Nineteen Fifty-Six Vol. 2 No. 5

and Richard Delgado to explore the intersectionality
of race and law in America. It was designed to examine
American liberal approaches to racial justice.
However, CRT rose to mainstream notoriety when
American conservatives began the fight against teaching
it.
Schools stopped teaching certain aspects of Black history.
Chapters about slavery and the civil rights movement were
removed from textbooks. Conservative organizations
criticized the validity of critical race theory.
“When followed to its logical conclusion, CRT is
destructive and rejects the fundamental ideas on which
our constitutional republic is based,” the Heritage
Foundation claimed.
Arguably the biggest issue that has come out of banning
critical race theory is knowing where the line is. That line
being free speech. Where does limiting the teaching of
CRT end and limiting free speech begin?
Or is limiting CRT also limiting free speech?
schools of thought like psychology and research in racist
practices. The crusade to limit CRT has now — whether
intentionally or not — become a crusade of limiting
diverse academia.
“Administrators, among the most risk-averse people in
the known universe, will err on the side of canceling
programs and courses,” Kruse said. “Only the brave and
the foolish will teach ethnic studies in Ohio in the future.”
Despite being almost 200 years apart, the goals of
lawmakers in 1831 and 2022 remain the same: limit
different views of culture and the world. When one takes
a critical lens of the actions of these lawmakers, one thing
becomes clear.
These laws are designed to make white people feel
comfortable and for Black people to have no voice.
Censorship — no matter what form it takes — chooses
what stories are more important. It chooses what voices
matter.
It chooses what race matters.
Timothy Messler-Kruse is a professor of ethnic studies at
Bowling Green University in Ohio. The state legislature
is close to passing House Bill 327. The bill defines several
ideas that shouldn’t be taught in any public school or
university.
Most of the concepts in the bill — like teaching that one
race is superior or inferior to others — are ideas Kruse
teaches against. But, as the bill reads on, the ideas become
increasingly more vague.
The vagueness of the bill reaches over into other
59