Texas Senator Ted Cruz hits Twitter, TV to target critical race theory

In the past two months, Sen. Ted Cruz has tweeted 12 times about critical race theory, appeared on Fox News to criticize it, and introduced a bill to block federal funding for theory training in the workplace.

Many of Cruz’s tweets focus on one point. That critical race theory is divisive and inflames racial issues.

“#CriticalRaceTheory aims to tear down our institutions and divide us based on race. It is inherently bigoted and does not belong in our children’s classrooms,” Cruz said in a July 7 tweet.

The Texas Republican’s efforts align with a larger conservative campaign to malign and block the teaching of critical race theory following a year filled with protests and conversations on race relations in the United States.

Asked if he believes that critical race theory is being taught in Texas, Cruz said that he does not know where it’s being taught in particular and that finding out would need more time and resources. Texas’ state curriculum makes no mention of critical race theory and does not require its teaching for any classes.

Critical race theory is an academic framework that researchers use to examine how inequality has been baked into American social systems and how inequality continues in these systems today, Kerry Goldmann, a lecturer at the University of North Texas’s history department, told the Star-Telegram in June.

For example, a researcher might use critical race theory to look at how Jim Crow laws and hostile zoning practices denied many Black Americans the chance to take out homes loans and how those practices affect Black Americans today, Goldmann said.

Cruz, however, offered a different definition for critical race theory when asked if he supports efforts by Texas state legislators to prevent teaching critical race theory in K-12 schools.

“I certainly support not teaching critical race theory, not teaching racist ideas that set Americans against each other on racial lines. Not teaching kids a Marxist approach to American history that posits that America is irredeemably racist, that all white people are racist, and that inflames racial hatred,” Cruz told the Star-Telegram.

Karl Marx died almost a century before critical race theory emerged, but his works influenced a different framework called critical theory. Critical theory explores how society’s structures and assumptions create social problems.

While Cruz and other Republicans fight against critical race theory in schools, some Democrats see their efforts as a way to prevent honest instruction on race in America.

“It’s unfortunate that Senator Cruz wants to inject politics into the classroom instead of teaching students the U.S. and Black history that has made our nation what it is today. I see absolutely no value in that line of thinking,” Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, said in a statement.

Critical race theory is also on the minds of parents and activists around the country who flocked to school board meetings in recent months to protest teaching the subject. In late June, hundreds of people packed a Fort Worth school board meeting to decry the subject, holding signs that described the theory as “Marxist.”

Ernie Morán, a high school Spanish teacher in the Fort Worth school district, said he attended district training called “Courageous Conversations,” which included instruction on critical race theory to better equip teachers for conversations on race, but they do not teach critical race theory to students.

“As teachers we’re not going to sit there and say, all right, we’re not going to talk about the verdict that came down on the George Floyd case, we’re going to ignore it. No, we got to make space for kids to feel comfortable talking about what’s on their mind and whatever pressures they face because they don’t leave those at the door when they walk into your classroom,” Morán said.

One of the earliest mentions of critical race theory as a political issue was during the Donald Trump administration when Trump urged the Office of Management and Budget to defund any federal programs that teach critical race theory.

For Cruz and other Trump-aligned Republicans, critical race theory is an easy shorthand that can be used to create alarm about possible changes in the U.S., like increasingly skeptical perceptions of law enforcement, said TCU political professor James Riddlesperger Jr.

“I suspect that most people who are opposed to critical race theory really have not considered it in any kind of a systematic way, rather they’re looking at it as a bumper sticker slogan of people who are trying to destroy traditional values in the United States,” Riddlesperger said.