The Sconi

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has introduced an amendment to the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill that bans the use of federal funds for teaching critical race theory in schools called the Stop CRT Act.

Critical race theory is an academic ideology that teaches racism is actually embedded into America's society and the institutions of American society, The Conversation explained.

One of the largest debates this year through the Senate has included if federal funding should go to schools in order to help them purchase materials and inaugurate programs that teach critical race theory in schools for students K-12. Cotton's amendment helps to ban this federal funding for the sole purpose of instituting critical race theory teachings. 

According to Just the News, all Democrat senators except for Joe Manchin (D-W.V) voted against the ban, which allowed for the GOP to have the number of votes needed to pass the amendment introduced by Cotton. All Senate Republicans voted in favor of the amendment, including Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, while all Democrats voted against it, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).

Ahead of the vote, Cotton said, “They want to teach our children that America is not a good nation but a racist nation. Those teachings are wrong and our tax dollars should not support them. My amendment will ensure that federal funds aren’t used to indoctrinate children as young as pre-K to hate America," Just the News reported.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) has previously said in an interview, “I don’t think we should be teaching our children that America is a systemically racist nation, that everything America is today is all built on slavery.”

Nicholas Ensley Mitchell, assistant professor of Curriculum Studies, University of Kansas, said he believes teachers will "either 'distort' history in the eyes of lawmakers who say it’s wrong to teach that America was racist from the start. Or they will distort history by ignoring the fact that – as the U.S. Supreme Court once noted itself in 1857 – black people were 'not intended' to be regarded as 'citizens' under the U.S. Constitution and therefore had no constitutional rights."

A Harvard poll found that 61% of registered voters opposed the core idea of critical race theory that America is structurally racist, according to the Washington Examiner.

Critical race theory has nothing to do with sentiment, guilt or shame, Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, said as reported by the Texas Tribune.

“It's taking us out of racism as a psychological and emotional question, and is focusing much more on the structures, the policies that people create that govern our lives,” HoSang said. 

According to The Conversation, new laws passed in Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, New Hampshire and Tennessee already prohibits the teaching that any race is superior and that anyone should be subjected to discrimination based on race or sex.