7694 Welton FNL.docx


education policy analysis

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A peer-reviewed, independent,
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Arizona State University

Volume 31 Number 109 September 26, 2023 ISSN 1068-2341

Let’s Face It, the Racial Politics Are Always There: A Critical
Race Approach to Policy Implementation in the Wake of

Anti-CRT Rhetoric
Anjalé D. Welton

University of Wisconsin-Madison
United States

Sarah Diem
University of Missouri

United States
&

Sarah D. Lent
University of Wisconsin-Madison

United States

Citation: Welton, A. D., Diem, S., & Lent, S. D. (2023). Let’s face it, the racial politics are always
there: A critical race approach to policy implementation in the wake of anti-CRT rhetoric. Education
Policy Analysis Archives, 31(109). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.31.7694

Abstract: School communities across the United States are experiencing increasing calls to remove
the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) from their curricula despite not actually doing so in
practice. This anti-CRT push is part of a larger, conservative agenda to ban teaching “divisive”
topics in public schools and exemplifies the underlying racial politics existent in educational policy
implementation. In this article, we analyze the legal efforts to ban CRT and anti-racist teaching in

Journal website: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/ Manuscript received: 28/6/2023
Facebook: /EPAAA Revisions received: 22/5/2023
Twitter: @epaa_aape Accepted: 14/7/2023

https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.31.7694
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/


Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 2

one state through a framework that situates policy implementation within CRT, which seeks to
advance how whiteness, interest convergence, racial realism, and the erasure of people of color are
continual to policy implementation. Through a critical discourse analysis of anti-CRT rhetoric, we
illustrate how predictable patterns such as white backlash, overt racism, racial violence, and racial
trauma are brought to light in policy implementation. We then offer an example of CRT as critical
race praxis (CRP) in another state that works to counter racism and create anti-racist change in
policy design and implementation. CRP is perhaps one tool school leaders have at their disposal to
subvert whiteness and white supremacy in policymaking, especially policy implementation.
Keywords: critical discourse analysis; critical race theory; critical race praxis; politics; policy
implementation; racism; whiteness

Seamos realistas, las políticas raciales siempre están ahí: Un enfoque racial crítico para la
implementación de políticas a raíz de la retórica anti-CRT
Resumen: Las comunidades escolares de los Estados Unidos están recibiendo cada vez más
llamadas para eliminar la enseñanza de la teoría crítica de la raza (CRT) de sus planes de estudio a
pesar de que en realidad no lo hacen en la práctica. Este impulso anti-CRT es parte de una agenda
conservadora más amplia para prohibir la enseñanza de temas “divisivos” en las escuelas públicas y
ejemplifica la política racial subyacente que existe en la implementación de la política educativa. En
este artículo, analizamos los esfuerzos legales para prohibir la CRT y la enseñanza antirracista en un
estado a través de un marco que sitúa la implementación de políticas dentro de la CRT, que busca
promover cómo la blancura, la convergencia de intereses, el realismo racial y la eliminación de las
personas de color son continuos para la implementación de políticas. A través de un análisis crítico
del discurso de la retórica anti-CRT, ilustramos cómo se sacan a la luz patrones predecibles como la
reacción violenta de los blancos, el racismo manifiesto, la violencia racial y el trauma racial en la
implementación de políticas. Luego ofrecemos un ejemplo de CRT como praxis racial crítica (CRP)
en otro estado que trabaja para contrarrestar el racismo y crear un cambio antirracista en el diseño e
implementación de políticas. CRP es quizás una herramienta que los líderes escolares tienen a su
disposición para subvertir la whiteness y la supremacía blanca en la formulación de políticas,
especialmente en la implementación de políticas.
Palabras-clave: análisis crítico del discurso; teoría crítica de la raza; praxis crítica de la carrera;
política; implementación de políticas; racismo; whiteness

Vamos enfrentá-lo, as políticas raciais estão sempre presentes: Uma abordagem racial
crítica para a implementação de políticas na esteira da retórica anti-CRT
Resumo: As comunidades escolares nos Estados Unidos estão enfrentando crescentes apelos para
remover o ensino da teoria crítica da raça (CRT) de seus currículos, apesar de não o fazerem na
prática. Esse impulso anti-CRT faz parte de uma agenda conservadora mais ampla para proibir o
ensino de tópicos “divisivos” nas escolas públicas e exemplifica a política racial subjacente existente
na implementação da política educacional. Neste artigo, analisamos os esforços legais para proibir o
CRT e o ensino antirracista em um estado por meio de uma estrutura que situa a implementação de
políticas dentro do CRT, que busca avançar como a branquitude, a convergência de interesses, o
realismo racial e o apagamento de pessoas de cor são contínuos para a implementação da política.
Por meio de uma análise crítica do discurso da retórica anti-CRT, ilustramos como padrões
previsíveis, como reação branca, racismo aberto, violência racial e trauma racial, são trazidos à tona
na implementação de políticas. Em seguida, oferecemos um exemplo de CRT como práxis racial
crítica (CRP) em outro estado que trabalha para combater o racismo e criar mudanças antirracistas
na formulação e implementação de políticas. O CRP é talvez uma ferramenta que os líderes



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 3

escolares têm à sua disposição para subverter a whiteness e a supremacia branca na formulação de
políticas, especialmente na implementação de políticas.
Palavras-chave: análise crítica do discurso; teoria crítica da raça; práxis racial crítica; política;
política de implementação; racismo; whiteness

Let’s Face It, the Racial Politics Are Always There: A Critical Race Approach
to Policy Implementation in the Wake of Anti-CRT Rhetoric

For race and education scholars, critical race theory (CRT) is an important tool for
understanding the contours and predictable patterns of how systemic racism works in education and
society at large (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, 2017a, 2017b; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). However,
CRT is not simply theorizing about race. The framework can also help policymakers and district and
school-level leaders identify how race and racism impact their decision-making and underlying
practices, especially in terms of how they design, adopt, and ultimately implement policies (Amiot
et al., 2020). Most importantly, we see CRT as a means to uncover the racial politics that are
ever-present in policymaking and implementation (Alemán, 2006; Dumas et al., 2016; Henry &
Dixson, 2016; Horsford, 2019). Thus, from a CRT perspective race matters and always plays a role
in education policy implementation.

Despite the utility of CRT to directly name how race matters, it is now being used as a
political weapon by primarily white conservatives to downplay and outright deny the import of race
in society (Pollock et al., 2022). To be clear, CRT is a research and analytical tool that can inform
professional practice (Capper, 2019). However, it is not actively taught in K-12 classrooms. Yet,
many conservatives are misinforming their political base about what CRT is and how it is used
(Crenshaw, 2022). This misrepresentation of CRT has indeed been an effective scapegoat tactic by
conservatives, which is part of a larger strategy to garner support from their political base. Anti-CRT
rhetoric is not just directed at the framework itself but is a broader attempt to restrict teaching about
issues of race and racism and any topics considered “divisive” in K-12 classrooms (Stout & Wilburn,
2022, para. 2). Anti-racist education is not conservatives’ only target. They have made political
headway in also banning education on intersectional topics around gender, gender identity, and
sexuality. According to the most recent data, there are now 441 states that have adopted or
introduced laws that restrict teaching about race, racism, and intersectional topics (Alexander et al.,
n.d.; Stout & Wilburn, 2022).

However, the unwritten policy and rhetoric against CRT at-large are still having a chilling
effect on implementation practices where educators are generally fearful of addressing issues of race
let alone broader topics on equity (Pollock et al., 2022). These fear tactics have reached an apex at
the local school board level, especially for district leaders where equity, diversity, and inclusion work
is part of their job description. These leaders have resigned from their roles for fear of public
retaliation from white community members (Carr, 2022). Despite whether a state or district has an
official policy banning race as a topic, it still has an impact on how these topics are addressed in
districts, schools, and classrooms. Thus, the CRT backlash is a prime example of the underlying
racial politics in policy implementation.

In this article, through a critical discourse analysis we use the anti-CRT rhetoric, with a
specific focus on the policy backlash in Texas, as an example of how racial politics operate in policy
implementation. To do so, we expand upon Honig’s (2006) work on policy implementation and

1 This represents the number of states who introduced laws when this article was published.



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 4

introduce a conceptual framework that uses CRT to exemplify how racial politics matter in the
policy implementation process. We then apply our CRT-as-policy-implementation framework to
analyze the legal efforts to ban CRT and anti-racist teaching in Texas K-12 classrooms. In Texas, we
found that educators struggle with how to both adhere to the state’s anti-CRT policy and fulfill their
commitment to equity. And while most states in the US have succumbed to anti-CRT rhetoric, a few
states have made headway in adopting curricular requirements, like ethnic studies in California, that
reflect the identities and perspectives of their diversifying populations (Stout & Wilburn, 2022). We
see these efforts as promising examples of CRT as critical race praxis (CRP) where grassroots efforts
can be applied to counter racism in policymaking and implementation (Yamamoto, 1997).
Subsequently, we trace the evolution of California’s ethnic studies bill as a hopeful example of how
CRP can lead to anti-racist change in policy design and implementation, a stark contrast to Texas’s
efforts to roll back anti-racist education in K-12.

Critical Race Theory
Before introducing our CRT-as-policy-implementation framework, we first provide a brief

overview of CRT as it is foundational to understanding the role of race, racism, and anti-racism in
the policy implementation process. We highlight scholars significant to the evolution of CRT and
also define core theoretical tenets and concepts.

Delgado and Stefancic (2017b) view critical race theory (CRT) as a movement or “collection
of activists and scholars” who both critique and aim to alter the “relationship among race, racism,
and power” (p. 3). CRT is influenced by key civil rights leaders and discourses. Whereas the civil
rights movement as a strategy for racial justice encouraged a more methodical and incremental
approach to change, CRT differs in that it questions liberal ideologies like equality, rationalism,
meritocracy, and other neutral interpretations of law and policy that do nothing to challenge and
disrupt the racial status quo (Crenshaw, 1988; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017b).

CRT originated in the 1970s from critical legal studies as a response to the reversal, and in
many respects outright halt, of much of the progress made during the 1960s Civil Rights era. While
Derrick Bell is considered CRT’s patriarch, a collective of legal scholars furthered the CRT
movement (e.g., Crenshaw, 1988, 1991; Freeman, 1978; Gotanda, 1991; Harris, 1993; Matsuda, 1987)
and recognized the need for “new theories and strategies to address the subtler forms of racism”
that were gaining traction (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017b, p. 4). At its core, CRT is a tool to identify
the predictable ways in which racism plays out in society. Thus, by being forthcoming and naming
how racism works, better efforts in strategizing how to dismantle it can take place.

CRT continues to expand and inform various disciplines in the social sciences, especially the
field of education which has its own distinctive canon of CRT scholars (e.g., Bell, 1980; Dixson &
Rousseau Anderson, 2018; Henry et al., 2023; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Parker, 1998; Solórzano,
1997). Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate IV first introduced CRT to the field of education
with their groundbreaking 1995 article “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education.” Up to that
point, unlike gender and class, race was largely undertheorized in education, and so CRT could be a
tool for understanding how race matters to inequities in schooling.

CRT as a theory is “fluid” not “uniform” or “static” in how it should be executed (Capper,
2019, p. 3; Dixson & Rousseau Anderson, 2018, p. 122). However, there are still fundamental ideas,
proposed “boundaries” or tenets most frequently used by CRT scholars which we used to
understand anti-CRT rhetoric and policy implementation (Dixson & Rousseau Anderson, 2018, p.
122). Though there are various interpretations of CRT tenets, we chose tenets that apply to our
analysis of anti-CRT rhetoric and policy implementation. Therefore, we used the following CRT
tenets to inform the development of our conceptual framework for this study: 1) racism is endemic



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 5

to society, 2) whiteness as property, 3) color-evasiveness, 4) interest convergence, and 5)
counternarratives.

Racism is Endemic to Society

Fundamental to CRT is that racism is endemic to society. It is “ordinary,” “normal,” and part
of the daily experiences of most people of color in the US (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, pp. 6-7;
Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Schools mirror inequities, especially along racial lines, that play out in
society. Despite decades of policy reforms aimed to equitize education, racially minoritized students
still endure pervasive inequities in public schooling. If racial inequities in education could be resolved
by solely addressing individual and isolated acts of racism, there would be greater evidence of
“educational equity and excellence” in U.S. public schools (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 55).
However, racial inequities remain unresolved because they are largely a byproduct of institutionalized
and structural racism. Progress towards racial justice and equity in education is rather limited and a
slow process because the systemic privileges that white students maintain are predicated on the
further subordination of racially minoritized students (Bell, 1980). Hence, the anti-CRT backlash is a
reminder of the permanence of racism.

Whiteness as Property

White supremacy and whiteness fuel racism (Diem & Welton, 2021). White supremacy is the
ideology or belief that white people and their ideas, actions, and thoughts are superior to that of
people of color (Okun, 2010). White supremacy survives and thrives through the devaluing and
pathologizing of people of color (Okun, 2010). Also, white supremacy as a system plays out in
policies, programs, structures, and everyday practices. Indeed, the nationwide anti-CRT policy push
is white supremacy in action. Whiteness is how white supremacy is sustained and carried out as it is
the system of beliefs, practices, and assumptions that constantly prioritize the interests of white
people, and white elites in particular (McMahon, 2007). Whiteness is also the act of establishing a
white racial identity as a form of status, power, and privilege, or what Cheryl Harris (1993) coined as
whiteness as property. Thus, being white is seen as something of value, and so whiteness is the tool
that works to maintain that value.

Color-Evasiveness

Historically, educational policy and law have tried to mitigate inequities through
color-evasiveness or race-neutral means. Color-evasive approaches maintain the racial status quo by
adopting race-neutral policies and practices that downplay, evade, and in some instances deny the
role race and racism play in perpetuating structural inequities in society (Annamma et al., 2017;
Diem & Welton, 2021). The recent surge in anti-CRT laws nationwide illustrates how color-evasive
policy is used to systematically deny the impact of racism in society. For instance, Florida, Georgia,
Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee all have anti-CRT laws or other legally binding
actions that prohibit any teaching that causes an “individual to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any
other form of psychological distress based on their race or sex,” thus banning curricular content
deemed divisive (Bissell, 2023, p. 219).

Color-evasive policy approaches are also designed to absolve educators and their
organizations from any responsibility for racist structures and practices (Diem & Welton, 2021). One
such policy example is No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which issued punitive accountability
sanctions that positioned students of color as the source of a school’s failure, not the inequitable
structures within the school (Leonardo, 2007; Welton et al., 2015). Thus, color-evasiveness is
foundational to meritocracy, which assumes all students begin their educational journeys on a level



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 6

playing field and that any policy reform can be universally applied and support the needs of all
students (Capper, 2019; Leonardo, 2007).

Interest Convergence

Interest convergence, a CRT tenet first introduced by Derrick Bell (1980), suggests that “the
interest of blacks in achieving racial equality will only be accommodated when it converges with the
interest of whites” (p. 523). In his analysis of what led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education
(1954) ruling that separate but equal schools are unconstitutional, Bell (1980) argued that white
America was only willing to acknowledge the harmful effects of racial segregation based on their
interests and needs at the time. At the height of the Cold War the United States’ reputation as a
superpower was at stake for its unequal treatment of Black people, and so desegregation could help
improve the nation’s global standing. Moreover, when it came to desegregation, while the Supreme
Court justices, all of whom were white, ruled in Brown (1954) that segregation has no place in public
schools, they did not go far enough to mandate when it would occur, as evident in the Brown v. Board
of Education II (1955) decision. Brown II ordered schools to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.”
Yet, the vagueness of this decision enabled local resistance to the law, ultimately delaying any
progress toward desegregation (Bell, 1980). Unfortunately, interest convergence is a fleeting strategy
for racial equity because it is predicated on white people’s willingness to serve minoritized groups
only if they can also serve themselves. Indeed, racial justice will never happen if centering whiteness
is the route taken to achieve it.

Counternarratives

CRT also emphasizes decentering the white majoritarian narrative and amplifying the
counternarratives, voices, and histories of various groups of color (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). As
demonstrated in this article, anti-CRT discourse is white dominant storytelling intended to situate
white superiority over people of color (Dixson & Rousseau Anderson, 2018). The white dominant
narrative in anti-CRT discourse is especially concerning because their perspective overrides and even
distorts the histories and identities of people of color in classroom instruction and curricular content
(Pollock et al., 2022). Instead, educators, students, and families of color could use their
counternarratives to challenge the white conservative politics driving anti-CRT discourse (Dixson &
Rousseau Anderson, 2018), which as discussed is also a form of collective organizing and activism
known as critical race praxis.

Policy Implementation
In articulation of the policy implementation process, Honig (2006) highlights the importance

of examining how and why people, policies, and places interact to inform policy implementation.
Each of these three dimensions of policy implementation work together to explain under what
conditions education policies get designed and implemented, as well as the places or contexts that
influence these processes. We also argue that politics, and the inherent power in it, plays a major role
in policy implementation as it can shape how a policy is adopted and implemented (Malen, 2006).
We describe each of these critical factors of policy implementation in the subsequent sections.

People

Those who design (policymakers) and implement (local actors) policy are critical to the
policy implementation process as their roles are deeply intertwined. While traditional education
policy implementation research makes clear distinctions between policymakers and implementers,
more contemporary education policy implementation research explores how the two are tethered



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 7

(Honig, 2006). Indeed, policymakers and policy implementers co-construct the design and
implementation of policy (Datnow, 2006). They do so in part by “responding to the demands made
by the [school] district, school board, and local community” (Diem, 2012, p. 6). For example, at the
local and national levels, individuals opposed to CRT have used discourses such as “un-American,”
“divisive,” and “dangerous” (Crenshaw, 2022, p. 1714) in their communities to gain support in their
efforts, which has directly impacted the language included as well as omitted in anti-CRT policies.

How people participate within different communities as well as the relationships within such
communities may inform views and actions around a particular policy, which is important to pay
attention to in the education policy implementation process. Local school districts, schools, and
school communities play a critical role in how educators navigate anti-CRT efforts. Pollock et al.
(2022) found that in both states where action has been taken to restrict the teaching of race and
those where it has not, what will be taught in the classroom depends greatly on local district and
school-level leadership (i.e., people) and how they respond to such actions. Indeed, individuals’
interpretations of policies are influenced by those within their communities, professional or
otherwise.

People can also include those individuals who are specifically named in policy design,
“formal policy targets,” (p. 16) as well as those who are not specifically named as a target but may
have more tangential roles in the policy process. These “non-formal” individuals can influence those
who have more formal roles in the policy process. For example, conservative journalist Christopher
Rufo was instrumental in fomenting the anti-CRT movement when he appeared on “Tucker Carlson
Tonight” and called for the White House to issue an executive order banning CRT training in the
federal government (Exec. Order No. 13950, 2020). Rufo then worked with the White House to
draft such an order that was issued the same month as his national television appearance
(Wallace-Wells, 2021). It was this order that would be the catalyst for state legislatures to begin
crafting their own anti-CRT policies.

Policy

Policy makes up the second dimension of the policy implementation process. Policies are
designed with certain goals in mind, a target group, and tools that can aid the implementation of
policies that result in meaningful, systemic change (Honig, 2006). They can present different
opportunities and challenges depending on their intended audiences and whether the goals
associated with them are realistic, which can then impact implementation (Honig, 2006). Yet, if they
are designed in ways that conflict with the public’s “values,” the reaction can be quite visceral
(Dorner, 2011). However, if policies are to be inclusive and reflect the values and interests of various
stakeholders, they must be designed to represent all voices, not just those that are dominant and
loudest. For example, CRT scholars would argue that the larger goal of anti-CRT policies is to seize
power and control of what is taught in the classroom. These policies have been designed using
color-evasive language to frame race, racism, and anti-racism as “divisive concepts.” Indeed, most of
the anti-CRT bills passed in state legislatures do not explicitly mention critical race theory (Ray &
Gibbons, 2021). While these policies are having their intended effect and teachers are confused and
unsure how they may teach certain topics in their classrooms, there are also successful examples of
pushback against anti-CRT bills. Since 2021, bills introduced across 172 U.S. state legislatures
restricting the teaching of racism, sexism, or CRT have been vetoed, overturned, or indefinitely
stalled (Schwartz, 2023).

Place

2 This number represents states that stalled such bills at the time this article was published.



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 8

Place makes up the third and final dimension of Honig’s (2006) policy implementation
framework. Places are integral in situating policies both historically and contemporarily. Indeed,
without a complete understanding of the historical, sociopolitical, and geographic contexts in which
a policy resides (Diem, 2012; Dumas & Anyon, 2006; Honig, 2006), as well as the institutions
situated within those contexts (Honig, 2006), it is difficult to ascertain why a specific policy may gain
traction and another loses steam early on in the policy process. School districts and the states in
which they are situated have “deep-seated historical institutional patterns” that can “shape
implementation outcomes” (Honig, 2006, p. 18). These patterns are influenced by the sociopolitical
and geographic contexts in which they are located (Diem, 2012). Indeed, geographic locations and
the policies they must adhere to (e.g., mayoral control, school restructuring) can reveal how and why
policy implementation may unfold. Looking at the 18 U.S. state legislatures who have adopted
anti-CRT legislation, all are located in states controlled by Republicans (Schwartz, 2023) and have
complicated histories around education (Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho,
Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia). Understanding the evolution of education policies in
these states over time can shed light into current anti-CRT efforts and how race is intrinsically
connected to place. Importantly, Honig (2006) argues that you must understand how each
aforementioned dimension––people, policies, places––is either furthering or hindering
implementation collectively as they are interwoven with one another.

Politics

While we agree that people, policies, and places are integral in shaping our understanding of
the policy implementation process, we believe an additional concept, politics, must be included as its
own, standalone dimension of any policy implementation framework. Indeed, a comprehensive
understanding of the policy implementation process cannot occur if there is no discussion as to how
power and values are inherent to it (Marshall & Gerstl-Pepin, 2005). Politics are omnipresent and
have a major influence on the policy process (Malen, 2006). Politics are inextricably linked with
policy and power (Malen, 2006; Marshall & Gerstl-Pepin, 2005). The national mood, election results,
ideologies of policymakers, and pressure group factors make up the political stream, which in turn
influence the policy agenda (Kingdon, 2011). Studies of politics in education focus on power and
conflict over values (Marshall & Gerstl-Pepin, 2005). Moreover, studies “that view policy
implementation as a political phenomenon bring the complexities and uncertainties inherent in
education policy pursuits to the fore” (Malen, 2006, p. 101). Further, as racism is woven into the
fabric of our society (Crenshaw, 1988; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017) and “...educational policy serves
as the site of political contestation over what race means” (Dumas et al., 2016, p. 5), it is critical to
be cognizant of the racial politics that exist in education policy implementation.

Politics undergirds everything and is particularly prevalent in education policy and practice.
The role of schooling and the social purposes of education are steeped in politics (Saltman, 2014), as
is evident in the examples illustrated throughout this article. In her argument for taking a political
perspective on policy implementation, Malen (2006) states “that policy implementation is a dynamic
political process that affects and reflects the relative power of diverse actors and the institutional and
environmental forces that condition the play of power” (p. 85). As such, Dorner (2011) argues, “we
must consider how political agendas shape the nature of implementation, how policies, in turn,
affect agendas, and how implementation processes may influence a policy’s results” (p. 582). It is
also important to be cognizant of political events like the anti-CRT movement that open policy
windows and what happens when people become overly preoccupied with finding a policy solution
(Kingdon, 2011). Indeed, Republicans’ anti-CRT political agendas are resulting in book banning and



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 9

whitewashed curriculum opposed by the majority of Americans (Backus & Salvanto, 2022). The
concerted assault against efforts to increase awareness about the history of race and racial injustice
in the US is simply the latest to occur in the political arena as a response to perceived progress or
fight for racial justice (e.g., the 2020 uprisings and movements for social justice) for historically
minoritized and marginalized individuals.

Race is a “cultural-ideological formation that deeply informs policy formation,
implementation, and ultimately, the scholarly and public imagination of what is deemed ‘effective’ or
‘good’ policy, and what counts as ‘fair’ or ‘just’ in the distribution of educational resources” (Dumas
et al., 2016). As such, understanding how it is embedded in the policy process is crucial. Critical race
theory as policy implementation is a particularly helpful conceptual framework in illustrating the
predictable patterns that occur in the policy process and why the struggle for racial equity persists.

Conceptual Framework: Critical Race Theory as Policy Implementation
When using a CRT lens in our analysis we found the following four distinct ways in which

people, places, policy, and racial politics have transpired in anti-CRT rhetoric: 1) whiteness, 2)
interest divergence, 3) racial realism, and 4) racial erasure. These constructs, which we describe in
detail below, are foundational to our conceptual framework and are illustrated in Figure 1. Indeed, by
overlaying CRT and implementation we can better understand how whiteness, interest divergence,
racial realism, and the erasure of people of color are ever-present in the dimensions of policy
implementation. By making these connections, we are better situated to recognize the predictable
patterns this framework elicits, that is, white fear and backlash, overt racism, and racial violence and
trauma. Moreover, by recognizing these predictable patterns of how racism transpires in policy
implementation, we can then experience and actualize CRT in practice via critical race praxis.
Accordingly, the final element of our conceptual framework, critical race praxis, is a promising policy
tool for eradicating racism in policy implementation as those most disenfranchised by the policy can
be involved and have voice in the policy process.

Figure 1

Critical Race Theory as Policy Implementation



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 10

Whiteness: White Fear and Backlash

White supremacy, whiteness, and the fear and backlash from white political elites are the
cause of racism and the core of what is driving anti-CRT rhetoric (Crenshaw, 2022). This backlash
stems from whiteness feeling threatened (see e.g., DiAngelo, 2011; Gillborn, 2019). Whiteness fears
that teaching about systemic racism and other intersectional oppressions, and also centering the
histories and perspectives of people of color in K-12 and higher education, would decenter and
weaken the import of white racial identity. Also, much of the political resistance to teaching about
race in the classroom has occurred at local school board meetings, especially among majority white
boards who prioritize white conservative constituents’ concerns about CRT (Carr, 2022; Sampson &
Bertrand, 2022).

Interest Divergence

White elites and the white working class benefit from aspects of racism, either materially or
physically, and thus have little investment in dismantling it (Gillborn, 2013; Harris, 1993). As
evidenced by historical precedence, white people are only willing to support advancing the interest
of racially minoritized groups if it also advances and converges with their own interests (Bell, 1980).
However, the attack on CRT, and other intersecting discussions around equity and justice, represent
an extreme divergence of white conservative America. Interest divergence “is when White
power-holders imagine that a direct advantage will accrue from the further exclusion and oppression
of ” racially minoritized groups in society (Gillborn, 2013, p. 477). Lani Guinier (2004) used the
interest divergence principle to explain the failure of the Brown (1954) decision to deliver on its
promise of racial justice long term. At the time, racial liberalism, the legal strategy for the Brown
decision, used the negative psychological impact of racial segregation as the rationale for
desegregation. However, this sole focus on racial segregation simply addressed the “symptom” of
“the greater and more pernicious disease—white supremacy” (Guinier, 2004, p. 99). According to
Guinier, poor and working-class white people were invested in their supposed racial superiority to
Black people. Affluent white people fled to the suburbs in the aftermath of desegregation, whereas
the white working class and poor felt “victimized” by desegregation because they were forced to still
be in close proximity to Black people. Resultantly, white politicians “preyed” on the “sense of
betrayal,” “unfair sacrifice,” and resentment of the white working class and poor, which then led to
white interest divergence or polarization on the issue of racial desegregation (Guinier, 2004, p. 105).
Hence, interest divergence is a “powerful explanatory device” to understand how racism as a
structure is “ever-shifting yet ever-present” (Guinier, 2004, p. 100) and that “White supremacy is
protected and emboldened (through the creation and manipulation of apparent interest-divergence
between racial groups)” (Gillborn, 2013, p. 479).

Racial Realism: From Color-evasiveness (Sneaky) to Blatant Racism

Although color-evasiveness is an undercurrent or sneaky form of racism that may not be
readily noticeable on the surface, it still has significant racial consequences. Unlike Jim Crow era
racism, post-Civil Rights–era racism was not as apparent and so was deemed a type of covert “new
racism” (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011). This differs from the current political
moment and the anti-CRT backlash that is blatantly overt with displays of racism in the policy
discourse. While previously racism was delivered in more polite terms, political leaders like Donald
Trump have made it acceptable to publicly vocalize racist vitriol. Thus, when racism is used by
politicians as a political spectacle and tactic it further empowers, emboldens, and normalizes
whiteness as the right to exclude and dispose of people of color (see e.g., Harris, 1993). This shift in
how racism presents itself from polite to more blatant suggests that racism is indeed fickle and a



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 11

prime example of racial realism, which argues racial progress is often only fleeting because racism is
so indelible to society.

Case in point, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in the Summer of 2020
precipitated a global racial justice movement where all major institutions, especially K-12 education,
focused on improving their racial literacy and implementing anti-racist policies and practices
districtwide (Welton & Diem, 2021). As the concept racial realism predicts, this emphasis on
anti-racism was short-lived only to be followed by anti-CRT sentiments within a year. Bell (1992)
urged that racial equality is too narrow a goal, calling for a more realistic approach to addressing
systemic racism. According to Bell (1992),

In spite of dramatic civil rights movements and periodic victories in the legislatures,
black Americans by no means are equal. Racial equality is, in fact, not a realistic goal.
By constantly aiming for a status that is unobtainable in a perilously racist America,
black Americans face frustration and despair. Over time, our persistent quest for
integration has hardened into self-defeating rigidity. (p. 363)

Thus, it is critical to have a realistic outlook that on the road to racial equity and justice systemic
racism will not go away entirely but is ever-present.

Racial Erasure: Racial Trauma and Violence (Fueling It)

Not telling the truth about society’s racial past and present for people of color is a form of
racial erasure, which is the collective indifference to the identities, histories, and experiences of a
racial group that renders them invisible (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017b). Resultantly, another goal of
the anti-CRT policy agenda is to remove what is truthful about America’s history and present
relationship with race and racism from the K-12 curriculum and replace it with versions that are
more palatable to white people and alleviate any white guilt and fault in racism (Ray & Gibbons,
2021). And while these false narratives that deny the true impact of race and racism protect white
people, they inversely generate racial trauma and violence for people of color as it invalidates and
discredits their experiences with systemic racism. Moreover, the anti-CRT policy push is also
coupled with a surge in laws that are anti-LGBTQ+, furthering the erasure of racially minoritized
groups who identify as LGBTQ+. A more recent example of this type of erasure comes from Betsy
DeVos, former Secretary of Education under the Trump Administration, who undid much of the
policy protections for transgender youth of color led previously by the Obama Administration
(Farley & Leonardi, 2021).

Critical Race Praxis

Beyond only critiquing the problem of whiteness, examples of how stakeholders are
effectively challenging and disrupting whiteness in the policy process must also be provided,
especially when it comes to policy implementation. Presently, the anti-CRT backlash continues to
have a stronghold on policy implementation in education. Yet, more examples are needed of how
various stakeholders are mobilizing to dismantle whiteness inherent within policy implementation to
instead center the perspectives and needs of people of color in the policy process, a practice within
CRT also known as critical race praxis (CRP). CRP is a method in which community organizing
techniques and strategies are used to “translate critical race theory in practice” (Fuentes, 2012, p.
631). Also, CRP moves beyond simply promoting anti-racist “ideas and ideals” toward a goal that is
“experienced through practice” (Yamamoto, 1997, pp. 829-830). Legal scholar Yamamoto (1997)
underscores that CRT extends beyond a critical theoretical exercise, and rather be employed as a
critical reflective tool for policy actors to then take anti-racist action and have “deeper engagement
with frontline practice” (p. 830). Yamamoto further situates CRP as “reflective action” that infuses



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 12

“antiracism practice with aspects of critical inquiry and pragmatism, and then recasting theory in
light of practical experience” (p. 874). Ultimately, CRP puts the theoretical ideas from CRT into
practice so that anti-racist policy change can be actualized on the ground (Stovall, 2013, 2016;
Yamamoto, 1997).

CRP is most commonly used by critical race scholars to articulate how families and other
school community members of color use grassroots organizing to push school and/or district
officials to acknowledge and redress the racism embedded in the policies they construct and
implement. For example, Stovall (2013, 2016) has written extensively about his positionality as a
scholar who when conducting research does not theorize from afar but instead practices CRT
directly with Black and Brown school community members in Chicago to take action against
neoliberal racist education reforms that disproportionately affect them. Similarly, Fuentes (2012)
studied how a group of Black parents and grandparents formally mobilized to develop a plan of
action towards redressing the educational opportunity gaps their students faced and disrupt the
institutionalized racism embedded within district leadership, policies, and practices.

As such, the final component of our conceptual framework, critical race praxis, is an
important tool to examine whether and how policy actors––such as teachers, principals,
superintendents, community members, and even policymakers––in both Texas and California use
reflective practice and activism to have voice in advocating for racial justice in policy development
and implementation. In our analysis we demonstrate how limited opportunities existed for CRP in
the evolution and implementation of the Texas anti-CRT bill. Whereas in California there was
clearer evidence of CRP as communities of color through their grassroots efforts had opportunities
to engage in reflective practice, democratic deliberation, and vocalize their critiques of whose
histories were or were not included in the state ethnic studies curriculum policy.

Research Design and Methods

For our study, we conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of two states’ divergent
efforts to implement education policies as they pertain to race. We relied on Fairclough’s (2003)
approach to CDA, which is “based upon the assumption that language is an irreducible part of social
life, dialectically interconnected with other elements of social life, so that social analysis and research
has to take account of language” (p. 2). Indeed, language is a form of social practice, and CDA seeks
to explore the social conditions in which it is produced, interpreted, and explained (Fairclough,
1989). Moreover, Fairclough argues that language plays a critical role in shaping and enacting power.
He describes language as a “site of struggle” and “those who exercise power through language must
constantly be involved in struggle with others to defend (or lose) their position” (p. 35). There is a
dialectical relationship between discourse and power, and ideologies play a major role in how both
are constructed, maintained, and enacted (Fairclough, 2010). This is particularly relevant to our CDA
as color-evasive and anti-CRT approaches to education policymaking and implementation are sites
of power struggles often fueled by political ideologies. We wanted to explore the strategies and
discourses used in states where the majority of the policymakers in power hold opposing political
ideologies and how they transformed educational policy in very different directions.

Data Collection

We collected a range of documents related to race, CRT, and policy implementation in two
states: Texas and California. Texas has long been a Republican-controlled state with a conservative
majority (Ura et al., 2021). This century, Texas’ population has grown 40%, of which nearly 90% of
new Texans are people of color (Ramsey, 2021; Ura et al., 2021). In California, the state population
has also grown more racially diverse as the number of white people has decreased by 24% between



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 13

2000 and 2019 while the Asian and Latinx populations grew 25% and 40%, respectively (Fung,
2022). This demographic change is accompanied by transformations in the state’s political landscape
as many Asian and Latinx individuals, especially younger voters, vote Democrat or Independent
(Lempinen, 2020). We chose these states as they are well-documented in terms of how race is
attended to in their educational policies and the accessibility of the documents as the policies and
implementation unfolded. Reviewing and analyzing relevant documents allowed us to gain a better
meaning and understanding of the policy’s evolution and context of each state (Bowen, 2009). We
used Google, Google Scholar, and university library search engines to identify and locate relevant
documents. We searched using key words such as: “Texas,” “California,” “CRT,” “anti-CRT,” “ethnic
studies”, “education,” “teaching,” “race,” “racism,” “policy,” “law,” “community,” “activism,”
“organizing,” and “curriculum.” The various documents collected included online newspaper and
journal articles (e.g., state and national newspapers), government documents, books, websites, and
blogs. The government documents included executive orders, state bills, and state-level curricular
materials. Table 1 delineates the different sources of data for each state and includes sources
concerning CRT and policy implementation more broadly in the current context but were not
specific to either state. These documents provided a social, political, and historical context for the
two states. A significant portion of documents were from news reports from local and state news
sources as the collection and analysis were completed in real-time while these policy events were
unfolding. Many of these documents cited primary sources, such as curricular materials and
legislative documents, that we were able to then locate and analyze individually. The easy accessibility
of the various documents lent itself to a CDA of the documents given the events and policies were
evolving.

Table 1

Data Sources

Newspapers,
Magazines, Journals

Government
Documents

(E)books Websites Blogs

Texas 33 4 1 14 2

California 15 4 0 3 0

General 15 1 0 2 0

TOTAL 63 9 1 19 2

Data Analysis

We met six times as a research team to discuss and analyze the data for Texas and California.
To conduct a CDA we first located, selected, made sense of, and then synthesized the data identified
in the documents for each state (Bowen, 2009). In this initial review, we organized the documents by
type of document and content. For example, the Texas documents were organized by government
documents––those concerning teachers’ reactions and implementation; organizational efforts against
legislation and general pushback; legislation leading to changes in schools; and other documents that
helped provide additional context. This process was the same for documents pertaining to
California. Next, we skimmed and searched for emerging themes and trends using a CRT lens, which



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 14

uncovered the following four major patterns in the anti-CRT discourse: 1) whiteness, white fear, and
backlash; 2) interest divergence; 3) racial realism; and 4) racial erasure. Our coding scheme was
developed accordingly with these four patterns and was used in multiple iterations of analyzing the
different document types. These four major patterns we identified from the initial critical race
theoretical coding of the documents eventually informed the development of our CRT as policy
implementation conceptual framework. For California, we also searched for examples of CRP in the
initial content review. These phases of analysis were ongoing as we continued to collect documents.

Once we identified emerging themes based on the initial CRT analysis, we then crafted
analytic memos for each state by comparing the racial politics and subsequent policy implementation
practices across the two states. For the final step of our data analysis, we took the analytic memos
and coded based on the CRT as policy implementation framework where we searched for how the
racial politics, people, places, and policies evolved for each state. Our analysis was an iterative
process in order to conduct contextual and thematic analysis (Bowen, 2009). We acknowledged that
the documents should be analyzed critically, especially in light of the politicization of talking about
race in education. To do so, we noted the target audience and the articles’ sources of information
(Bowen, 2009).

Findings

Using Race as a Weapon: Anti-CRT Policy Rhetoric and Implementation in Texas

Irrespective of the political context and partisan politics that dominate policymaking in any
given state, all states in the US in some way have been impacted by the national anti-CRT policy
rhetoric (Alexander et al., n.d.; López et al., 2021). However, Texas provides an ideal context to
understand the implementation phase of the policy process as it was among the first set of states,
alongside Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, to sign an anti-CRT bill into law (Alexander et al.,
n. d.; Breen, 2021). However, among these five states, Texas is the only state where white students
have the lowest enrollment among all racial/ethnic groups in the state’s PK-12 public school system
(TEA, 2021a). This demographic context is evidence that addressing issues of race is indeed
important to curriculum, instruction, and achievement outcomes, especially for students of color
who represent the majority in the state’s public schools. Consequently, Texas public school
administrators and teachers are presently faced with the precarious ethical dilemma of implementing
the anti-CRT law, Senate Bill (SB) 3, with what we have found to be limited guidance from the Texas
Education Agency (TEA), the agency that oversees the state’s PK-12 public education system, on
how to interpret the law (TEA, 2021a, 2021b). Therefore, we use our CRT as policy implementation
conceptual framework to illustrate how educators, including principals and teachers, in Texas wrestle
with the racial politics involved with SB 3, and how these racial politics in turn affect their
implementation practices.

Policy

The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed House Bill (HB) 3979 into law in May 2021.
This legislation prohibits teachers from engaging in “race or sex stereotyping,” awarding credit for
service learning with political advocacy groups and bans schools from requiring the discussion of
controversial topics. In December 2021, an updated version of the law, SB 3, went into effect and
requires that teachers must go through a civics training program and that parents have access to
schools’ learning management programs.

The original bill, similar to others across the country, is aimed to keep CRT out of public
schools, despite it not actually being taught in K-12 schools (López et al., 2021; Zou, 2021). A strong



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 15

advocate for the bill, Governor Greg Abbott, said in a statement that “House Bill 3937 is a strong
move to abolish critical race theory in Texas, but more must be done” (Abbott, 2021, para. 1).
However, local public school advocates explained the focus in K-12 schools is on teaching the truth
and ensuring all students feel welcomed, celebrated, and belong (Garcia, 2021a) and that CRT does
not exist in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards (Presha et al., 2021).

The initial house bill included amendments mostly offered by Democratic House members
such as students learning about the Chicano movement, the Snyder Act of 1924, and the history of
white supremacy. There were allegations that the removal of such components of the United States'
history was an act of whitewashing curriculum. This came after most of these amendments were
removed in the first special session. Ultimately, the entire required reading list would be omitted
leaving the State Board of Education to uphold requirements for the American government
(Mitchell, 2022). This national conservative policy movement is more about conservative
Republicans’ efforts to squash any school’s or educator’s efforts to encourage students to think
critically about issues of race, gender, or systemic inequality in the times of the Black Lives Matter
and #MeToo movements. Concerning Texas’ HB 3979, the Association of Texas Professional
Educators’ attorney described the confusion and concern amongst teachers concerning what they
can and cannot teach and argued that “the point of public education is to introduce the world to
students. It’s not there to protect students from the world” (Paul Tapp, quoted in Lopez, 2021, para.
17). As López and colleagues (2021) explained, these attacks are a “part of a larger ideological effort
to delegitimize historically accurate presentations of race and racism in American history; to thwart
attempts by members of marginalized groups to participate fully in civic life; and to retain political
power” (p. 3). The effort to delegitimize race and racism in history is evident in the parameters
outlined in the bill creating ambiguous requirements for teachers and administrators including that
“controversial issues” must be explored “from diverse and contending perspectives without giving
deference to any one perspective” and lessons should not result in students’ discomfort (p. 3). This
and other requirements ignore the consequences for students of color and complicate educators’
ability to teach history and truth. This movement is evidence of white supremacy at work. It is clear
that this bill represents the dominant white voices that are making efforts to whitewash curricula and
advance the erasure of people of color.

One component of the bill is a requirement for teachers to attend a civics training program
on how to teach race in history in Texas. The civics training program includes requirements for
curriculum development, guided discussion, media literacy, and teaching strategies all within the
bounds of the bill’s requirements and restrictions (SB 3, 2021, pp. 2-3). A mandate for training as a
component of this legislation is undoubtedly centering whiteness as the legislation bans existing
curriculum that addresses race, but contradictorily proclaims required training concerning teaching
race. These restrictions reinforce race-neutral practices and language. Taking over the professional
development in this way increases the control of the messaging to educators (e.g., what and how to
teach) and maintains the legislation’s centering of whiteness in the version of history students will
receive in Texas.

Place

It is critical to understand the geographic, historic, and sociopolitical contexts for where the
Texas anti-CRT policy exists to better understand its implementation (Diem, 2012; Dumas &
Anyon, 2006; Honig, 2006). The SB 3 bill itself appeals to the largely white and politically
conservative state population, caters to white comfort, and further solidifies the retention of power
(Lopez, 2021). This is evident with the bill’s exclusion of the history of Native Americans and
“historical documents related to the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations” including
Cesar Chavez and Frederick Douglass, as well as a history of white supremacy, slavery, and the Ku



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 16

Klux Klan including the “ways in which it is morally wrong” (SB 3, 2021, p. 6). This exclusion is an
example of a color-evasive approach to education policy based on the notion that whiteness is being
threatened (DiAngelo, 2011; Gillborn, 2019).

The responses and interpretations of the Texas legislation vary across the state in different
districts and schools. Immediately following the passage of the legislation, the Dallas Independent
School District (ISD) superintendent threatened litigation out of concern for the disruption the new
bill would cause for the existing anti-racism initiatives within the district that predominantly services
Black and Latinx students (Richman, 2021). Challenging the bill could have alleviated the opposition
to their equity initiatives. Ultimately, the district made efforts to continue its equity-centered
initiatives including the creation of its Racial Equity Office. Conversely, in response to the bill’s
introduction, a suburban school district north of Dallas canceled the district’s participation in a
nationwide YMCA Youth and Government class (Chavez, 2021; Kao, 2021; Lopez, 2021). The
social studies curriculum coordinator explained to teachers that “in light of ” the new law’s
restrictions they would no longer offer the elective (Lopez, 2021, para. 23) and instead it would be
offered as a club. While the district explained its decision-making due to the vagueness of the law,
the course is permissible as it is an elective and not a required course. This decision was
overapplication as the bill only applies to required social studies courses. The bill, and the
emboldened white voices behind it, proposed the erasure of that very population from that student
population’s curricula. As one instructional coach described, this approach presents as intended “to
prioritize the comfort of White people” (Hernández & Witte, 2021, para 44).

People

School districts are key mediators for how legislation is implemented and what the outcomes
can be. While these individuals may not necessarily be named in the document, they have influential
and more informal roles. Educators have expressed concern about the interpretations of the
anti-CRT policy. There are claims that it is vague (Belsha et al., 2021; Garcia, 2021a; Hernández &
Witte, 2021; Kao, 2021), causing uncertainty and confusion among educators (Belsha et al., 2021;
Chavez, 2021; Garcia, 2021a; Lopez, 2021), and that it is intentionally difficult to interpret (Chavez,
2021; Garcia, 2021a). Vida Robertson, a professor at the University of Houston, explained the
intentionally confusing construction and further argued that “it was intended for parents, for
legislatures, to make accusations against people who were offering historical facts or perspectives
that made them uncomfortable” (Garcia, 2021a, para. 4). The educators, namely the ones
implementing the policy, according to media reports, were not a part of the construction of the
policy (Hernández & Witte, 2021; Kurtz, 2021). As such, teachers have shared what they are and
what they are not doing differently (e.g., avoiding topics, self-censoring) including continuing their
commitment to equity (Garcia, 2021a). Conversations among practitioners have shifted to how to
teach for equity and inclusion and to teach the truth while also complying with the limitations of the
legislation (Chavez, 2021; Garcia, 2021a; Hernández & Witte, 2021; Kao, 2021; Lopez, 2021; Presha
et al., 2021; Will et al., 2021; Zou, 2021). In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, many educators had
been reflecting on what it looks like to teach a more thorough and honest account of our nation’s
history and inquired about additional resources (Agarwal & Sen, 2022; Silva, 2020). The Texas
legislation is in direct contradiction to the work of these educators. Robertson explained that
“teaching students the truth, however ugly or complicated it might be, is harder for educators to do
under the bill as fear begins to dominate classroom discussions” (Garcia, 2021a, para. 8). The law
states that teachers cannot require race-related concepts in a course that includes ideas that “one
race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex” or that one is “inherently racist, sexist, or
oppressive” according to their race or sex (SB 3, 2021, p. 3). The legislation tells educators not to tell



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 17

the whole story, but to return to a more whitewashed version of history that does not threaten white
supremacy and appeals to the politically conservative agenda.

In a training session concerning the adoption of HB 3979, an administrator in the Carroll
ISD used the Holocaust as an example of when teachers should teach “opposing views” of an event
(Lopez, 2021, para. 1). The district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction was addressing
a component of the bill that details that when teaching about an event or controversial issue, the
teacher shall “strive to explore the topic from diverse and contending perspectives without deference
to any one perspective” (HB 3937, p. 2). The misinterpretation made in this affluent suburb received
criticism from across the nation (Lopez, 2021). The director’s conversation with teachers exemplified
how the white conservative political agenda is influencing the policy implementation as it
communicated a devaluing of minoritized populations and attempts to make historical events more
palatable for majoritarian white populations.

Politics

Lastly, politics undergirds all of the dimensions outlined here. The passage of SB 3 comes
during a time when significant conservative legislation is being proposed and passed in the
overwhelmingly conservative Republican state. At the time, more than 50% of Texas’ population was
female and more than 56% were people of color (Ura & Astudillo, 2021). However, 61% of
lawmakers in the state House and Senate are white and of the 100 Republicans in the Texas state
legislature, 95% are white and only 13 are women (Ura & Astudillo, 2021). This notable mismatch of
white men in positions of power to make legislative decisions highlights how policy creation can be
influenced by the political environment. As such, we see here how the political agenda can influence
the implementation of the legislation and thus the results (Dorner, 2011, p. 582).

The political pressure outside the formal educational system (e.g., parent advocacy at school
board meetings and state-level politicians), while not named in the legislation themselves, can have a
significant influence on the groups of stakeholders who do have a more formal role. Individuals in
high state-level offices have voiced strong opinions in favor of both passing and implementing the
legislation. State Senator Ted Cruz continued to voice his support and exercise influence on both the
interpretation and implementation of SB 3 in the K-12 setting even after its passing. He wrote and
published an ebook with a nonprofit organization that trains conservatives for political action
(Garcia, 2021b; Gaudiano, 2021). The ebook is framed as an effort for “brave conservatives [to]
fight back…learn how to spot Critical Race Theory concepts and argue against them” (Cruz, 2021,
n.p.), including identifying whether CRT is being taught in Texas schools. This argument and
strategy go beyond the legislation’s mandates on what can and cannot be taught. It is a call to bring
in additional politically conservative stakeholders to audit and police the implementation (Garcia,
2021b; Gaudiano, 2021). Again, the emboldened effort to protect white supremacy through the
enforcement of this exclusionary legislation is evident.

School leaders have been forced to make tough calls about implementation and have faced
unrelenting demands from parents and advocates (Garcia, 2021a; Lopez, 2021). Principals and
superintendents who are critical of the policies and push back on their implementation have faced
disciplinary action and even been forced to resign. By the end of the 2021-2022 school year, there
was a mass exodus of superintendents in Texas, including the previously mentioned Dallas ISD
superintendent. The sizes of their districts varied and included the two largest––Dallas ISD and
Forth Worth ISD (Donaldson & Richman, 2022; Lopez & Cobb, 2022). Before March 2022, 10
superintendents announced their retirements, many citing the increased political tensions and
pressures of the job (Donaldson & Richman, 2022; Richman, 2021). While they may be wanting to
further anti-racist initiatives in their districts, educators are in the larger context of racialized politics
and policy (Donaldson & Richman, 2022; Richman, 2021). Kevin Brown, director of the Texas



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 18

Association of School Administrators explained that “a lot of the political divisions, the cultural
divisions, that are there have become such a distraction to doing the job that it becomes untenable”
(Donaldson & Richman, 2022, para. 4).

In Eanes ISD, a district in West Austin and home to a white, affluent community, there is an
example of loud emboldened white parents both using the school board meeting as their platform to
make their opposition known. They clashed with students and teachers who were against the
legislation and supported the district’s goals for anti-racist and equity-centered education (Hooks,
2021; Savage, 2022). In 2020, the district hired Dr. Mark Gooden, a professor at Teachers College,
Columbia University, and a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, to work with them on their
equity initiatives. At a school board meeting following the passage of the legislation, the white
parents were vocal in their support of the termination of his contract claiming that the district’s new
mission statement along with Dr. Gooden’s help, is adopting CRT and becoming overwhelmingly
woke and possibly “antiwhite" (Hooks, 2021, para. 6). The opposition grew louder in the school
board meetings and in newly organized groups such as “Eanes Kids First” (eaneskids.com) where
the angriest parents rally and rant declaring “NO CRT in Eanes” and that racism in the district is
fake news (Hooks, 2021). However, students made appeals for the district to continue teaching
about race and opposed the state legislation’s aims to censure the ways schools could talk about race
and racism. In January 2021, the district’s school board solidified several goals concerning diversity,
equity, and inclusion that were adopted in the district’s 2021-2022 improvement plan (Eanes ISD).
The school board voted to extend Gooden’s contract another year. This decision, again, was met
with opposition from parents who argued conversations concerning race and other similar issues
should be discussed at home (Asch, 2021). As white populations further the omission and demand
the exclusion of learning about race and racism in schools, there is evidence of interest divergence
playing out to further insulate and embolden white supremacy. As such, the white parents’ continued
advocacy to control the narrative concerning race in schools exemplifies the political influence of
white backlash aimed at protecting their perceived rights and interests. White backlash then
disempowers school leaders to resist the legislation or interpret it in ways that run in opposition to
proponents. This dynamic between school leaders who capitulate to opposing white stakeholders
only then perpetuates racism and white supremacy.

Critical Race Praxis in Policy Implementation: California and Disrupting/Interrupting
Levers of Change

We first used a CRT lens to uncover the problematic racial politics of the anti-CRT rhetoric
in education, with a specific focus on Texas. We showed how whiteness is succeeding in anti-CRT
policy discourse, as fear of retaliation has resulted in few but limited efforts to challenge the policy
upon implementation. In juxtaposition, and in a much different sociopolitical context, we offer one
promising example of critical race praxis (CRP) in policy implementation: the decades-long effort in
California to make ethnic studies a curricular requirement in both K-12 and higher education. The
ethnic studies movement can first be traced back to the late 1960s in California when a coalition of
Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native American students demanded San Francisco State
University create an ethnic studies department, and high schools across the country followed suit by
offering ethnic studies elective courses (Au, 2020a). The journey to ethnic studies becoming state
law, like the present anti-CRT rhetoric, was indeed embroiled in racial politics, but over time the
grassroots efforts, CRP, helped disrupt whiteness and instead prioritize the perspectives and histories
of minoritized populations in the state curriculum. Again, using the conceptual frame of policy,
place, people, and politics we explore further the CRP involved in the evolution and implementation
of the ethnic studies bill in California.



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 19

Policy

In October 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 101 making
California the first state to require high school students to complete a course in ethnic studies prior
to graduation (Fensterwald, 2021). According to AB 101, California high schools must offer students
an ethnic studies course by the 2025-2026 school year with the law taking effect for 2029-2030
graduating seniors. The state is allocating $50 million from its budget to support school districts,
county offices of education, and charter schools in developing an ethnic studies curriculum. AB 101
does not mandate a specific ethnic studies curriculum leaving it up to school districts to decide what
they would like to adopt. However, the California State Board of Education adopted an optional
ethnic studies model curriculum that provides guidance to school districts as they work on
developing their ethnic studies offerings (CDE, 2021). The model curriculum focuses on four
historically minoritized and marginalized groups who have also been the focus in college-level ethnic
studies courses: Black/African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans,
and Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x populations. It also offers lesson plans on Arab Americans,
Armenian Americans, Sikh Americans, and Jewish Americans (CDE, 2021).

Place

California is not alone in its efforts to include ethnic studies in its curriculum. Indeed, more
than one third of U.S. states are seeking to pass or have already enacted legislation that expands
education efforts around the history of race and racism, focusing on specific racial and ethnic
groups (Stout & Wilburn, 2022). In California, school districts like San Diego, San Francisco, and
Fresno Unified are already working on requiring their high school students to take an ethnic studies
course, while the Los Angeles Unified School District passed three resolutions for integrating ethnic
studies into Pre-K by 2022-2023 (Fensterwald, 2021; FUSD, n.d.; LAUSD, 2020; SDUSD, 2018;
SFUSD, 2021). Additionally, ethnic studies courses are currently offered in hundreds of high schools
across the state (Fensterwald, 2021). Some schools like Berkeley High School are ahead of the curve,
requiring ninth-grade students to take an ethnic studies course since 1990 (Berkeley High School,
n.d.; Hung, 2021). In the Stockton Unified School District, ethnic studies efforts began in 2009
through an after-school program that focused particularly on Filipino American students. In 2017,
an ethnic studies course was adopted and taught in three schools in the district. Two years later, the
Stockton Unified school board passed a resolution to expand the program (Posnick-Goodwin, 2021;
Stockton USD, n.d., 2022).

Yet, what will be taught in ethnic studies courses in school districts may be complicated and
depend on geographic and sociopolitical contexts. For example, in the Ramona Unified School
District, which is located in a predominately white, conservative community in San Diego County,
the school board passed a civic education policy in August 2021 (Ramona USD, 2021) banning
schools from teaching 10 concepts about race, including:

teaching that a person is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive because of their race
or sex, whether intentionally or unintentionally; a person’s worth is determined by
their race or sex; a person bears responsibility for past actions of people of the same
race or sex; a person should feel guilty or not because of their race or sex; and that
the advent of slavery constituted the beginning of the United States. (Taketa, 2021,
n.p.)

Moreover, in December 2021 the district revised its controversial issues policy to center patriotism
and ensure teachers are not demonstrating any political bias in the classroom (Vardon, 2021). For
example, the policy now states,



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 20

Instruction shall be presented in a balanced manner that promotes a positive school
climate and virtues of character, while addressing all sides of the issue without bias or
prejudice and without promoting any particular point of view. …Students shall be
taught to do their own research and develop their own critical thinking life skills to
recognize soft censorship, bias, and/or propaganda thereby forming their own
opinions. …Patriotism rightly understood includes respect for dissent and
contention, and does not attempt to flatten out differences or wash away failures
(past or present). But it does take seriously, the fundamental moral obligation to
honor the remarkable achievements of those who came before us. (RUSD, 2021,
n.p.)

Indeed, how the implementation of ethnic studies courses and curriculum will play out across
California will greatly depend on place.

People

The ethnic studies bill in California successfully became a law largely due to significant
public support from powerful political elites as well as over half a century of grassroots organizing
and activism dedicated to the effort (Au, 2020b; Kornfield, 2021). While the voices of policymakers
against CRT have largely dominated the discourse in Texas and nationwide, in contrast, the push for
a mandated ethnic studies curriculum in California received significant backing from a number of
high-profile policymakers as well as from the Latino, Asian Pacific Islander, Black, Jewish, and
Native American caucuses in the state legislature (Kornfield, 2021). The original bill was written and
sponsored by Assemblymember Jose Medina (D-Riverside) in 2018 and also made provisions for
funding and resources needed to implement the curriculum. For Assemblymember Medina,
authoring this bill was deeply personal. Before becoming a state legislator, he taught high school
social studies in Riverside, a predominately Latinx city east of Los Angeles (Pawel, 2021). His course
load included ethnic or Chicano studies, and he supplemented the limited textbook options on the
topic with literature, poetry, documentaries, and field trips to see plays written by Chicano
playwrights. As a result, students’ engagement increased because they saw their identities and
histories reflected in the curriculum. This prior experience largely influenced Medina to sponsor the
bill once chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee (Pawel, 2021).

Governor Newsom was also publicly supportive of the ethnic studies bill. However, he
vetoed the original bill in response to, as we will discuss later, politics from various stakeholder
groups demanding the bill be more inclusive of their communities. In his public statement, the
Governor’s rationale for vetoing and returning AB 331 without his signature was out of “concern
that the initial draft of the model curriculum was insufficiently balanced and inclusive and needed to
be substantially amended” and that in his “opinion, the latest draft” that was out for review at the
time still needed revision (Newsom, 2020, para. 5). Thus, the governor did not object to the overall
spirit of the bill but that the first draft of the state’s curricular model for ethnic studies at the time,
which was intended to serve as a guiding template for how local school districts could design their
own course, still left out the stories of certain minoritized populations instrumental to the historical
fabric of California (Fensterwald, 2021; Pawel, 2021). Also, in this veto message, the governor
reiterated how much he values the importance of ethnic studies as it helps “young adults become
civically engaged and fully participate in democracy” (Newsom, 2020, para. 3). He reminded
Californians that the prior month he signed a similar bill, AB 1460, into law that mandated ethnic
studies in the California State University System. He followed this continued public declaration in
support of an ethnic studies curriculum by commissioning the State Board of Education President



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 21

Linda Darling-Hammond and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to
redraft an ethnic studies curricular model that “achieves balance, fairness, and is inclusive of all
communities” (Newsom, 2020, para. 7). Governor Newsom (2020) then concluded his veto
message affirming that, “In California we don’t tolerate our diversity. We celebrate it” (para. 7).

Yet, the urgency for an ethnic studies curriculum statewide largely originated from
bottom-up, localized grassroots advocacy and leadership dating back to student movements in the
1960s (Pawel, 2021). Among the most high-profile historical examples was the five-month strike at
San Francisco State University (SFSU) organized by the Third World Liberation Front concluding in
March 1969. As a result, the first College of Ethnic Studies in the US was established. This activism
at the time also prompted the University of California, Berkeley to form a Department of Ethnic
Studies. The year 1976 marked the first state-level attempt to pursue ethnic studies when the
superintendent of the department of public instruction initiated an “Analysis of Curriculum
Materials for Ethnic Heritage Programs,” which was a two-year project that supported K-12 teachers
in integrating ethnic studies into their curriculum. Budget constraints slowed the expansion of ethnic
studies in California. Yet, when Arizona lawmakers banned ethnic studies classes from K-12 public
schools in 2010, this reignited interest among activists in California who were concerned that the
same could occur there (Pawel, 2021). For instance, in 2010, social studies teachers in San Francisco
collaborated with SFSU’s College of Ethnic Studies to establish ethnic studies curricula initially in 10
and then expanded to all 19 high schools in the district. Relatedly, researchers at Stanford University
studied San Francisco’s implementation of ethnic studies and found that enrollment in the course
improved student attendance, grades, and credits earned (Bonilla et al., 2021; Pawel, 2021).

Finally, school board member Jose Lara had a significant influence on statewide policy
advocacy around ethnic studies as a requirement. Lara, a former K-12 teacher who attributes much
of his exposure to ethnic studies to his time as a student at the University of California, Los Angeles,
ran for school board in El Rancho, a working-class Mexican American community in East Los
Angeles. In 2014, Lara co-founded the Ethnic Studies Now Coalition, which urged the Los Angeles
school board to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement. While the Los Angeles
superintendent overruled this policy proposal due to its anticipated cost, the district instead
implemented the course as a year-long elective (Pawel, 2021).

Politics

There were identity politics and tensions regarding whose histories and perspectives should
be represented in the state curricular model for ethnic studies in California (Fensterwald, 2021). The
first draft of the model curriculum generated over 30,000 comments to the state regarding the
omission of lessons about Jewish people and the harmful impact of anti-Semitism. The State Board
of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond rejected this initial draft on grounds that the
curriculum should be unbiased and representative of “all learners in our diverse state” (Pawel, 2021,
para. 25). The model curriculum then went through another year-long review process, and the
second draft was released for public review on August 13, 2020. Concerned the bill would get stalled
and die in the Senate appropriations committee, Assemblymember Medina used the global racial
reckoning after the murder of George Floyd to create a sense of urgency for why an ethnic studies
curriculum is important. Medina worked with the California Legislative Jewish Caucus to accept
amendments to the bill that addressed their concerns, and they subsequently voted in favor of the
bill. It should also be noted that Medina is the only legislator who is a member of both the Latino
and Jewish caucuses. Eventually, the bill made it out of committee and passed in the Senate on the
last day of the legislative session on August 31, 2020 (Pawel, 2021).

However, as mentioned earlier, the Governor still vetoed the bill with concerns that issues
with inclusivity remained. Subsequently, the state board of education facilitated another yearlong



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 22

effort to revise the draft model curriculum with feedback from experts and the public in the process.
The Instructional Quality Commission (IQM), an advisory to the State Board of Education, then
reviewed this latest draft of the curriculum, allotting an opportunity for a public comment session
during their meeting. During this public comment session, once again there was debate on what
ethnic, racial, and/or religious groups should be reflected in the curriculum (Fensterwald, 2020b).
Jewish advocacy groups again raised concerns that they were inadequately represented, while
additional ethnic groups, especially Arab, Sikh, and Armenian communities, called for their histories
of oppression and discrimination to be reflected in the curriculum. Yet, several legislators and ethnic
studies advocates, with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in agreement, emphasized the
original four groups—Black/African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Native
Americans, and Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x populations—should remain the focus of the
curricular content (Fensterwald, 2020b; Pawel, 2021). To satisfy all concerns, IQM included in the
appendix lesson plans that represent a broader set of ethnic groups (Pawel, 2021).

It should be noted that during this time State Superintendent Thurmond also announced in
response to criticism from Jewish and other advocacy groups, a multi-million dollar “Education to
End Hate” initiative that would provide a training grant and other professional development for
teachers to learn how to teach tolerance around issues of race and religion. The State Superintendent
also saw this initiative as a means to counter the rising hate speech and incidents of anti-Semitism,
Islamophobia, bullying of LGBTQ+ students, and racism directed toward Latinx students since
former President Trump’s election (Fensterwald, 2020a).

Discussion and Conclusions

Race matters and plays a pivotal role in understanding existent and historical inequities in
society. This is particularly true when it comes to the policy process as even if a policy is designed to
prevent inequities, how it is implemented may actually undermine its intended goals. CRT, and the
rhetoric and discourses that surround it, underscore our argument that it is impossible to think
about policy implementation without centering race and racism. Specifically, the racial politics
associated with policy implementation, as is evident in both Texas and California, reveal the
contours of whiteness and how it operates in preventing the teaching of race in the classroom.
Indeed, the very essence of CRT crystallizes why a backlash against it is occurring in state
legislatures like Texas that are comprised of predominantly white, conservative policymakers, as well
as in school districts with majority white populations whose parents and families are vocal about
their animosity toward teaching about race. These white legislators and individuals know the value
and power of their whiteness (Harris, 1993) and wield it to their advantage, resulting in policies and
practices that are particularly harmful to racially minoritized and marginalized people. Thus, we view
the pairing of CRT and policy implementation as beneficial because it further illustrates how racism
is endemic in society.

We place policy implementation within CRT in our framework to advance the understanding
of how CRT (i.e., whiteness, interest divergence, racial realism, and the erasure of people of color)
and the discourses used to frame it are continual to policy implementation. This helps us to show
how the anti-CRT push in state legislatures like Texas situated within language such as “divisive
concepts” or “anti-American” is more than just about not teaching race in the classroom. It is about
revising history so that race and racism are not depicted accurately, which erases the trauma and
violence experienced by racially minoritized people. Excluding the teaching of Native American
genocide, critically examining racial and social justice movements, and not having access to
documents that include information about influential and important historical figures like Cesar



Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 23

Chavez and Frederick Douglass is placating white supremacy. It is a color-evasive approach to
educational policy, which is a tool of white supremacy that ignores the permanence of racism in
society and endangers racially minoritized people (Annamma et al., 2017; Diem & Welton, 2021).
Such policies are also rooted in a belief that whiteness is being threatened (DiAngelo, 2011;
Gillborn, 2019), and results in predictable patterns such as white backlash, overt racism, racial
violence, and racial trauma.

Whereas in the Texas example CRT helps understand how racism, especially whiteness, is
ubiquitous to policy implementation in the rise of anti-CRT rhetoric, it is also important to
recognize how policymakers in states such as California are pushing back against and working to
disrupt whiteness in education policy implementation and actualize CRT in practice (Fuentes, 2012).
From state-level officials and policymakers to grassroots organizers and local school district
educators, efforts have been made to adopt a statewide ethnic studies curriculum and mandate all
high school students take an ethnic studies course prior to graduation (Fensterwald, 2021; Kornfield,
2021). Indeed, it was the people, place, and politics that created a window of opportunity for ethnic
studies legislation to pass in California (Honig, 2006; Kingdon, 2011). The support of political elites
coupled with decades of grassroots organizing in a political context that has historically been more
inclusive in its approach to educational policy has helped school districts put into practice the
theoretical concepts and language from CRT. In turn, students will be better educated about the
history and truths of race and racism and how it is possible to collectively work toward anti-racist
policy change in our communities (Stovall, 2013; Yamamoto, 1997).

Using CRT in conjunction with policy implementation can assist policymakers and school
leaders in analyzing and determining how their practices are impacted by racism. Yet, given that
there are a number of tenets associated with CRT, it is important to determine which tenets are most
appropriate given the particular policy issue that is being analyzed. Indeed, in our analysis, we chose
to only focus on four CRT tenets as we felt they helped us to best illustrate why and how the
anti-CRT rhetoric has ballooned in recent years, as well as the discourses used and responses to
states implementing anti-CRT policies and the policies that are working to further students’
knowledge on race and racism. Thus, a potential roadblock in using our conceptual framework may
be the misappropriation of CRT tenets to a policy issue, which may result in a misunderstanding of
how racism is playing out in policy implementation.

The increasing number of anti-CRT bills nationwide further suppresses educators’ policy
implementation decisions and practices by prohibiting their ability to address systemic racism in
curriculum, staff professional development, and other core areas of schooling. Yet, there were
examples of single leaders and districts in Texas who demonstrated CRP by publicly speaking out
against the anti-CRT bill and/or honoring their district’s commitment to racial equity even when
white parents vehemently objected. However, as research demonstrates it is difficult to achieve
anti-racist policy change in isolation especially considering the potential risks and threats to personal
safety and even job security when educational leaders shoulder the anti-racist work alone (Diem et
al., 2022). Whereas, a group can often have more power and influence than a single person, which is
why there is considerable evidence of grassroots organizing and coalition building advancing
anti-racist change (Diem et al., 2022). The statewide implementation of ethnic studies in California
was largely due to not just a single policy actor but grassroots coalitions of educators and various
groups who ensured their voices, histories, and identities were reflected in the state curriculum. Still,
in Texas, there is limited evidence of CRP that is coalitional, but perhaps grassroots organizing and
activism could build the collective power needed to contest the state’s anti-CRT law (also see Henry
et al., 2023).

Despite these challenges, there are hopeful examples of states with conservative political
contexts similar to Texas where CRP and other forms of political advocacy successfully prevented



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 24

these anti-CRT and other oppressive bills from ever becoming law. For example, in Indiana,
educators, parents, community members, and business owners across the state formed a grassroots
coalition to protest HB 1134, which, like most state anti-CRT bills, aimed to censor how educators
discuss race and intersecting topics around gender identity, sexuality, and religious oppression
(Rhoden, 2022). This coalition spurred unprecedented interest from a diverse set of stakeholders
who publicly spoke against the bill. For instance, over 200 speakers signed up to testify against the
bill at the Indiana Senate Education Committee hearing and organizations like the Indy Black Expo,
the Indianapolis Urban League, and the African American Coalition organized to bring a large group
of Black parents to the Senate hearing. At this same hearing, teachers testified to the importance of
teaching their students the truth about race and racism, and business leaders similarly spoke to how
educating young people about diversity, equity, and inclusion is important to the workforce (Rhoden,
2022). Because of this coalition of diverse stakeholder groups’ grassroots political advocacy, the bill
failed to advance in the Senate. Much like Indiana’s success, 17 states including California recently
passed laws to advance curriculum and teaching about systemic racism, bias, and the historical
contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups (Stout & Wilburn, 2022). Though even with the
successful obstruction of the anti-CRT bill in Indiana, there is still significant policy advocacy and
justice work to be done. The state’s governor recently signed a bill into law that will require parents
to be notified if a student requests a name or pronoun change in school (Rodgers, 2023), and
regrettably more than 300 similar anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed to state legislatures nationwide
(Chapman, 2023).

Unfortunately, school leaders often assume that the voice of white resistance, fear, and
backlash is the loudest and most powerful in the education policy process, and resultantly feel
defeated that anti-racist change is even a possibility (Diem & Welton, 2021). However, the more
recent successful examples of grassroots coalition building challenging the anti-CRT policy rhetoric
demonstrate that CRP is perhaps one tool school leaders have at their disposal to subvert whiteness
and white supremacy in policymaking, especially policy implementation.

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Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 31 No. 109 32

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About the Authors

Anjalé D. Welton
University of Wisconsin-Madison
adwelton@wisc.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7588-6008
Anjalé D. Welton is the Rupple-Bascom Professor of Education in the Department of Educational
Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her scholarship examines
how educational leaders both dialogue about and address race and racism in their school
communities. She is currently involved in several research practice-partnerships where PK-12
educational leaders use participatory research methods to interrogate problems of practice around
racial equity in their schools.

Sarah Diem
University of Missouri
diems@missouri.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0798-5220
Sarah Diem is a professor of educational policy and leadership in the Department of Educational
Leadership & Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on the
sociopolitical and geographic contexts of education, paying particular attention to how politics,
leadership, and implementation of educational policies affect outcomes related to equity,
opportunity, and racial diversity within public schools.

Sarah D. Lent
University of Wisconsin-Madison
sdlent@wisc.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5253-6286
Sarah D. Lent is teaching faculty in the Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education
Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on educators’
conceptualization and adoption of equity and antiracist-centered education, how they dialogue about
race, and their sensemaking of policy and leadership as it pertains to equity and diversity. She also
examines teacher and leader preparation as it relates to antiracist and equitable educational practices.

https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350167841.ch-I
https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124513510734
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teachers-share-what-they-will-and-wont-do-differently-under-critical-race-theory-law/2021/07%20
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teachers-share-what-they-will-and-wont-do-differently-under-critical-race-theory-law/2021/07%20
https://doi.org/10.2307/1290048
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/24/texas-schools-critical-race-theory-teaching/
mailto:adwelton@wisc.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7588-6008?lang=en
mailto:diems@missouri.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0798-5220
mailto:sdlent@wisc.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5253-6286


Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there 33

education policy analysis archives
Volume 31 Number 109 September 26, 2023 ISSN 1068-2341

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