From The Tribune staff reports
MONTGOMERY — The Alabama Board of Education voted last week to ban “Critical Race Theory” in the state’s K-12 school cirriculum, even though none of the state’s public schools teach the theory.
Critical race theory developed as a way to regard America’s history through the lens of racism, according to the Associated Press. The rubric was developed during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what scholars viewed as a dearth of racial progress following the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. It is used in specific instances in higher education, usually graduate-level courses.
However, the board said it was concerned with what might be taught in the future.
“It really has no effect on our current courses of study,”State Superintendent Eric Mackey said after the resolution passed. “There were a lot of concerns about our future courses of study that might be passed.”
The BOE also passed a resolution that leaves punishment for teaching the theory up to the local school boards.
The resolution banning the teaching CRT “has no merit,” state NAACP president Bernard Simelton during the public comment period of the meeting, since no school system in the state is teaching the higher-level academic concept, nor has plans to.