Cornell law professor creates online database of 220 universities teaching critical race theory to help parents choose colleges that don't make the 'racist ideology' mandatory
A Cornell Law School professor has launched a new database which lists schools teaching critical race theory, after blasting the practice as ‘very racist’ and accusing ‘anti-racism ideology’ of causing discrimination on campuses.
William Jacobson appeared on Fox News on Thursday night to speak about the site, which he claims will help parents avoid sending their children to schools where they will be ‘indoctrinated’ into thinking that the ‘most important thing in society is the color of your skin’.
Jacobson, the founder of the conservative website Legal Insurrection, launched the site earlier this week and has already listed 220 universities and their approaches to critical race theory, which Fox host Tucker Carlson branded as the notion that ‘some races are inherently better than other races’.
Broadly, critical race theory says that white supremacy is an ideology that is baked into the structures of society and particularly the law - and that to deal with it, everyone who is white should acknowledge how they have benefited from it, or become 'privileged.'
But critics say that it leaves people exposed to the training feeling that they are being blamed for problems that they did not cause - such as slavery and Jim Crow - and that it is itself racially divisive.
Cornell Law School professor spoek to Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Thursday night about the datebase he has established that lists schools teaching critical race theory
The website details the standing taken by 220 schools on critical race training
The professor claims he started the site after Cornell ‘implemented a pushover the summer to embed what they call anti-racism ideology into every aspect of the campus’ amid the Black Lives Matter protests following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
‘Anti-racism does not actually mean what people think it means. It actually is very racist,’ Jacobson claimed during his interview with Carlson.
‘Current discrimination in order to remedy past discrimination as the ideology. I saw this developing. I started to research it. I was going to write an op-ed or an article about it and then I realized it was almost everywhere.’
With the aim of eventually expand the site into other educational institutions, Jacobson said he focused first on higher education as ‘that's where the ideology developed and that's where people are trained’.
While claiming that the database is neutral and using publicly sourced information, Jacobson explained that parents would be able to find out what's going on at schools.
'This is what the colleges tell themselves. They love to talk about this stuff. They love to pat themselves on the back about this,' he claimed.
'But it probably doesn't make it to their admissions brochures.
‘Maybe you like it. Maybe you want your children to be sent to a school where they get indoctrinated,’ he continued, ‘or maybe you are going to send them to a school where you don't know what's going on and this is a way to find out.'
Jacobson claimed that the reaction to the site had been ‘overwhelmingly favorable’, with the biggest response being in the form of requests to expand the database from ‘K through 12, because K through 12 is where a lot of the problems are happening now’.
'I'm not sure when we are going to be able to roll out something like that,’ he admitted.
‘But a lot of parents were entering admission season. You are going to be looking at schools. Don't just worry about what athletic facilities they have. What the dining room serves.
'Worry about whether your children are going to have to take mandatory courses and mandatory training in an ideology which, as have you indicated, it's the complete opposite of everything we have been taught to believe is good and just.'
Jacobson claims that instead of teaching students ‘to view people based on their inherent worth and their worthiness and not to pay attention to the skin tone color of them’, campuses are pushing the idea ‘that the overwhelmingly most important thing in society is the color of your skin and everything derives from that'.
‘You need to know and we're trying to empower parents and students,’ he added.
The website itself describes itself as ‘a resource for parents and students who no longer can assume they will be left alone … the entire ideology of CRT and "anti-racist" training is that “silence is violence”’.
It lists schools such as the University of Austin which it notes ‘has not yet launched university-wide initiatives in support of anti-racism’.
‘Its football team, the Texas Longhorns, has taken the step of wearing a statement against racism on their helmets,’ the school’s profile adds.
Under the listing for New York University, it confirms that it has ‘taken the initial step of implementing anti-racist training modules for its students’.
‘New training measures can be expected for faculty and staff, although they have not yet been confirmed,’ it adds.
Cornell professorWilliam Jacobson is a long-standing opponent to critical race theory
The website itself describes itself as ‘a resource for parents and students who no longer can assume they will be left alone … the entire ideology of CRT and "anti-racist" training is that “silence is violence”’. It so far lists 220 universities with plans to expand
Under each school listing, it documents its 'critical race training activity'
The website was well received on Twitter where some users had searched schools and were questioning their critical race theory policies.
'It is disgusting and you should be ashamed for adding the RACIST doctrine of "Critical Race Theory", a user named Ed Erwin tweeted at LaSalle University.
'A Christian Univ. engaged in preaching racism, unbelievable. You have become nothing but a pawn of radical leftism and "woke" culture.'
'Hey so I heard OU teaches critical race theory. I'm wanting to make sure I am correct in this when my kid applies to colleges,' Ashley Trueng wrote to University of Oklahoma.
User Matt Sweenwood addressed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after searching the site.
'Are you ok with #CriticalRaceTheory being taught at public Florida universities?' he asked.
Social media users who had searched the database began to contact their schools
Last year, President Trump ordered training on critical race theory to be stripped of funding in the federal government, claiming it was spreading 'divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda'.
It came after Carlson claimed on his show that it was an 'attempt by the most privileged people in our society - the celebrities, politicians, college professors, talk show hosts - to disclaim the blame for their mismanagement of our country'.
The White House published a memo in September which stated that 'it has come to the president's attention' that federal agencies were spending money training people on white privilege.
The memo cited 'press reports' claiming that federal employees were being pressured into saying they 'benefit from racism'.
Agencies were ordered to 'cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions'.
In September, Trump ordered training on critical race theory to be stripped of funding
'The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government,' the memo added.
Civil rights groups said the wording was overly broad and had a chilling effect on workplaces trying to address concepts like white privilege, systemic racism, and unconscious bias.
Within the government, the order had prompted the Justice Department to suspend all diversity and inclusion training.
The State Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Veteran Affairs had also canceled some programs.
The Department of Labor had already suspended enforcement of the order after a California federal court granted a preliminary injunction against it in response to a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, an organization that advocates for the rights of LGBT people.
However, within the first days of his administration President Joe Biden revoked the Trump administration order.
Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation at Lambda Legal, said Biden's decision ensures that organizations 'don't have to look over their shoulders constantly to wonder if someone is going to report them and if it will lead to them losing their federal funding.'
She said several of Lambda Legal's clients are already taking steps to resume training that had been suspended because of the order.
'In the few months of its existence, it negatively impacted the lives and livelihoods of countless Americans and advanced the dangerous cause of white supremacy and disinformation, said Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, which had filed a separate lawsuit against the order on behalf of the National Urban League and the National Fair Housing Alliance.
'We will continue to work to ensure that all vestiges of President Trump's Executive Order are removed from workplaces across the country,' Nelson added in a statement.
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