West Virginia is the latest state seeking to ban so-called “critical race theory” from the state’s workplaces, schools, and government agencies.
House Bill 2595 would prohibit “discriminatory ‘divisive acts’ in the workplace,” end “the teaching of ‘divisive acts’ in West Virginia schools,” and ban “state funding to agencies who promote ‘divisive acts,'” the legislation outlines.
The legislation is sponsored by Republicans Riley Keaton, Josh Holstein, Trenton Barnhart, and Johnnie Wamsley.
“Divisive concepts” are defined to include the concepts that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” the “United States is fundamentally racist or sexist,” “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” “an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex,” “members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex,” “an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex,” “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,” “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex [or] meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.”
“The term ‘divisive concepts’ also includes any other form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating,” the legislation says.
The West Virginia bill comes in the wake of a bill introduced in New Hampshire, sponsored by state Representative Keith Ammon (R), that similarly seeks to prohibit the state from sponsoring “divisive concepts related to sex and race in state contracts, grants and training programs.”
“This bill addresses something called Critical Race Theory,” Ammon said of the bill, as reported by The Daily Wire. “It is an ideology that is espoused by some people, and the root of the ideology is that the United States is fundamentally racist and founded in racism, and that people are born inherently oppressors, and that others are born to be inherently oppressed.”
Under the legislation, “divisive concepts” would similarly “include advocating in favor of race-based or sex-based guilt, ascribing inherent moral worth based on race or sex, or advocating that an individual could be subconsciously oppressive on the basis of race or sex, in addition to other criteria,” The Daily Wire reported.
As noted by The College Fix, the bills go “directly to the heart of philosophies espoused by those like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi as it would forbid making ‘any individual […] feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.'”
President Trump, during his tenure, slammed critical race theory as “racist.”
“I ended it because it’s racist,” the then-president told Fox News host Chris Wallace. “I ended it because a lot of people were complaining that they were asked to do things that were absolutely insane, that it was a radical revolution that was taking place in our military, in our schools, all over the place and you know it and so does everybody else …”
The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Christopher Rufo likened the pushing of the theory as “an indoctrination cult.”
“In one case at the Sandia National Nuclear Laboratories they held a segregated training session, a segregated reeducation camp for white male executives, where they took them away for a weekend and they were teaching them how to deconstruct their white male culture, how to accept their complicity in white supremacy, and then force them to write letters including some letters of apology to women and people of color all under this idea of denouncing their own whiteness and doing better to join this critical race theory, honestly an indoctrination cult,” he said.
Republicans in other states, like Arkansas and Georgia, are similarly trying to fend off critical race theory.