people around you so that you understand different perspectives and build healthy relationships," Samuel, the CEO, says. "For students, this might mean learning about different cultures, reading about different people's experiences and perspectives, or studying historical figures and their strengths."

Some SEL advocates want those conversations to be more explicit about systemic racism.

Dena Simmons, the founder of LiberatED, an organization which aims to center racial social justice in social and emotional learning, says being able to talk about social-emotional learning without talking about identity is an example of white privilege.

"You can't have those conversations without talking about identity ... Social-emotional learning is so that people can get along better. We also have to talk about why people don't get along," Simmons says. "If we don't apply an anti-racist, abolitionist, anti-oppressive, anti-bias lens to social-emotional learning, it can very easily turn into white supremacy with a hug."

Some prominent SEL programs do talk about racial justice and racism. The website for Second Step, for instance, has a section dedicated to Anti-Racism and Anti-Bias Resources. When educators don't acknowledge that identity component, it can make things worse, Mehlman Petrzela at the New School says.

"I know it's really hard to have these nuanced conversations, especially when often some of these attacks are scary, and they're bad faith, and they're distracting from teaching kids," she says. "But I do think it's really incumbent upon people to paint the full picture of what's going on here. Because without that, I don't really think we can move forward."
The fear that teachers are indoctrinating children is not new

The actual term "social-emotional learning" has existed since at least the 1990s. In 1997, researchers at CASEL published a book titled Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators. But social-emotional learning, in a broader sense, has existed for much longer.

"One of the great ironies of the backlash around teaching morality or values in American education through social-emotional learning today is that American schools have always been about teaching values and character," says Mehlman Petrzela. "And for much of American history, that focus has been on pretty conservative values, quite honestly."

In the mid-1800s, small books called McGuffey readers sought to instill morals in young readers. Around the same time, Horace Mann, an education reformer and proponent of public education, saw schools as the "great equalizer" in society.

"This is where you impart in children not only academic learning, but the sort of beauty of the American experiment that one can transcend," Mehlman Petrzela says. "You work hard. You are industrious. You don't lie. You are a good member of your community. Those are values."

In the early 20th century, John Dewey advocated for the idea that schools should educate the "whole" child. By the 1950s, there was "life adjustment" education, which focused on social order and patriotism as a response to growing fears of communism. Coronet Instructional Films were shown in schools, with titles like "marriage is a partnership" and "mind your manners."












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Credit: Coronet Instructional Films

Then the 1960s happened. Some teachers began to address topics like social justice and racial equality – and, much like we're seeing today, those teachers faced a backlash.

The fear that teachers are trying to brainwash or indoctrinate children has been around for a while. Today, it's present not just in the disputes over SEL and CRT, but also in the current debates around sex education, transgender rights and banned books, says Mehlman Petrzela.

"I sometimes cannot believe how much what we are experiencing right now feels so similar to what we have gone through in other moments, particularly in the 1960s and 70s," she says. "The rhetoric is the same."
How one school district is finding common ground with parents

But in places like Virginia Beach, educators weren't there 50 years ago. They're in schools now, stuck in the middle of a political fight that feels new, at a time when many students are struggling and need more support managing their emotions, not less.

Angelyn Nichols, the district's lead for social-emotional learning, says 2020 put a heightened scrutiny on public education – one that's been rapidly evolving. First, it was about COVID policies. Then, after the police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests against racism, the conversation shifted to critical race theory. Now, it has spread to any topic deemed to be related to critical race theory.


That's when Aaron Spence, superintendent of Virginia Beach City Public Schools, wrote an op-ed for The Virginian Pilot.

"Conflating good and longstanding work — such as our work around social and emotional learning — with things that simply aren't happening in our schools, debating who is more invested in our children, and undermining the credibility of public education with accusations of indoctrination is disappointing at best and debilitating at worst," he wrote.

Spence asked community members to look for common ground. For Nichols, that's been easier to find outside of the school board meetings, in one-on-one conversations with parents.

"We can sit down together and say, 'Can you share with me what part of this is a concern for you? Which skill here do you feel is a threat, feels like indoctrination, or is of a concern for you?' " she says. "I've never exited one of those conversations where both parties didn't say, 'I actually think this is really important.' "

She feels good about the progress they've made so far this year. In September, the school board passed a resolution that, in part, supports the continued teaching of social-emotional learning in schools.

Gen Z Demand Racial Justice-Not just Diversity Equity and Inclusion from Brands by Kian Bakhtiari in Forbes Magazine

This piece provides a great counterweight to the one I just posted to this blog. The more I learn and read about Gen Z, the more convinced I am that all these terrible anti-diversity and DEI bills that amount to what folks call the "Culture Wars," are literally an attack on Gen Z (and younger Millennials) by Boomer and Gen X-ers.

Why? Because due to technology, the Internet, and the Cloud—and the world our society has intentionally crafted for them—they are "digital natives" and as a consequence, largely "see" themselves—unlike prior age-generational cohorts—as a generation. And that's powerful. 

Republicans are terrified of them—specifically in the sense of wanting to hold on, as long as they can, to their incumbencies. Hence, the legislative animus.

I read these news and my heart grows large and warm. In contrast, the deeply concerning piece I just posted on The New Children's Crusade by Josephine Lee in the Texas Observer, is spiteful and hateful. These youth really do need to wake up to the love, beauty and power for good of Gen Z. 

These are my kids and our students. I can't ever love them enough or too much. Most importantly, they're hip to creating a new world where diversity and social justice, as the piece below expresses, go hand-in-hand.

These contrasts expose how religion and Christianity are caught up with power. What they may not notice is how this posturing neutralizes their presumed moral authority.

One can never separate knowledge from the idea of its ethical production and secondly, how this ethical knowledge, by definition, is at the service of both social justice and a wondrously diverse humanity.

Stay with it, Gen Z. Hang in there. These misguided leaders and legislators won't inspire another generation. They manifest no high-sounding rhetoric or any inspiring vision for the future. 

My Bible teaches me that the concept of freedom is akin to social justice, basic fairness and equity in a world where loving your neighbor as yourself is the highest ideal next to loving God. 

In all of my upbringing, this had never gotten labeled before as a "woke" ideology, so I guess it is now, rendering Christian nationalists, a big white club—not of skin color, but of being.

Jesus Christ wants you back, my friend. If what you're reading here speaks to you, I highly recommend listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger who has a powerful message on this very topic of manipulation and the lifelong pain and struggle it causes. Again, this could honestly be otherwise. 

Pay attention to your greatest and highest good. 

Life is too short to be messing it up in this way, heading or letting yourself get directed toward the path of anger, hate, a false sense of entitlement, an accusatory posture toward "the other" and at its worst, an indifference to human suffering.

Consider the Mayan philosophical understanding contained within the concept of "In Lak Ech," meaning that whatever you do to another, you do to yourself.  This is a restatement of the Golden Rule, no less.

Make this your moment. Make this your inheritance. 

Love is the answer. It always has been. It always will be. 🧡

-Angela Valenzuela

#TheShift #LoveNotHate

Gen-Z Demand Racial Justice, Not Just Diversity, Equity And Inclusion From Brands

Kian Bakhtiari June 5, 2022 | Forbes Magazine

Racial Justice.

GETTY

In 2022, every company is expected to have a diversity and inclusion strategy. The murder of George Floyd has catapulted corporate DEI commitments into the public spotlight. Many companies have made bold statements on diversity and inclusion in response to consumer demand. And now they have to deliver. There is nowhere to hide.

Gen-Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history. More than 48% are non-white. In the U.K., 40% of the population is estimated to be non-white by 2061. Meanwhile, in Brazil, most of the population identifies as Black or mixed race. The world population is becoming increasingly multicultural. In simple terms, young people are growing up exposed to different cultures. Thus, living in more diverse communities compared to their parents.

Unsurprisingly, most young people demand equal access to opportunities and social justice. Progress is measured through collective achievement, not only individual gains. Many will only work and buy from brands that contribute to a more inclusive world.

It starts with the business

Historically, companies have taken the most convenient option when tackling diversity and inclusion. But the easy route isn’t always the best. The quick win for brands comes from showcasing diverse talent in advertising campaigns. Of course, representation matters. But onscreen diversity doesn’t always translate into a more inclusive and equitable company.

Consumers and employees won’t hesitate to call brands out for performative activism. Young people can now research and investigate words against actions. A quick Google search can reveal the disparity between your marketing communications and internal leadership team. If your advertising is more diverse than your company, more focus and investment need to be placed on internal action. The best place to start is identifying and removing all the barriers that prevent marginalized groups from having equal access to opportunities.

Diverse partners and suppliers

Once the internal work has been done to make the business more inclusive and equitable, brands can begin to diversify their list of suppliers. Around the world, there is an incredible number of so-called minority-owned businesses. Instead of working with the same legacy partners and suppliers, brands should actively seek out and collaborate with a diverse roster of agencies, consultancies and partners. After all, marketing should reflect the diverse needs and cultural values of consumers. The journey begins with procurement. Similar to nature, monocultures stunt creativity and growth. In contrast, diverse suppliers make supply chains more competitive and agile.

A supplier diversity program should be at the heart of diversity and inclusion policies. Being an equitable business includes every aspect of the supply chain, not only employees. Global brands have the platform and resources to support minority-owned businesses—facing systematic barriers. Inclusive procurement means creating new policies and KPIs. For example, make sure at least 20% of suppliers invited to your Request for Proposal (RFP) are diverse. Despite being harder to implement than a brand campaign. The impact on underrepresented communities is long term and structural. Unless we address financial inclusion for underrepresented communities, nothing will change.

Amplify community voices

For multinational corporations armed with big marketing budgets and global reach. It can be easy to position your brand as the hero of the story. But in truth, movements and organizations already exist in small pockets. The role of brands should be to listen to their stories, amplify their voices and accelerate their impact.

A top-down approach won’t be accepted or respected by local communities. If brands want to play a credible role in building an inclusive future. They need to collaborate with people with lived experience throughout the creative process. In other words, don’t create work for the community without the community. Besides, championing existing movements can be more effective than building your own from scratch. Young people have the answers but not the platform. Co-creation with relevant communities can create original and powerful results. But community members need to be credited and remunerated.

For a long time, the case for diversity and equity was centred around the business case. Most diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) projects appealed to business leaders and shareholders’ desire to increase profits. Now the conversation shifts to social justice and equal access to opportunities. The brands that make inclusivity part of their core mission—not a PR statement—will win the hearts and minds of a new generation of citizens. Not consumers.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website. 

Kian Bakhtiari I am the founder of The People, a next-gen marketing consultancy. I was formerly Head of Strategy at Dentsu, one of the largest media and advertising groups in the world. For my contributions to marketing, I have been named as one of the Top 20 Future Leaders by the Financial Times. I’m also a Global Judge for the Festival of Media, a One Young World Ambassador, and an Agenda Contributor to the World Economic Forum. I'm passionate about bridging the gap between brands and young people. And using the power of creativity for good.

‘Critical race theory’ is being used to describe equity work. Experts say that’s not correct. by Sarah Asch

This analysis of the backlash against the Eanes Independent School District (EISD) Diversity and Inclusion initiative by Austin American-Statesman journalist Sarah Asch, exposes just how bothered many white folks are by others' experiences separate from their own, illustrating how white supremacy, as an implicit ideology, manifests as follows: 

Others' [people of color] experiences are a false agenda because this is not at all their experience. 

A curriculum about others' [people of color] experiences is unpatriotic designed to make America look bad. 

Whatever happened to "allyship," together with the just and righteous goal of working in solidarity with the downtrodden? I haven't heard that word in awhile.

If certain white people are always centering their own experiences, they have trouble hearing anything else other than that this so-called "CRT agenda" is getting thrust upon them like a foreign invasion resulting in a reaction that is reminiscent of the Joseph McCarthy "Red Scare" of the 1950s. Even if it's brand new to most people, CRT itself is hardly new.  Moreover, it is a legitimate framework and research approach.  

That said, what a privilege not to have to think about race or racism at all, let alone the injustices that people of color face and protest on a regular basis—such that opposing a race-based initiative designed to remedy to such injustices is inescapably about maintaining that privilege. Yes, the privilege of not having to know....

Expressed differently, neither scholars of color like Dr. Mark Gooden—the EISD diversity and inclusion consultant referenced below—nor minoritized communities are accorded the right to occupy the conceptual center in the study and interpretation of U.S. social relations. Are you getting the picture?

If you want to learn more about this struggle in Eanes, consider reading these other pertinent pieces, authored primarily by Sarah Asch: 

Eanes school board hires DEI consultant Mark Gooden back for a second year

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts at the heart of fraught Eanes school board election

Eanes board wraps summit with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion set as a priority

Eanes hires consultant to address racism, social justice

My point here is not to isolate the Eanes school district as exceptional in the current political context when it is not. Rather, I seek to offer it as an allegory that tells the story of how ways of knowing create structural racism and systemic oppression for black and brown children and families when their opinions, however defensive or ill-informed, get codified into policy and practice.

-Angela Valenzuela

 ‘Critical race theory’ is being used to describe equity work. Experts say that’s not correct.

By Sarah Asch | Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 24, 2021

"Critical race theory" has become a catch-all term for anything related to race or equity over the past year, with nearly identical arguments about it playing out in state legislatures and school board meetings across the country. 

This includes the Eanes school district, in a small, majority white, largely affluent community west of Austin, where parents have vocalized their fears about critical race theory. Many conflate the theory with the district’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiative and worry that white children will be taught to feel guilty and that an unwanted political agenda will be forced on kids in the classroom.

Eanes school board members and administrators have been quick to say this is not what critical race theory does and that the theory is not being used in their schools or as part of the DEI initiative, but many in the community do not believe them. Often lost in this back and forth is an understanding of what critical race theory is and how it came to be a buzzword in the pushback against equity efforts in education. 

What is critical race theory? Experts explain 

Jennifer Keys Adair, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas, said that sometimes it is easier to start with what critical race theory is not. 

“Critical race theory is not a curriculum. It's not even an idea. Critical race theory is like a pair of glasses that you put on to try to understand ongoing racial injustice. That's all,” she said. “It's a very high-level, sophisticated set of readings and lenses to look at the law and to look at the way that we set up systems.”

Critical race theory was developed in law schools more than 40 years ago as a way to understand how racism continues to exist even after legal racial segregation ended in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Keffrelyn Brown, who teaches cultural studies and education at UT.

Brown said critical race theory has spread from the legal academy to other fields, including the study of education. It is primarily used at the graduate school level and sometimes at the college level.

“Critical race theory is not a catch-all for all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or programs,” she said. “It is not a tool that is being used to make any particular person or group feel guilty, and it’s not something that historically is taught in K-12 schools.”

Rather than emphasizing individual actions, experts say critical race theory focuses on how systems and structures reproduce racist outcomes.

“When you talk about critical race theory, or any theory about structural racism, it’s really much less about people,” said Wendy Leo Moore, an associate professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. “It doesn’t have anything to do with people being bad. It has to do with structures that are in place. ... The words ‘critical race theory’ are being deployed to mean ‘whatever is going on that might be related to race that I don’t like.’ I think that most people don’t have any idea what critical race theory actually is.”

Brown said the distinction between critical race theory and unrelated equity work, such as the Eanes DEI initiative, is important because when the two become conflated it distracts from the underlying goal of making schools better places for students of color to learn. 

“The clumping together of all DEI concerns and initiatives into critical race theory is dangerous and problematic,” she said. “When we demonize CRT, we don’t put anything in its place to understand racism or account for racism. ... We have to continue to do this work; we cannot allow these conversations to derail.”

Critical race theory on a national scale 

The use of the phrase "critical race theory" as a catch-all term in recent months is often traced back to an executive order signed in September by then-President Donald Trump that directed all federal agencies to stop anti-bias training that relied on critical race theory or discussed white privilege. The memo called such training sessions “anti-American propaganda.”

Since then, some conservative parents and media figures have lodged increasing protests against diversity initiatives that they say represent critical race theory encroaching on public education. 

Governors in six Republican-led states signed legislation this year to limit how issues of race can be taught in the classroom. Gov. Greg Abbott signed such a bill into law in June — it is often referred to as the “critical race theory bill,” although it does not mention the theory by name. The bill bars Texas public grade-school teachers from awarding students course credit for social or political advocacy work and prevents schools from requiring teachers to discuss particular current events. 

Debate about critical race theory is so widespread that the Texas Association of School Boards published a flyer on June 25 to help school board members explain the difference between new or ongoing district initiatives and critical race theory. The flyer states that critical race theory is not part of the social studies curriculum in Texas, but that working toward equitable outcomes for all students has long been part of state and national education policy. 

Concerns beyond critical race theory

Parents in Eanes who draw the connection between the and their understanding of critical race theory point to the district’s consultant, Mark Gooden, and his use of the theory in his academic work as evidence that it is influencing Eanes. Gooden’s use of the theory in his writings taints the initiative for a lot of people, many of whom do not trust that district leaders are telling the truth when they say critical race theory is not being used.

“If DEI is teaching the Golden Rule, that’s great. The problem is that our consultant is a critical race theory expert,” parent Jennifer Stevens wrote in an email to the Statesman. “His own book and presentations are based in CRT. ... CRT is racist. It teaches our children to judge others based on the color of their skin. That is wrong.”

Christie Oates, another parent in the district, said she does not trust the district’s intentions when it comes to Gooden. She said Gooden’s expertise speaks for itself. 

The DEI initiative "is a political agenda, and it’s nothing more than a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and has done nothing but create problems and create tension and create a divide and waste the community’s money. ... It’s an excuse to bring in CRT, or CRT components,” she said. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then that’s what we’re doing.”

Whether parents in Eanes call the initiative critical race theory or not, many have worries about it that go beyond how an academic theory is defined. In conversations about the initiative, parents have voiced their fear that talking about race through the lens of historical racism is akin to indoctrination and that it unnecessarily highlights racial differences.

“What we are doing now is indoctrinating children into a mindset that is a belief and not a fact,” parent Marc Pearl said. “My political beliefs should be taught to my child in my household.”

Pearl said he would like to see the school address individual instances of racism, but he does not want systemic racism to be taught as a fact but rather as one belief among many. He worries that the initiative will lead to the district teaching children that white people are oppressors and that people of color are oppressed. Pearl pulled his son out of the district during the pandemic and sent him to a private school, and he said he does not plan to return unless his issues with the initiative are addressed. 

“We were raised in a colorblind society, and now we’re flipping that on its head, and we have to be absolutely aware of all races,” he said. “We are well past the 1960s civil rights movement. We have achieved greatness from the horrible sins in the past. There is no need for this. This is just division.”

Gooden said he does not think the definition of critical race theory is the root of the discord in Eanes, although he said his work with the district cannot be described as critical race theory. 

“What we are doing, and I think this is what people are feeling the most anxious about, is we're having conversations about race and racism. We're talking about how those two concepts have been really intertwined in the development of America and how they are currently with us today and still have an impact,” he said. “For a lot of people, this pushes against what they understand to be an American ideal that everybody has an equal chance.”

Many scholars in history and education think that incorporating conversations about racism into public schools will help students better understand the world around them. 

Monica Martinez, a history professor at UT, said she sees recent efforts to include conversations about race and racism as part of a long push by communities of color for curricula and campus cultures that take their experiences into account. 

“We have to have truthful conversations about the history of slavery, and the history of colonization and conquest, that intersect in Texas in really important ways,” she said. “You have to teach about race; you have to talk about gender; you have to talk about religion; you have to talk about issues like immigration. ... These topics shouldn't be seen as controversial; it's just teaching the truth.”

Martinez worries that disinformation is taking over the discussion about the role public schools have in educating informed citizens.

“There is so much misinformation about things like critical race theory. So many of the sponsors of these bills are really raising fear,” she said. “It's unfortunate because I think, at its worst, it can dissolve public trust in public schools, which are such a vital and important public institution.”

At the local level in Eanes, Superintendent Tom Leonard said the debate about critical race theory is where he sees the conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion veer toward national politics and away from what is playing out on the ground.

Discussions about critical race theory tend to focus on what the district plans to teach in the classroom, but the DEI initiative has focused on training staff members to tackle the conversations and incidents that already are happening in schools, he said.

Leonard said he thinks misinformation about critical race theory is a big part of the trust issue the district has with the parents who are most worried about the initiative. 

“Our version of what we wanted to do with DEI, which truly was to make everybody feel welcome and safe and respected and all that, I didn't see that as being something that people would have a problem with. ... Somewhere along the line, some people took a focus with CRT. ... And no matter what we have said, that group has not yet believed us," he said. “I believe we are telling the truth. And I think it's unfortunate that this has become a national political debate.”