JEFFERSON CITY (KMOX) - There were no Black parents, teachers or qualified experts who testified during an invite-only Missouri legislative committee hearing about critical race theory being taught in schools.
The hearing was held Monday by the Missouri Joint Committee on Education and the only witnesses invited to speak were those who oppose the controversial curriculum.
Rep. Nick Schroer of Lake Saint Louis suggested the curriculum be banned in Missouri, although it's not known if any schools are teaching it right now.
"Our educators and districts should be teaching our children not how to think and not what to think," Schroer says.
Missouri NAACP President Rod Chapel called it "ridiculous" to have a conversation about inequity while “excluding the very people who are saying we’ve been treated inequitably," reports the Associated Press.
“That talks more to the kind of hearing that they wanted to have than the information that they wanted to gather,” Chapel told reporters after the hearing. “They wanted to hear from their friends who were going to support their political talking points.”
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Sen. Cindy O'Laughlin says she wanted to hear from parents.
“I felt today it was important to hear from people who have tried to go through the official cycle of authority within their districts and have basically been turned away,” O'Laughlin says.
O'Laughlin says this will not be the final hearing on the matter.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson joined the conversation via Twitter, saying Monday night: "Critical Race Theory (CRT) has no business being taught in Missouri classrooms — but the vast majority of our schools are not doing that,” he said. “Missouri schools are teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion to help prepare our students for life and for the workforce by allowing them to better understand and respect each other’s differences. However, we do NOT need the extreme teachings of CRT in order to accomplish that goal."
Critical race theory was developed by scholars during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It's recently become a political lightning rod at the local and national level.
Many Republicans view the concepts underlying critical race theory as an effort to rewrite American history and persuade white people that they are inherently racist and should feel guilty because of their advantages, the Associated Press reports.
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