Rule the School: Boards of Control

Our long history of letting white Americans veto racial progress in education

- By Anthony Conwright 

At raucous school board meetings across the country, disgruntled parents have grabbed the mic to represent the political desires of the Republican Party. Once-innocuous local gatherings have become anti–critical race theory caucuses administered by white people.

In July 2021, the Missouri state legislature’s joint education committee held an invite-only hearing on how educators in public K–12 schools teach about racism. “I felt today it was important to hear from people who have tried to go through the official cycle of authority within their districts and have basically been turned away,” said Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican senator and the committee’s chair. For O’Laughlin, “people” has a precise meaning, as no Black person spoke and the only people allowed to give testimony were opponents of critical race theory. Of course, giving primacy to white speakers has a history far older than CRT. As an 1804 Missouri law said, “no negro or mulatto shall be a witness except in the pleas of the United States against negroes or mulattoes or in civil pleas where negroes alone shall be parties.”

The parallels did not go unnoticed. “It is the height of irony that a hearing to consider censoring curriculum would censor those who are allowed to speak,” said Ingrid Burnett, a Democratic representative from Kansas City who pointed out the hearing’s one-sidedness.