The question of whether critical race theory (CRT) and gender theory are being taught in America’s schools now has a definitive answer: 93 percent of U.S. students have been taught at least one tenet of CRT or gender theory, according to a new study.
The Manhattan Institute commissioned a study of 18- to 20-year-old Americans — a demographic that has yet to graduate from, or only recently graduated from, high school — and found that nearly all students are being taught these concepts.
According to the study, 62 percent of respondents say they were either taught in class of heard from an adult in school that “America is a systemically racist country.”
Sixty-nine percent admit being taught or hearing that “white people have privilege.” Sixty-seven percent of students reported being taught or hearing that “America is built on stolen land.” And, 57 percent say they were taught or heard from an adult at school that “white people have unconscious biases that negatively affect non-white people.”
The study was commissioned to shed light on accusations — largely from conservatives — that educators are teaching students curricula on controversial topics, such as the idea that racial disparities in socioeconomic outcomes are the result of racism, and that white people are privileged beneficiaries of a social system that oppresses blacks and “people of color.”
Researchers also sought to explore whether students were being taught that gender identity is a choice, rather than consistent with biological sex.
“The response to these charges from many on the left has been to deny or downplay them,”Zach Goldberg and Eric Kaufmann wrote in City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute. “CRT, they contend, is a legal theory taught only in university law programs.”
However, the results of the latest study demonstrate the strong degree to which race theory and gender theory have become entrenched within academic institutions across the entire nation.
“Far from being the preserve of academic curricula, then, [critical social justice] ideas central to contemporary left-wing racial and gender ideology are being taught to students before they arrive at college,” Goldberg and Kaufmann wrote.
They also note that “strong connections exist between the cultural radicalism of CRT and the one-sided, decontextualized portrayal of American history and society that Democratic activists endorse.”
Researchers found that students who were exposed to CRT or gender theory in school hold widely differing views about societal engineering of outcomes than those who did not.
Their data show that “support for the preferential hiring and promotion of black people falls to a low of 17 percent among those who reported hearing no CRT, while reaching a high of 44 percent among those who reported being taught all five CRT-related concepts.”
“Similarly, the belief that the government should help black people (versus ‘our government should not be giving special treatment to black people’) is endorsed by 35 percent of those in the ‘no exposure’ group, compared with 43 percent of those who reported being taught one concept, 51 percent to 54 percent of those who reported being taught two to four concepts, and 72 percent of those who reported being taught all five concepts,” Goldberg and Kaufmann explained.
They added, “Again, a 30- to 40-point difference emerges between those who were not taught CRT material and those who received the maximum dose of it.”
