Mississippi’s Black state senators walked out of a vote on Friday, protesting a Republican-backed bill that purports to ban “critical race theory” in schools.
Actual critical race theory is an academic discipline usually studied in graduate or law school that focuses on how racism is embedded in the country’s legal, political and social institutions.
The Mississippi bill’s language doesn’t actually change anything specific: It simply says that no school or education institution should teach students “that any sex, race, ethnicity… is inherently superior or inferior” or that “individuals should be adversely treated on the basis of their sex, race, ethnicity.”
The bill does not even include penalties for teaching the above, and its broad, vague language means it is unlikely to change what is taught in schools.
Teachers in states where laws that purportedly oppose “critical race theory” have passed told HuffPost that the vagueness of the laws’ language has left them unsure of what they can and can’t teach, which could stop some teachers, out of caution, from attempting to take on important subjects related to historic and ongoing racism in this country.
