“The House Is on Fire”: A Critical Analysis of Anti-CRT Bans and Faculty Experiences

Abstract

The anti-critical race theory movement has caused educators strife and fear nationally. In these current socio-political times, faculty are navigating unprecedented experiences of racism as they teach and research critical race theory. Through our work, we examined 40 faculty experiences challenging legislation at a national, state, and institutional level. We present recommendations for practice and policy that resist the surveillance experienced during this socio-political backlash.

1. Introduction

Across the United States, a political battle has been centered around the use of critical race theory (CRT) and other race-conscious concepts in educational curriculum. Many have attributed the root cause of these attacks to conservatives igniting fears toward progressive calls for a more historically accurate curriculum and broader global demands for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd [1,2] CRT consequently became the scapegoat for anything more broadly related to social justice, equity, or diversity, stemming from conservative Christopher Rufo’s commentary about the “cult indoctrination” of critical race theory in the government. Rufo acknowledged the aim of villainizing the term CRT to negatively brand any diversity-related concepts [3]. As a result of the misrepresentation of CRT in the media, in 2020, former President Trump signed Executive Order 13950 [4], designed to ban concepts of race and sex stereotyping, such as the belief that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist”. Although CRT was not directly named, distorted and misinformed rhetoric about the theory prompted legislators to attempt to censor its use in educational curricula. The anti-CRT ploys have resulted in legislators across 43 states proposing bans that would limit CRT and race-related discussions in the classroom. Currently, 18 states have passed legislation to this effect [5]. Due to this current example of power abuse and domination, faculty members who embed tenets of CRT in their teaching are actively being attacked and challenged for their efforts to center race and racism.

Historically, CRT has served as a theoretical lens for scholars to challenge race neutrality and other dominant narratives through a direct acknowledgment of racism as an ever-present reality in U.S. systems [6,7]. In education, scholars have utilized CRT to explore the intersection of race and privilege, which results in the exclusion and oppression of People of Color [8,9,10]. Despite this legacy, faculty who decide to employ CRT are undoubtedly situated as targets in this current ideological debate. Indeed, faculty are often met with resistance in trying to provide transformative learning opportunities for students through critical frameworks such as CRT [11,12,13,14,15].

Although previous research has explored the contentious nature of faculty teaching about issues of race and racism in the academy, the current attack on CRT has distinctly complicated their experiences. In the context in which CRT has been demonized, faculty’s counterstories can provide an opportunity for them to resist such narratives. In articulating the power of personal counterstories, Anthym and Tuitt [16] declared, “Resistance is necessary. Narrative is necessary. Counter-narratives are narratives of resistance, narratives as resistance” (p. 1077). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide the counterstories of faculty to formulate a collective response to the harmful and racist rhetoric encompassed in dominant narratives against CRT. The research question that guided this study was as follows: How have legislative attempts to ban critical race theory and the current political climate of resistance affected the ability of faculty to teach race and racism? Our work calls for administrators to support faculty teaching CRT and ensure that faculty members have the tools to resist the misrepresentation of anti-CRT legislation.

1.1. Understanding Faculty Use of Critical Pedagogy and Critical Race Theory

Faculty utilize critical pedagogy to engage students in the interrogation of the ways that power is reproduced [17,18,19]. Giroux [20] described the essential functions of critical pedagogy in challenging students to “question the deep-seated assumptions and myths that legitimate the archaic and disempowering social practices structuring every aspect of society” (p. 718). Despite the utility of critical pedagogy in transforming society, scholars have recognized the tension between its focus on social class and the lack of emphasis on race. CRT has been connected to and distinguished from critical pedagogy for its more centralized critique of race and historical analysis of racism [21]. Therefore, CRT can serve as an educational praxis for those who seek to connect to the origins of critical pedagogy while honoring individuals’ narratives about racial oppression. As Yosso [22] asserted, CRT provides a tool for faculty to “analyze and challenge racism and other forms of subordination that pervade U.S. school curriculum structures, processes, and discourses” (p. 93). Structures, processes, and discourses built on racism and white supremacy show up in a variety of ways in postsecondary education [9]. CRT challenges traditional forms of curriculum that lack educational strategies that can lead students toward critical consciousness [17]. Educational discourses include narratives about which sources of knowledge are legitimized, and CRT allows scholars to disrupt those narratives [23,24,25,26]. Patton [9] further recognized faculty’s role in using CRT to disrupt normalized practices of racism:

The conceptualization and growth of CRT within the walls of the academy suggest that higher education, although culpable for the remanufacturing of racism/White supremacy, can also exist and serve as a contested space in which Scholars of Color and all committed to racial justice can galvanize to influence the future of higher education and its role within society. (p. 335)

This statement exemplifies the role of scholars committed to the foundational principles of CRT in transforming the academy through their teaching and scholarship.

1.2. Classroom Spaces as Sites of Resistance

Classrooms have long been viewed as political spaces where differing views on social issues and politics are discussed [27,28]. As Tuitt et al. [15] declared, faculty engage in the politics of teaching when they focus on “learners transforming their consciousness, students, and faculty transforming their classrooms, and individuals transforming their communities” (p. 69). The resistance that faculty experience in teaching CRT or other forms of critical pedagogy to engage students in self-reflection is often based on the social identities of their students. For example, emotionality in the classroom can be linked to white fragility, which DiAngelo [29] defined as the ways that white students are triggered by minimal engagement with their white identity. Further, students’ discomfort with complex topics such as race or whiteness can make it difficult for them to connect to critical frameworks and concepts. Disciplines such as teacher education that exclude critical pedagogy and discussions about racism result in white students feeling discomfort when engaged with transformative education [30,31,32]. As Matias et al. [12] posited, this discomfort results in emotionality to the extent that white students view Black faculty as a symbol of race to be resisted.

The emotions and resistance stemming from discussions about race ultimately lead students with dominant identities to perceive the classroom as an “arena of violence”. DiAngelo and Sensoy [33] noted the influence of the sociopolitical context on classroom dynamics, stating that “it is personal and ideological comfort that is at stake, not safety” (p. 126). These dynamics undoubtedly affect Students of Color who engage in race-related discussions and bring their own understandings of race and racism into the classroom. In addition, although Faculty of Color are more likely to have meaningful discourse regarding race and racism, they are also hesitant out of fear of receiving negative teaching evaluations [34,35]. Black faculty in particular often connect current events of racism to course content but are left feeling emotionally taxed and in need of additional support systems [36]. These dynamics point to the need to contextualize the experiences of faculty who utilize CRT in their teaching with current misrepresentations about the theory that infiltrate the classroom.

1.3. Theoretical Framework

We ground this study on the foundational tenets of CRT, which stemmed from the work of critical legal scholars [37]. While we focus on the central tenets of CRT as outlined by Delgado and Stefancic [38], we also recognize key theoretical concepts that have been aligned with the theory. These tenets include the following: (1) racism as a normal reality of U.S. society; (2) race as socially constructed; (3) a historical analysis of the law; (4) whiteness as property; (5) intersectionality; (6) interest convergence; and (7) the unique voices of People of Color [7,8,39,40,41,42]. Throughout our work, we focus on counterstories. Delgado [41] introduced the idea of storytelling, more explicitly, the use of counterstories as a mechanism to challenge deficit mindsets and dominant ideologies (i.e., master narrative) of thoughts about People of Color, making space for new understanding within legal discourse. Further, Delgado [41] believed that counterstories name realties by showing the possibilities that stories can have on People of Color’s lives and interpretations of self. According to Delgado [41], counterstories can also,

Show us the way out of the trap of unjustified exclusion. They can help us understand when it is time to reallocate power… They invite the reader to suspend judgment, listen for their point or message, and then decide what measure of truth they contain. They are insinuative, not frontal; they offer a respite from the linear, coercive discourse that characterizes much legal writing. (p. 2415)

Solórzano and Yosso [43] expanded on Delgado’s [41] counterstory work and are most heavily cited for using these concepts theoretically and methodologically. Solórzano and Yosso [43] believe that counterstories can be used for cultural preservation, the instillment of values, entertainment, and the overall education of other cultures. Indeed, Solórzano and Yosso’s [43] work not only presents counterstories as truth-telling methods, but also demonstrates, through stories, how they can position different vantage points, often not told or portrayed within the media or public, to counteract the master narrative. The master narratives are stories that describe underlying assumptions about people’s racialized privilege on issues surrounding racism, classism, sexism, etc. [43]. In master narratives, white privilege has significant power [43], as these ideologies are rarely questioned and often normalized within everyday life. Master narratives silence the experiences of People of Color and further demonstrate how stereotypes are projected on People of Color within society and education more broadly [43]. Because such a misinterpretation of CRT exists within current legal narratives, counternarratives can validate faculty members’ lived experiences but also stand to expose and transform the oppressive nature of those dominant narratives [16,44].

Foundational scholars in the CRT movement have discussed the role of naming your own reality in challenging dominant white ideals of neutrality and color evasiveness. Ladson-Billings and Tate [8] outlined the ways that faculty in education can challenge legal discourse through their counterstories, as their experiences with oppression can illuminate the incongruity of legal doctrine. Just as scholars have analyzed the deceptive objectives of Civil Rights legislation and their consequences within education [39,45], current faculty members, through naming their own reality, can situate the realized consequences of racism in their own experiences within white logic in the academy. Ward [46] described white legal logic as the rationales utilized in law that uphold white supremacy, such as ahistorical and race-neutral policies. The lack of logic is evident in the current attack on CRT by conservatives who have labored to illuminate CRT as race stereotyping and name the faculty members who teach CRT as racists. Despite their dedication to challenging racial injustice, Faculty of Color face academic violence, which includes any practices or policies in white spaces intended by those in power to demean or devalue them in some way [47]. The current negative rhetoric against CRT and partiality to race neutrality position them as the racists [48]. Because white logic can prevail in white normative spaces, which can include false narratives against CRT, it is essential that we utilize faculty voice in further understanding how these types of logic show up in the resistance that they currently face in classroom spaces.

2. Methodology

2.1. Research Design

We used Critical Race Methodology (CRM) as a methodological storytelling approach to guide our study. CRM as a method (a) recognizes and foregrounds racism and race throughout the research process and challenges discourses on gender, race, and class, showing how these elements intersect to affect the experiences of People of Color; (b) challenges traditional research texts, theories, and paradigms that explain the experiences of People of Color; (c) offers solutions that transform discussions on gender, race, and class; and (d) focuses on the experiences of People of Color, which are often gendered, racialized, and classed [43]. Because CRM is designed to counter dominant ideologies, it centers counterstories opposing traditional white-normed narratives that silence People of Color. Critical race theorist Delgado [41] reminds us that “Oppressed groups have known instinctively that stories are an essential tool to their own survival and liberation. Members of out-groups can use stories in two basic ways: as means of psychic self-preservation and as means of lessening their own sub-ordination” (p. 2436). As researchers, we used CRM to shed light on the master narratives of legislators who painted CRT as divisive and how their attempts to ban CRT and other race-based concepts uphold white supremacy and affect faculty.

2.2. Data Collection

We used a purposeful sampling strategy to recruit participants with various racial, ethnic, and social identities at various faculty ranks (e.g., professors of practice and tenure-track to full professors) from an interdisciplinary background. Recruitment included using graphics and posting on social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) to gain interest in our study. Targeted emails were sent to faculty we knew taught CRT courses across disciplines. We also searched targeted states’ websites and publicly available information to find faculty members who used CRT and other race-based concepts in the classroom.

Ultimately, 40 faculty members across 42 states where legislators proposed banning CRT participated in two 60–90 min narrative virtual interviews, where we brought in explicit legislative bills from their states. During the interviews, we asked participants questions such as: What is it like teaching CRT and other race-based discussions in this current political climate? Have you experienced resistance or pushback from individuals in using CRT in teaching or research? Participants received a $50 gift card as an incentive for participating in interviews.

Table 1. Participant demographics.

Pseudonym	State	Race/Ethnicity	Academic Area	Rank	CRT Experience
Abdoulaye Niang	AL	Black American	Social Work	Associate Professor	10 years
Alexis	GA	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	5 years
Alyssa Kim	IL	Asian American	Education	Associate Professor	7 years
Amber	PA	Black American	Education	Associate Professor	7 years
Ann	NE	White American	Education	Associate Professor of Practice	14 years
Audre	SC	Black American	Education	Associate Professor	14 years
Banneker	PA	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	4 years
Charles	IA	Multiracial American	Sociology	Associate Professor	10 years
Dakarai	IA	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	20 years
Diana	MI	Mexican American	Education	Associate Professor	8 years
Dra. Carmen	CO	Mexican American	Education	Professor	23 years
DuBois	UT	Black American	Education	Professor	22 years
Elena C.	OH	Asian American	Law	Professor	22 years
Felicity	MS	Black American	Law	Assistant Professor	3 years
Francis	OH	Multiracial American	Education	Associate Professor and Administrator	12 years
Francisco	AZ	Mexican American	Education	Professor	13 years
Greg	AL	White American	Sociology	Assistant Professor	10 years
Grill Gates	TX	Black American	Education	Associate Professor	13 years
Helen Brown	GA	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	6 years
Jacque Baker	TX	White American	Education	Assistant Professor of Practice	1 year
Jacqueline	CO	Asian American	Sociology	Professor and Administrator	20 years
Jasmine	KS	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	4 years
Jerrell	MS	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	5 years
Joan	AZ	White American	Education	Assistant Professor	10 years
Jordan	TX	White American	Education	Assistant Professor	4 years
JT	MS	White American	Sociology	Associate Professor	10 years
Jude	AR	White American	Education	Assistant Professor of Practice	2 years
Justice	IL	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	12 years
London Bridges	CO	Black American	Education	Professor and Administrator	20 years
Malcolm	KY	Multiracial American	Education	Professor and Administrator	10 years
Nanisca	PA	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor and Administrator	6 years
Nia	OH	Black American	Education	Associate Professor	9 years
Nola	TX	White American	Sociology	Associate Professor	15 years
Professor Nick Fury	UT	Black American	Education	Professor and Administrator	24 years
Raymond	AL	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	7 years
Sandra	SC	Asian American	Education	Associate Professor and Administrator	11 years
Seth	VA	White American	Sociology	Assistant Professor and Administrator	5 years
Stacy	MO	Black American	Health	Assistant Professor	6 years
Tre	AL	Black American	Education	Assistant Professor	2 years
Veronica	ID	White American	Education	Associate Professor	10 years
Zora	FL	Black American	English	Associate Professor	10 years

describes participants’ demographics in detail; for some areas, we report information broadly to protect participants’ identities.

2.3. Data Analysis

We leaned on critical race theorists Solórzano and Yosso’s [49] guidance as we created counterstories, which “demonstrates how we create dialogue that critically illuminates concepts, ideas, and experiences while it tries to use the elements of critical race theory” (p. 36). Analysis was conducted in four steps: (1) reviewing and reading transcript data; (2) first-cycle coding using open coding (e.g., find large themes) and theoretical coding (e.g., use theory to sort and categorize data); (3) comparing codes to those in existing literature; and (4) compiling all data to create counterstories. First, we reviewed and read transcript data and memoed it as we gained an understanding of participants’ stories. Second, we engaged in first-cycle coding using open coding followed by theoretical coding. Open coding has been described as reviewing large chunks of data to categorize and develop codes and themes [50]. We used theoretical coding to sort, condense, categorize, and subcategorize the core elements of CRT. By using theoretical coding, we were able to color-code the data words and excerpts that related to the permanence of racism and how it is the normal reality within U.S. society and counterstories [39,43]. After we open coded and theoretical coded, we connected the existing literature on critical pedagogies and faculty experiences teaching race and racism to our analysis to understand the themes associated with our participants’ stories. Finally, we reflected participants’ personal experiences and compiled all the data to create counterstories [49].

Several trustworthiness strategies were used, such as reflexivity, memoing, and member checking [50,51]. We note our positionality as a form of reflexivity, as two Black faculty members teaching CRT and other race-based discussions living in states with anti-CRT bills, including how we have personally been affected by these legislations on state, institutional, and department levels. We also completed analytic memos during and after the interviews to capture our thoughts and reflections on participants’ stories [50]. Finally, we corroborated our understanding of participants’ stories through member checking, where we sent them transcripts and an overview of our findings to solicit feedback about their counterstories.

2.4. Researchers’ Positionality

We enter this work as two Black women faculty members who have had to navigate our own unique challenges teaching CRT in states that have anti-CRT legislation. We have personally lived in states that experience ongoing resistance by legislators to control classroom curriculum and uplift white ideologies. As CRT scholars, we have witnessed the direct effect of these legislations on faculty, including the overall disdain for scholars who utilize CRT in teaching and research. Therefore, this work for us is personal, as we sought to find plausible solutions that would best inform and change how higher education more broadly addresses this political moment. Understanding the experiences of faculty members and how, despite the negative CRT rhetoric, they continue to teach truth and dismantle racism is an honor.

2.5. Findings

We grounded our findings using CRT, acknowledging how central racism is to faculty experiences teaching CRT in this current political climate. Our findings are grounded in the theory and methods of counterstory scholarship. Explicitly, we display what Solórzano and Yosso [43] describe as other people’s stories, counterstories that offer a biographical analysis of People of Color experiences. Through our work, we highlight Faculty of Color and white faculty narratives, who acknowledge how they are racialized and experience differential treatment when teaching race, racism, and CRT. These counterstories demonstrate how faculty members have navigated political resistance to CRT on a national, state, and institutional level while teaching race and racism. Our findings, rooted in personal stories, describe faculty efforts in addressing myths and misinformation regarding CRT and the additional labor they experienced from doing this. Because of anti-CRT legislation, faculty stories also pointed to contentious classroom spaces and faculty having to navigate ideological challenges. Finally, faculty shared strategies to combat the current political climate and attacks on CRT that they experienced in the classroom.

2.5.1. Politics, Media, and Misinformation: Teaching Critical Race Theory

Our participants’ counterstories point to how politics, media, and misinformation shaped how they taught CRT in the current political climate. Participants openly named the rhetoric used in the media to describe CRT. Seth, for example, stated,

CRT is the latest boogeyman. It is being used as a political pond to serve self-serving interests. And when you read these bills, when you listen to public speeches given by people like [Governor], or you turn on Fox News and you listen to any one of those pundits on Fox News, they do not know anything about this. They are clearly using this to stoke white anxiety, white fears, and to perpetuate their control, whether that is over ratings, over viewership, over control of state legislatures. It is a scare tactic. It is complete nonsense.

While faculty recognized that anti-CRT legislation aimed to cause fear, especially among white people, as mentioned by Seth, how politics and the media portrayed CRT also brought newfound interest from students in learning these concepts. This led to richer conversations in the classroom, as students found course content more relevant, as participants were able to provide more real-world examples of why CRT concepts were significant to understanding issues of race and racism. At Charles’s institution, he saw an uptick in the interest to learn about CRT from students. He shared,

It is kind of funny. These state legislatures told a bunch of 18–21-year-olds what they could and could not learn, after the biggest civil rights protests in U.S. history by some measures. Immediately after the protests, the George Floyd protest in 2020, there was a palpable change in my classes in how engaged and interested the students were in the material. They kind of knew they had been lied to. They knew they needed to learn about this. Then, in response to that, you have conservative state legislatures who a lot of these students already hate say, “You cannot learn this basic stuff”. I had students coming and saying, “What’s critical race theory?” Being interested in doing the reading and talking about the ideas and debating it. Sometimes rejecting it, but into it.

As a result of students’ interest and desire to counter the misinformation portrayed in the media, Charles began to teach more CRT concepts within his classes. He continued,

My personality is if I am told I cannot do something by folks who have no authority to tell me what I can and cannot do and just are not qualified, I am going to do it. I have not changed my classes. If anything, I have added more CRT or talked about it. I talked with my dean, I talked with my provost to say, “Hey, I am doing this”.

Charles represented the majority of the faculty who saw a desire for students to learn CRT at this moment and wanted to have more meaningful dialogue in the classroom about what they were hearing on the news. For example, Tre noticed how the bills positively affected his classes as students were more eager to have conversations about CRT. Tre shared,

[Teaching CRT] has been better because you have more practical examples. I have noticed my students come to the class ready to talk about it, but more so, they are ready to actually learn about it because they hear so many different stories about what it is or is not in the media, they are actually looking to understand it. I have used it as an opportunity to engage. We talked about [state] politics, we talked about the different bills, we talk about what it means. And so now they are not just hearing it in the classroom, but they are seeing it on the news, reading it on these articles. They are talking about it all across campus. CRT went from being this subtle subject to, it is the forefront. For me, it has been a benefit. You still have the problematic students. But for me, I have taken advantage of the opportunity.

Tre is one of many faculty who stated that they are using this current moment, how the media describes CRT, and students’ overall willingness to learn these topics to their advantage. In other aspects, faculty members noted how challenging it was to contest the misinformation and lawmakers’ narratives about CRT, meaning faculty had to do a lot of “setting the stage” of what CRT is or is not due to its misrepresentation by the media. Helen Brown described some of the challenges of trying to counter preconceived views about CRT that students heard from the media. She stated,

It has been challenging because people come in with preconceived notions of CRT, unlike four years ago they might have never heard of critical race theory. We [as faculty] are not necessarily combating what they are already thinking, but in some ways it has almost been publicity. Unfortunately, negative publicity.

Helen Brown admitted that teaching through the negative publicity of CRT has been difficult. However, like other participants, she found that students still wanted to learn about what it is despite how the media and public figures discussed CRT in the news. She continued,

What I found with some students is they wanted to learn more because they had heard stuff and they are like, “Is this true?” It’s definitely problematic, but it has brought people who I do not think would necessarily be inquisitive about critical race theory in particular because of this climate.

Ultimately, Helen Brown recognized the pros and cons of teaching CRT. However, she felt that the media’s misrepresentation of CRT and overall resistance by legislators have caused many faculty members to be more anxious about teaching during this political climate. The severity of national publicity and how legislators in some states were not knowledgeable about CRT left many participants using more calculated and cautious language in classroom spaces when teaching. Jordan provided an example of this:

Most people are taking critical race theory off of what they hear right now on the news or on social media. I think it is really a matter of how are we as instructors kind of engaging in this sort of horse of a different color conversation of like, well, I am not going to call it CRT, but I am going to name some experiences that CRT can help illuminate. I think it is also being mindful of that language because the words, the discourse that we use can sometimes be distracting to the message of the literature.

Jordan believed that there were ways that faculty could use CRT concepts without being so academic. For instance, describing how People of Color experience racism every day in normal society without calling it the “permanence of racism”. Like many other participants, Jude believed that using legislators’ lack of understanding of CRT and the rhetoric they used in the media could be a powerful teaching tool. He described,

I used [media conversations] as a way to demonstrate the lack of understanding of CRT from a state lawmaker level. None of this [language in the bill] is a tenet of CRT that you are saying we should ban. They are saying these outrageous lies, for lack of a better word, to paint CRT with a brush that is not correct. They are using terms and things that just are not correct. And so, I try to highlight that to my students. I say, “This is what it actually is versus this is what is being said it is in our state”.

Jude’s description above hints at what many faculty endured in addressing how legislators inaccurately articulated CRT; so many faculty members, to Jude’s point, had to consistently explain key terms and concepts to students while also pointing to the fact that lawmakers had misinformed opinions about CRT.

2.5.2. Grappling with Classroom Dynamics

Participants described how classroom dynamics were altered due to CRT bans, especially varying perspectives from Students of Color and white students who, at times, challenged faculty teaching concepts of race and racism. While faculty spent time debunking the myths of media and legislators who paint CRT and other race-based concepts as divisive, they noticed an uptick in white students resisting these courses. London Bridges gave an impactful overview of the tensions between teaching CRT to white students and Students of Color:

There is the white student, usually the white woman, who talks about feeling guilty. There’s the white man who complains, “Well, I came from a poor family, and so I do not have white privilege. I am not benefiting from whiteness...Then, there are the People of Color in the course who sometimes also resist, “Well, I do not have anything to learn in this course”. I have been told that more than once. “I do not have anything to learn because I already know all this”. Some of that is understandable because they are used to being in class discussions, and workshops that are so basic that are not talking about systemic issues.

London Bridges was not the only participant who described how white students challenged concepts regarding white privilege, white guilt, and understanding how racism can look differently for Students of Color. Stacy described the juxtaposition of teaching white students who struggle with issues of white guilt and protecting Black students who have pervasive experiences with race and racism daily. She stated,

It is not so much upsetting students. It is something being taken out of context...lacking the skills to say, “Hey, I do not understand something”, or, “I feel guilty about something”, or, “Something hurt me that someone said”. I have Black students in [my CRT course], I want them to feel comfortable to talk about their lived realities. But if I have white students in there, how do I protect the Black students from feeling backlash if they state something that makes the white students feel guilty? It is too much emotional labor on top of the labor of having to teach, on top of the weariness of just getting, not in trouble, but publicized on these media outlets and just wrongfully drug through the mud for simply a course that I wanted to teach that I think is valuable.

Undoubtedly, participants continued to discuss the complexities within classroom spaces, especially in this current political climate and resistance to CRT. Classroom dynamics looked different for white students, Students of Color, and Black students, which often left faculty members drained from teaching. Jerrell provided another example of how Black students and Students of Color are burned out from having race and racism conversations. In contrast, white students are taking a stronger interest in learning about CRT. He shared,

What I glean from my Black students is that they are passionate about the conversation and engaged in it but burnt out by it. I have some Black students and Students of Color that are exhausted by the conversation, right? We have been having this conversation forever and it has been in our face for the past two years more prominently, and so they’re kind of over that, those pieces of it, but not against it. There is a lot of white interest, white students are trying to unpack their stuff. They are trying to figure out where their role is in it, what they missed, and so the conversations have been ... I could tell the learning is more rich, because I feel that people are actually coming in wanting, thirsty to learn, to be able to have conversations at their dinner table or to be able to talk in the market or understand what’s going on CNN with CRT ... They are just really wanting to be able to kind of, understand and survive the moment, in some ways it feels that white folk have a greater fear of messing up in those conversations.

Taking a stronger interest in learning about CRT and other race-based concepts also meant that faculty had to juggle the emotional toll that these concepts had on white students and Students of Color.

Sandra shared a specific example,

It is a challenge. I think what I am realizing is I am comfortable talking about these issues, I have been talking about them my whole life. I realized not everyone has the same level of comfort and people are concerned and anxious for very different reasons. So many of the students that do come into my class are white because we are at a predominantly white institution. I am sure a lot of white students who take race and CRT courses across the country are worried about saying something racist or being accused of being racist. A lot of what I have to do is emotional labor. It is trying to encourage students that the point of this class is not to label whether someone is not racist. The point is to learn about how ideas of race and racism were created in our society, how they have been in existence from the beginning and how this has profoundly shaped our society and how it has created vastly different opportunities and experiences and life chances, depending upon what your skin color looks like. Getting white students to that place is a lot, they are very anxious and jittery. So there is an emotional labor in that sense. There is emotional labor for Students of Color as they express a lot of frustration with their white peers.

The taxing nature of teaching in this current climate left many faculty members feeling drained. Having to push back on the national misrepresentation of CRT coupled with student dynamics had many faculty questioning if it was worth teaching these topics. Explicitly, white faculty noticed how white students were more hesitant to Faculty of Color teaching in contradiction to negative CRT rhetoric, whereas white faculty could push them harder to think about issues of race and racism. Joan gave an example of her experience co-teaching CRT with a Women of Color instructor,

I have co-taught [classes on race and racism and CRT courses] particularly with Women of Color. Through that experience there are things I can say in class that students will either listen to differently because I am white or if not listened to, would resist in the same ways that colleagues of color, particularly Women of Color co-taught will feel like they cannot say. I think that resistance generally comes from white students. I think that there are some ways that I can press and push on white students in my classes and ways that are more difficult or risky for Faculty of Color. With that said, I am not bringing the lived experience of being a Person of Color and carrying the weights and the burdens of racism into the classroom. So I do sometimes worry that Students of Color in my classes are not having very meaningful conversations because I am a white faculty, and I know that I cannot give Students of Color that kind of mentoring and relational experience Faculty of Color do.

Joan’s thoughts demonstrate the unique differences that many scholars have noted about the challenges of People of Color teaching issues of race and racism versus white faculty. This is one of the many ways that white students in particular can be resistant to one’s identities and proximity to race and racism. Lastly, participants noted how resistance to teaching CRT also showed up in virtual classroom spaces. For example, Jordan shared how white men, in particular, appeared resistant in online discussions related to issues of systemic racism in her CRT course:

One student in particular, a white man who was in my class and very much of a positivistic mindset, doesn’t believe that systemic racism or outright discrimination exists. Treat everybody as equals, right, that stereotype. The pushbackwas not so much in class because I think they knew that I would be willing to engage in discourse. It was in an online discussion post. He said, “This is not my experience, the systemic stuff doesn’t really exist”. I more or less just rolled my eyes and just said, well, your experience isn’t everyone’s experience, can we at least recognize that.

Jordan discussed the situation with a colleague who had the student in another race-based course, and they decided to pair him up with the most critical student in the class for some of those discussions. Despite these issues, Jordan believed white students often “benefited from having largely fruitful conversations; students are hungry to have the conversations in class”, thus demonstrating how white students benefit from teaching about racism.

2.5.3. Combating Resistance: Strategies for Change

Negative CRT rhetoric has caused faculty to develop strategies to continue to teach CRT and other race-based topics. Several participants stated that they prefer to teach CRT as an elective or special topics course so legislators and administrators cannot paint them as pushing students to learn divisive concepts. Amber, for example, stated how she has rethought both the approaches to teaching CRT and how she offers the class,

I find a lot of different things when I am teaching a class that people are opting into versus a class where I am infusing critical race theory or ideological structures of critical race theory, not just straight up teaching CRT in my methods classes. Rather, I am teaching ideas about how you should question racism in methods, how we are everything and how we were socialized racially and by gender. It is more that I am using a CRT lens to do the teaching versus me teaching about CRT itself. The portfolio of classes I teach are elective-based and are highly critical and unapologetically.

Amber realized that in teaching CRT in this method, instead of teaching traditional forms of CRT, helped students be less resistant to learning these concepts. Additionally, Amber has moved away from offering courses of this nature as core courses but as electives, where she has found students are more open to learning critically. Professor Fury provided another example of how he moved his CRT class to the summer semester because he thought it was “relatively safer”. He shared,

It is just spiraling [legislators responses to CRT/institutional responses]. It has forced me to rethink who I talk to ... I do not talk to the media whenever there is some kind of racial incident or whenever there is some kind of thing around critical race theory. I do not talk to the media about this, because it just gets warped around this whole thing. It has forced me to rethink when I teach the class. I used to teach it during the spring, but that is the height of the legislative session and I do not want to do it now. I will teach the critical race theory class in the summer. I am trying to figure out times that it will be relatively safer to teach the class. Summer times, usually people are just doing their own things. They are not worried about what is going on. I am trying to think strategically on when I should teach this class because I want to teach it, but I also have to be smart to say, “I do not want to teach this during a time when the Proud Boys may be watching this, or the [state] Parents United may be watching this or some other legislative person is watching this”. Then, that puts my students at risk. I just do not want to do that.

The “when” and “how” to teach the class in terms of the delivery, to which students, and the timing came up continuously as many faculty members feared for not only their safety, but also their students’ safety as these bills had caused uproar and violence in some states by anti-CRT vigilantes. Grill Gates described how the current climate made him completely rethink if it is safe to teach CRT pre-tenure, especially in states who are actively trying to target faculty who teach these topics. He stated:

Systemically there’s no mechanism by which to protect me. They’ll [academic leaders, such as deans, department chairs, etc.] tell you go teach it, but they don’t follow that with, and if the legislature sees it as a violation of law, we going to support you in this way. We’re not going to let them come into your class and arrest you. If they do arrest you, we’re going to bond you out. We’re going to have you legal representation to go to court. The infrastructure is not in place to protect my academic freedom.

Unfortunately, the CRT legislation has made some faculty members, as Grill Gates points to above, question teaching CRT altogether, especially pre-tenure in states that refuse to provide them with protection.

Several tenured participants also recommended that they, as the more senior colleagues, advocate for and protect junior faculty in the context of anti-CRT rhetoric. For instance, Malcolm shared,

Now, for us [tenured faculty], we assure [junior] faculty that it is important that they have academic freedom and that if they choose to include themes of equity in their work and in their teaching and their pedagogy that, that is okay with us. So we try to reinforce that to our junior faculty because I think this climate is very stressful for junior faculty because of all of these conversations. I think their [legislators] primary goal is to have a chilling effect on controversial discussions in K-12 and higher education. I think for folks who do not have the privilege yet of being protected with tenure, that it can potentially have a chilling effect. I understand where I am situated in my positionality that it can be something that I can engage in without fear of reprisal. But I do understand for junior faculty, even if as leaders, we reassure them that their academic freedom is being protected, that they still have some nervousness because of all the structures around them and their personal experience as human beings and a racialized society, it worries them. I often have to reassure junior faculty that we respect their academic freedom and encourage them to use CRT in their work.

Malcolm named what respecting junior faculty’s academic freedom meant and how they protect them. He shared that tenured professors assess if the threats come from internal or external factors. Suppose that they are external (from outside of the university), Malcolm stated. In this case, tenured faculty have “discussions with them, and we can advocate for them. And whether it’s with the district or with legislators”. He also mentioned that if the threats were internal (from inside the university, other faculty, or students), then tenured faculty members could explicitly have “conversations with the equity office, the provost office, having direct conversations with deans”. Ultimately, Malcolm witnessed how these types of strategies show support and commitment to the well-being of junior faculty engaging in teaching that incorporates CRT.

The final strategy that faculty members shared was that those who teach CRT should push back on the interpretation of legislation. Unfortunately, many administrators (i.e., deans, department heads, provosts, and presidents) interpret and enact these bills not based on what is written, meaning some bills do not state that faculty cannot teach CRT at post-secondary institutions. Still, administrators state that faculty cannot teach CRT because of fear of retaliation from state legislators and other political leaders. Alyssa Kim provided an example of how, in her state, she has pushed back on the language and interpretation of legislation, explicitly when faculty and teaching assistants were being questioned on why they are teaching CRT. She explicitly stated what was in the legislation,

For [state] specifically, and I’m going to actually reference [legislation]. So no state agency, school district, or school administration will be requiring a teacher of history, civics, U.S. government or politics, social studies, or similar subject areas who is employed by the board of education or school district to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs.

Alyssa Kim continued,

This is what gets weaponized, specifically that we cannot have our TAs teach critical race theory. Because that was the idea, that no teacher should be required. So when our TA went, that is what they cited [CRT ban]. But it was also the broad language, discuss current events or widely debated or controversial issues. Again, it is like, what issues are controversial? What issues are currently debated? So there is lots of cause for concern because the wide language of this allows for a weaponization that if you are already in a color-evasive framework, you do not realize that it is being weaponized only for Faculty of Color or only when we are talking about race. So in that then, the concept of teacher can also be widely applied because the teaching assistant is technically a teacher. The rebuttal that, for example, was, it said no state agency, school district or school administration. And so post-secondary education is this weird sort of amorphous of, “We are not a school district”. So there is a distinction to say, this does not apply for us.

Alyssa Kim’s points demonstrate the significance of the interpretation of CRT bans. This strategy is one that many faculty should use as a major clarification that many of these bills do not actively name higher education institutions, as some legislators knew they could not suggest the removal of teaching of CRT from an academic freedom stance. Therefore, faculty have the authority to push back on the language presented and even challenge administrators’ enactment of these bans on college campuses. Ultimately, participants named the risk of teaching CRT in the context of anti-CRT rhetoric but believed that the work is necessary, demonstrating how the stories of faculty matter as they must persist in uplifting these topics in higher education.

3. Discussion

Situated in the larger context of the false rhetoric about the divisiveness of CRT, this study explored the counterstories of faculty dedicated to offering CRT as a transformative pedagogy to their students. Although they were often met with resistance to their efforts, they exhibited the power of CRT in naming the normalized functions of racism to create opportunities for students to engage in change. Our findings point to three main areas of understanding: (1) faculty had to spend a significant amount of time addressing the myths about CRT that are transmitted in the media that placed further burdens on their efforts; (2) faculty faced contentious classroom dynamics that directly affected their ability to challenge the ideological tensions that existed in the classroom; and (3) faculty developed strategies to protect themselves against ideological attacks against CRT that infiltrated the classroom. These findings undoubtedly point to the strength that faculty exhibit in standing against the fallacies of political claims by those who attempt to silence them, in ways that attest to their commitments to racial justice and transformative learning.

Historically, white students have been privileged by whiteness as an epistemology of ignorance, in that they can function within the privileged assumption that they have no racial identity [52,53]. However, in many ways, the language within Executive Order 13950, which was subsequently utilized across state legislative arguments against CRT, created a cognizance for our participants’ students in that they were racialized. For example, much of the sociopolitical rhetoric supports the notion that CRT condones ideas that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex” or “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex” [4]. Although these concepts are negative at face value, to refute them, students are, nonetheless, still forced to engage in a conscious dissonance with their mental framework around race neutrality. Participants spoke of the benefits of many white students coming to class with a sense of curiosity about CRT. While white students most often benefit from a society that shields them from engaging with knowledge that would threaten their worldview [54,55] current anti-CRT rhetoric appears to be threatening the very management of that ignorance. In other words, in order to even engage with the alleged idea that CRT is divisive, students must expose themselves to the discomfort of the myth that CRT positions them as racist. As critical pedagogues, faculty must combat students’ deleterious ideologies, which can create conflict between their humanity and commitment to critical epistemologies [11]. This current sociopolitical attack against CRT places an additional burden on faculty who must dispel such falsehoods, knowing that they are the other, as well as the self [56]—the “racist” uplifting CRT as portrayed by some legislators.

Ladson-Billings [57] in her article “Critical Race Theory—What it is Not” maintained that just because a scholar engages with issues of race and racism does not make them a critical race scholar. In the same sense, participants carried the burden of educating students about how race and diversity more broadly—which have been overgeneralized, presented in generic and uncritical forms, and erroneously labeled as CRT concepts—do not represent the actual tenets of CRT. While our study adds to the literature regarding resistance to critical pedagogy, it extends that work to reiterate the harm of this current political context, which [58] referred to as the “poisonous pedagogy of sensationalism” (p. 46). Giroux [58] revisited the role of critical pedagogy not only in supporting academic freedom, but also in recognizing the role of higher education in combating attacks on democracy. The author further articulated that threats to critical pedagogy in the current era “constitute a kind of anti-pedagogy, substituting conformity for dialogue and ideological inflexibility for critical engagement (p. 61)”. The idea of ideological inflexibility challenges the idea of classrooms as spaces for criticality to occur, as evidenced in the strategies that our participants discussed in having to temper their true intent of honoring the foundational principles of CRT.

The dynamics of classroom resistance unfortunately detracted faculty from fully engaging students with transformative learning, as they increasingly had to mitigate possible threats to their position in the academy. More specifically, those participants who were not tenured were faced with decisions on when to directly engage students with CRT in their courses and when to hold back due to possible repercussions. Ultimately, the way in which the knowledge of faculty who employ critical theories is dismissed can be considered a form of epistemic violence. Epistemic violence can be defined as the refusal of an audience to respond to certain forms of communication due to ignorance or the ability to ignore conflicting viewpoints [54,59]. Through our participants’ counterstories, we extend the idea of epistemic violence to recognize that faculty are currently being othered outside of the safety of academic freedom due to the villainization of CRT in the broader society. Black faculty and other Faculty of Color have historically had their critical scholarship and commitment to race in their teaching questioned, which ultimately affects their trajectory to promotion and tenure [11,16,23,25,26,60]. However, this era is uniquely grounded in an epistemic attack led by our country’s leaders that has trickled down into the very ideologies upheld within higher education institutions. Faculty fears are undoubtedly confirmed with real-time examples, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Black woman who was denied tenure in 2021 at the University of North Carolina for her involvement in the 1619 Project, a scholarship on the truths of slavery that was condemned alongside CRT as unpatriotic [61]. Friedman and Tager [3] coined the term educational gag order to illustrate the legal movement that legislators use to censor scholars that aim to combat racism and the effects of whiteness through their teaching and scholarship. Although these gag orders ultimately have negative, even chilling effects on faculty, our participants point to the power of the CRT community in supporting like-minded pedagogues in navigating these true threats.

4. Implications

We offer several implications for practice and future research guided by the powerful counterstories of our participants. First, as demonstrated in our study, there continues to be scrutiny from policymakers and the media regarding CRT. While the media has painted CRT as divisive, administrators must be ready to demystify these claims and ensure the protection and safety of faculty members who engage in critical pedagogy. Protecting faculty should include universities being cautious of how much of faculty members’ public information they share with the general public (e.g., office location, phone number, personal identifying information), especially in states that have been retaliatory and volatile toward them. At colleges and universities, administrators such as provosts, deans, and department chairs, must be especially prepared to address anti-CRT legislative bills at a university, college, and department level. How administrators show up during these times matters, and because of the misinformation spreading, they cannot be afraid to educate campus constituents on why CRT exists and push back on external commitments to erase history.

Second, we reiterate that administrators must be committed to hiring more faculty who are dedicated to embedding critical pedagogy, more specifically CRT, in their teaching. This should go beyond hiring an individual who is the sole “race or CRT expert,” but truly being invested in building a community of scholars within programs that share like-minded and core commitments to challenging racial injustice. Because these educational gag orders exist, administrators must understand the value of junior scholars having tenured mentors who engage with CRT in their teaching and can assist tenure-track faculty in navigating threats to their academic freedom. Participants in our study who were senior faculty members mentored and sought to protect junior faculty by strategizing with them to resist possible threats to their careers, depending on whether or not those threats were external or internal to their institution. These support systems are indeed needed for critical scholars to persist and be encouraged to contest the chilling effects that anti-CRT rhetoric might have on their commitments to racial justice. Even further, because critical scholars will have their scholarship critiqued at the department and college levels during the promotion and tenure process, it is not enough to just have representation of critical scholars within one program. In order for department chairs and deans to truly put their verbalized support of faculty members into action, they must ensure that critical scholars are hired and represented across all department and college levels. Because dominant ideologies are upheld and preferred in the tenure decision-making process, leaders must treat the condemnation of CRT as a systemic issue.

Finally, scholars who have the means to do so should challenge the white logic that is currently rooted in legislative discourse against CRT. Ward [46] named this white logic within the law as having “no redeeming value beyond normalizing white supremacy and its progenies (i.e., racism, heteronormativity)” (p. 24). Participants such as Alyssa Kim demonstrated the power of not only challenging the generic wording of state bans, but also pointing to the skewed nature of language that could be interpreted in ways that favored dominant white logic. This was present in the ways that legislators left ambiguity in what was considered a state agency (e.g., district vs. a postsecondary institution) and applying vagueness to what issues were controversial and banned from teachers’ curricular authority. Because academia functions overwhelmingly from a color evasive and race-neutral framework, faculty who teach CRT need to be explicit about how their work is weaponized under this generic discursive framing. Scholars who teach CRT courses should also provide opportunities for students to engage with course activities that illuminate the ways that those dominant white logics are positioned in education and the broader society as normalized.

5. Conclusions

The experiences of faculty in their commitments to critical pedagogy point to the need to center their counterstories to validate, understand, and leverage their narratives to debunk dominant misconceptions about CRT. As our participants made clear, race and racism directly influence students’ engagement, resistance, and ability to challenge false notions about CRT amid current attacks against the theory. CRT, as honored by the faculty who engage in the work, is a powerful tool used to challenge power reproduction and move students to be critical thinkers in the context of external forces that seek to silence critical thinking. CRM allowed us to present faculty narratives as a testament to the power of teaching as a political act, not as indoctrination, but as a means to change inequity. Therefore, naming their reality in this current era is essential, particularly if the higher education community is to resist external forces from changing our reality of freedom of and academic thought.