“Hopefully I don’t get fired for this,” a South Carolina teacher allegedly told her students as she prepared to show them two short videos on critical race theory (CRT) this spring.
Mary Wood has not been fired, but the Lexington-Richland school district forced her to revise the syllabus for her Advanced Placement language arts class. She was told to omit planned classroom discussions on Between the World and Me, a book that discusses systemic racism. The school board took action after students at Chapin High School complained that the videos “made them uncomfortable.” (READ MORE: America is Destined for Dictatorship)
Wood showed the videos while preparing the class for discussion on the book, a 2015 memoir by Ta-Nehisi Coates written as a letter to his teenage son. The book recaps American racial history and details Coates’ experience growing up in inner-city Baltimore. Wood said she had taught the same text in previous years without issue.
Wood’s experience is the latest evidence that legislation banning discussion of CRT can be effective in schools. Critical race theory argues that racism — which the theory describes as “systemic” and “structural” — is embedded in America’s legal system, institutions, and economy and imposes “whiteness” as the societal norm.
CRT Made Students ‘Uncomfortable’
After Wood’s presentation, students wrote to the school board and said that they were “uncomfortable” with the content being presented in class.
“Hearing [Wood’s] opinion and watching these videos made me feel uncomfortable,” one anonymous student wrote. “I actually felt ashamed to be Caucasian.”
“These videos portrayed an inaccurate description of life from past centuries that she is trying to resurface,” the same student argued. “I don’t feel as though it is right because these videos showed antiquated history. I understand in AP Lang, we are learning to develop an argument and have evidence to support it, yet this topic is too heavy to discuss.” (WATCH: Exclusive Interview With Kyle Reyes, Father Who Pulled His Kids Out of School Over Pride Video)
One of the videos, “Systemic Racism Explained,” discusses how redlining, or classifying certain neighborhoods as “hazardous” for investments based on wealth, created unequal education opportunities. It argues that systemic racism prevents black households from obtaining loans or attending top colleges.
In the other video, “The Unequal Opportunity Race,” cartoon black and white runners compete in a track meet. While the black runners face a series of obstacles, including higher incarceration rates, inadequate schooling, and racial profiling, their white counterparts compete unimpeded.
Another student wrote to the school board, “I was incredibly uncomfortable throughout both videos and was in shock that she would do something illegal like that.”
Teacher Defends CRT
Wood defended her lesson plan in a letter she addressed to the school board, arguing, “[S]ince AP students have chosen a program that directly involves them in college level work, participation in this course depends on a level of maturity consistent with the age of high school students who have engaged in thoughtful analyses of a variety of texts.”
The school district required Wood to withdraw the assignment from her syllabus, stating that it conflicted with a proviso passed by South Carolina lawmakers for the 2022–23 school year.
The proviso prohibits state money from being used to teach certain issues, including that “an individual, by virtue of his race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” and that a person “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.” The motion was passed as part of an effort to combat CRT in K–12 education.
“In this culture, EVERYTHING may be considered controversial,” Wood told a local newspaper, the State. “To prevent conversations about experiences which exist outside of heterosexual, caucasian norms is both biased and discriminatory and completely antithetical to the development of critical thinking and civil discourse, which is the entire point of an AP Lang course.”
Legislation prohibiting CRT in schools has been approved or signed into law in at least 18 states, and 10 others are considering similar legislation.
“There is an odd juxtaposition where we are trusted to protect students from armed intruders but subject to ridicule from community members who proclaim we are indoctrinating children,” Wood told the State. “Until we cease to lend a space for vilifying teachers, more of us will leave the classroom.”
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