A group of parents and students in Virginia have sued the Albemarle County School Board over its efforts to implement critical race theory (CRT) into the curriculum, and they’re getting their day in court Friday.
The parents are asking the court to halt enforcement of the school board’s “indoctrination” of students with racially divisive ideology while the case moves forward. The court will also hear the school district’s request to throw out the parents’ and students’ lawsuit.
As CBN News has reported, CRT is a controversial ideology rooted in Marxism that teaches racism exists everywhere and that whites will always be racist.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys, who are representing the nine parents and their children, have said the program will “indoctrinate children in an ideology that views everyone and everything through the lens of race.”
“Every student deserves to be treated equally regardless of their race, ethnicity, or religion—and every parent has the fundamental right to know what their kids are being taught and to express their concerns when school policies are promoting racial division and discriminating against students based on race,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights.
“Albemarle County schools are requiring students to embrace a radical ideology that mandates racism, directing students to treat each other differently based solely on race,” Anderson continued. “We hope the court will put a stop to the school’s implementation and enforcement of its so-called ‘anti-racist’ policy, which only promotes racism and violates students’ civil rights.”
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As CBN News reported, enacted in 2019, the school’s policy teaches that it’s more appropriate to treat one another differently because of our race. Critics say CRT also persuades students to support ideas that go against their moral and religious beliefs.
The Albemarle school district has even said that every core subject will include lessons about racial stereotyping and diverse treatment based on race and religion.
The lawsuit contends, “The question, in this case, is not whether racism still exists; it does. Nor is the question whether racism must be vanquished; it must. Rather, the question is whether (Albemarle County School Board) may use unconstitutional means to indoctrinate students with an ideology that teaches children to affirmatively discriminate based on race. The Virginia Constitution answers with a resounding ‘no.'”
ADF attorneys filed the lawsuit, C.I. v. Albemarle County School Board, in December 2021. ADF attorneys also represent a former assistant principal in another lawsuit challenging the school board’s mandatory “anti-racism” teacher training that also advocated for differential treatment based on race.
CRT has spread quickly from academia to corporate America, the military, and even churches, but opposition to it is growing.
CBN News has reported on the frustration from some teachers and parents throughout Virginia who were unwilling to adopt the controversial curriculum.
One Black mother told school board members in Loudoun County that, “CRT is racist, it’s abusive, it discriminates against one’s color.”
And a Virginia teacher, who strongly opposed CRT’s “politicized agendas” being pushed on staff and students, resigned from her job last August, publicly confronting her school board in the process.
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