Over the past few years, Critical Race Theory (CRT), an academic concept taught mostly to law students, has been “catapulted into the public dialogue, becoming the catch-all phrase” of those opposing educational discussions dealing with race or racial justice in American schools (“Anti-Critical”).

Several states including Florida, Texas and Iowa, recently passed bills that prohibit teaching or discussing what they call “divisive concepts.”  The advocacy group No Left Turn in Education maintains lists of books it says are “used to spread radical and racist ideologies to students,” including Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist. Their belief is that teaching or talking about racism in schools will “[sow] divisiveness and hate.”

While many conservatives seek to censor books that talk about racism or racial justice, many liberals seek to ban classic books that use racial slurs or feature “white saviors.” After parent complaints in 2022 about the use of racist epithets in To Kill a Mockingbird; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Cay; Of Mice and Men; and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, the Burbank (CA) Unified School District superintendent removed these titles from required classroom reading lists.

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