It was a warm night in the Dallas–Fort Worth area on June 3, 2020, and Colleyville Heritage High School principal James Whitfield could not sleep.

But it wasn’t the heat that tormented him. Wracked by the recent murder of George Floyd, Whitfield found himself entangled in a maelstrom of emotions and knew he had to address the tumultuous times with his school community. Whitfield, a Black educator of two decades, had served in the Dallas, Texas, area as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, and principal at the middle and high school levels.

At 4:30 am, Whitfield decided he couldn’t wait any longer to act on his convictions and sent an e-mail to his school community to address injustices. He declared that systemic racism was “alive and well” and that everyone needed to work together to reach “conciliation for our nation.” He went on to say, “Education is the key to stomping out ignorance, hate, and systemic racism. It’s a necessary conduit to get ‘liberty and justice for all.’”

“I felt a duty being the first African American principal in this school’s history to speak out and to send a note to the community,” Whitfield told me. “It was a note of encouragement.… We know it’s going to be hard, but we can do this together.” Initially, the responses to his message were “overwhelmingly positive.” But a few months later, after President Donald Trump launched a war on critical race theory (CRT), implacable right-wing groups began the attack. Whitfield didn’t believe much would come from the criticism he received, but then a raucous school board meeting in July 2021 proved him wrong.

The call for Whitfield to be fired was led by a man named Stetson Clark. Clark’s credentials to comment on Whitfield’s performance as a principal include being an alumnus of Goldman Sachs, running an unsuccessful campaign for the school board, and being a father of children who did not attend Colleyville Heritage High. At the board meeting, Clark spun the fairy tale that Whitfield was there to indoctrinate kids and destroy the school district—as evidenced by Whitfield’s recommendation on Twitter of Richard Rothstein’s best-selling book, The Color of Law, which explains how federal policy and banking practice worked to segregate neighborhoods. Reflecting on this attack, Whitfield told The Guardian, “What’s interesting is far-right opponents are saying they want the curriculum to say America is not inherently racist, that America did all things perfectly and everything is rosy and good and slavery was just a minor footnote. But they’ve already got that.”

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“How ’bout you fire him!” one angry voice rang out in the meeting hall that evening. “While it was a tough time,” Whitfield recalled, “I was encouraged because the students and parents that I actually served were being very specific about who they knew me to be. They were speaking the truth.”

The truth, however, was immaterial to those determined to rid themselves of a Black principal who had the temerity to speak his mind; a few weeks later the district issued Whitfield a disciplinary letter suspending his employment. Then on September 20, 2021, the Grapevine Colleyville Independent School District voted unanimously not to renew Whitfield’s contract.

After months of attacks, and with no clear path to getting his job back, Whitfield succumbed to the pressure and agreed to part ways with the school district. Just like that, Whitfield was ripped away from his life’s pursuit of empowering young people through education because he dared to acknowledge systemic racism.

Unfortunately, as disturbing as this attack on Whitfield is, it is not a unique experience among educators in the United States today. As of June 2022, The Washington Post identified at least 160 educators who lost their jobs or had to resign because they taught about race or LGBTQ+ issues. This count was undoubtedly very low, as it couldn’t have tallied the many educators who didn’t want to go public with their story—and many more have been pushed out of their classrooms since the report. As National Public Radio reported about the vitriol from those who oppose antiracist education in the schools, “Mobs are yelling obscenities and throwing objects. In one district, a protester brandished a flagpole against a school board official. Other cases have included a protester yelling a Nazi salute, arrests for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct, and numerous death threats against public officials.” Many of those public officials were school board members who believed students had a right to learn about systemic racism, and in 2021 alone, at least six educators across the country resigned after receiving death threats.

The illicit lessons taught by these educators have been designated “critical race theory,” but you needn’t have ever taken the graduate-level legal studies course on systemic racism and jurisprudence, or even know anything about the theory, to be found culpable of using it to corrupt the minds of youth. Once apprehended in today’s CRT dragnet, harsh punishments are meted out for those who promulgate antiracist ideas or expose kids to parts of US history that reflect poorly on the national character. Educators who dare teach honestly about race, whether their lessons have any connection to CRT or not, risk being maligned by billionaire-funded organizations that seek to deny America’s history of oppression and charge those who refuse to conceal this history with a nefarious plot to teach kids to hate white people.

Astoundingly, almost half of all public-school children across the country today are subjected to laws that forbid honest education about the history of racism. But the force of these laws is much more extensive than even this statistic suggests. The fear of retribution for teaching the truth has created a chilling effect so cold that an incredible two of every three US teachers report self-censoring discussions on race, gender identity, and sexuality in their classrooms.

Although large majorities oppose book banning and curriculum banning, billionaires are using their wealth to manipulate political and educational systems and swell the number of students who are prohibited from engaging with texts containing an analysis of racism and oppression. Even as book bans increased by 33 percent in 2022, the EveryLibrary Institute found that 75 percent of voters said “preventing book banning” was important to them when voting, and 43 percent said it was “very important.” Only a minuscule 8 percent of respondents thought there are “many books that are inappropriate and should be banned.” Additionally, in a 2023 nationally representative survey, over 80 percent of registered voters conveyed to the Black Education Research Center that it is essential for public-school students to be educated on both the history of racism and slavery in the United States and its contemporary impacts on students and communities.

Despite widespread public opposition to book and curriculum bans, a well-funded minority is aggressively working to restrict educational content addressing racism and oppression. This movement has gained new momentum with President-elect Donald Trump’s recent threats to defund schools that teach honestly about the United States’ history of racism. Trump has vowed to eliminate what he calls “left-wing indoctrination” in schools, proposing sweeping changes that include banning lessons on systemic racism and gender identity; abolishing diversity, equity, and inclusion offices; and cutting federal funding from institutions that fail to comply with these restrictions.

In the cacophony of today’s political discourse, debates about CRT are ubiquitous, but what’s not discussed, and what I believe must be studied, is uncritical race theory. Uncritical race theory is how I define systems of belief that unquestioningly subscribe to prevailing views on race that reinforce existing racial power relations. Uncritical race theory denies that racism exists at all, or maintains that racism primarily victimizes white people, or rejects any systemic or institutional analysis in favor of an interpersonal explanation that understands racism as sporadic and the product of individual bias.

Uncritical race theorists position themselves as neutral and objective, unencumbered by ideology or a theory of race—when in fact they have a highly developed theory of race, even if they are unaware of the origins or the full dimensions of this theory. To be clear, uncritical race theorists would never refer to themselves as such, because it would divulge that their opposition to CRT (and every other antiracist framework) is not anchored by research and historical inquiry, but rather is the result of unsubstantiated and unmoored theories that sink under the most cursory of examinations. When educators analyze race in their lessons, uncritical race theorists accuse them of politicizing the curriculum—a claim that approaches reason only if you believe that teaching children that the acceptance of the current racist structures and institutions is not political.

Consider the Civic Alliance’s “American Birthright” social-studies standards, established by a handful of extremely wealthy right-wing patrons to transform civics education, influence textbook authors, and infuse teacher training programs with uncritical race theory. In 2023, the Woodland Park school district in Colorado became the first in the nation to fully adopt the American Birthright social-studies standards. Facts be damned, the ninth-, 10th-, and 11th-grade modules of the curriculum teach students that European imperialism “improved life expectancy…among colonized peoples.” The truth is that during the height of British colonization of India from 1872 to 1921, Indian life expectancy dropped by a startling 20 percent, and during the 70 years since independence, Indian life expectancy has increased by approximately 66 percent, or 27 years. Belgian colonial administrators sponsored by King Leopold II in the Congo kidnapped children and transported them to child colonies to work or train as soldiers, with estimates suggesting more than half died there. The brutality of Belgian colonialism caused the deaths of an estimated 10 million Congolese. In the Americas, Europeans killed some 56 million Indigenous people, so many people that scientist have determined the genocide actually led to planetary cooling.

American Birthright provides a textbook case of how uncritical race theorists attempt to camouflage their theory of race by dressing up their advocacy for the current relations of power in society not as a political position but as natural facts. Uncritical race theorists have been coached to see their unquestioning belief in America’s “worthy history of liberty” as the only natural and objective way to view history, and critiques of racism as “political” or only a “theory.”

Describing people who accept status-quo beliefs about race as “uncritical race theorists” is important because it helps underscore that people opposing antiracist education aren’t actually rejecting “theory” about race—they are trading one theory for another and trying to hide their theory of race behind a smokescreen. They would prefer that the underpinnings and origins of their highly developed theory of race go unexamined. Uncritical race theorists demand an anodyne telling of history where the United States was delivered by the stork—and they would rather not look any further into how the country was made, lest it offend delicate sensibilities. They tell themselves America doesn’t fornicate, cuss, drink, brawl, abuse, exploit, lie, cheat, or steal. But as James Baldwin reminded us, “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”

James Whitfield provided insight on the power of a deeply connected and loving classroom during his May 19, 2022, testimony to the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He was invited to testify at the “Curriculum Sabotage and Classroom Censorship” congressional hearing addressing the ongoing initiatives aimed at restricting discourse on American history, race, and LGBTQ+ issues in public K–12 classrooms, as well as the punitive measures targeting educators who teach truthfully about these subjects. Whitfield conducted a master class at the hearing on the need to defend honest education. He told me that his nerves got to him when he entered the congressional chamber and contemplated the weighty task of defending public education. But hearing the testimony of courageous youth who spoke before him about their right to learn honest history steeled his resolve and alleviated his anxiety.

Seated before the committee, a placard reading “Dr. Whitfield” before him, he taught a lesson that cut through all the trappings of congressional formality. Leaning into his microphone, he said, “My name is James Whitfield—I’m a husband, and a father of three amazing children. Most recently, I served as a high school principal in Northeast Tarrant County, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. I’m here today to tell you there is reason for concern.… Every kid deserves…someone who believes in them, inspires them, empowers them, holds them accountable, and, above all, loves them.”

Whitfield’s is a vision for a beloved classroom community that’s possible when positive relationships are forged on a basis of truth and solidarity.

When educators love their students enough to teach them the truth—and when it’s a hard truth, they are there to nurture them through the lesson with tenderness—transcendent experiences are possible that empower young people to heal from the traumas they have endured and create the healthy and thriving futures they envision. Tiffany Mitchell Patterson, a Black truth teacher from West Virginia, explained the path we must walk to get there when she signed the Zinn Education Project’s public pledge to teach the truth and left these remarks:

The road to freedom hinges on the youth knowing the raw and rugged truth about the systemic ills of this country.

Through truth our young people can imagine and fight for a new world where we are ALL free.