By Dan Spalding
InkFreeNews

WARSAW – As Kosciusko County investigates Critical Race Theory, many people have very little idea how to define the controversial concept.

The commissioners will host a meeting with Attorney General Todd Rokita on Thursday, July 8, as the county looks into whether elements of CRT are being taught in area public schools.

Some county leaders have said they believe CRT is being taught in local schools, but have not provided any evidence of that happening.

The county commissioners are looking at whether to try and ban CRT, but whether that can be done remains unclear.

Here are some definitions of the subject.

Encyclopedia Brittanica – defines it as an intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color. Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

You can find the full entry here.

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Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab has extensive information on the subject.

The writing lab describes CRT as a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice.

You can find the entire entry here.

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An Associated Press story, available online, writes that Critical Race Theory centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

You can find the full “explainer” here.

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