UPDATE 11.01.22: “Debated” isn’t the right word for the CYPS committee held on Jan 10th 2022 but given the suffocating atmosphere created by Chair Cllr Clare it was a credit to Cllrs O’Quinn (Lab) and McNair (Cons) that they had their say. Lab and Con committee members outvoted Greens to demand a review of the Anti-Racist Schools Strategy (including 12 months of Racial Literacy teacher training) and consideration of the role played by CRT. Cllr Clare’s contempt for democratic process is jaw dropping. I gather both Labour and Conservative Groups are issuing complaints about the Chair’s extraordinary behavior. It really was the worst PR a Green Party leader could engage in.
This (below) is the statement that will be read to the Children Young People and Skills committee on Jan 10th 2022.
From December 2020, the council began to promote ‘racial literacy’ staff training to schools. It was to provide (quote) “an understanding of structural and institutional racism, white privilege and a critical race theory approach”. This was the first council-use of the term “critical race theory”. (1)
I suspect the fact that this training operates a CRT approach was unknown to you when you agreed to it.
Officers had a duty to make you aware of CRT in order that you could evaluate how appropriate it is for nurseries and schools. Neither Deb Austin’s report nor the strategy document attached to it mentioned CRT. The strategy simply states “anti-racism practices” will be “embedded in the Brighton & Hove school system over a 5 year time frame”. At the June 2021 CYPS, Cllr Clare finally revealed CRT as “our lens for developing our understanding of the complexities of racism…”. (2)
Given that the policy targets children, it is deeply troubling that CRTs role in it was never explained to you. Prior to agreeing the policy, you were denied the opportunity to scrutinise CRT and assess how it shapes a strategy clearly impacting the daily lives of pupils.
For this reason alone, you must call a moratorium on the Anti-Racist Schools Strategy and urgently review it.
CRT is a set of beliefs about society – not facts. Its message to children is that they are either the bearers or the victims of ‘white privilege’. If you’d known of the controversies surrounding CRT you’d have had reason to investigate if the strategy breaches the Public Sector Equalities Duty by fostering divisions among children. (3)
Take one example: the strategy document proposes ‘racial literacy’ for pupils via focussed PSHE lessons and justifies this by mocking the vast majority of parents who regard young children as indifferent to colour. (4) This is shocking. In playgrounds across 21st century Britain, kids model a version of multicultural, multi ethnic cooperation and friendship that could teach the adult world a thing or two. Yet the strategy seeks to overturn and racialise children’s indifference to skin colour differences.
Parents of young children expect schools to uphold safeguarding duties. They expect councils to risk-assess potentially harmful interventions. They trust that schools and councils will not introduce a belief system and teach it as fact. Officers have smuggled CRT into our schools without parents’ consent – indeed, they have done this without your consent – I cannot believe that it was the intention of this committee to let that happen.
Cllr Clare’s reply:
“Thank you. I don’t have any more to add as I think you’re aware of our positive position towards the importance of discussing the reality and existence of racism in schools and I understand you brought this issue to several committees and had a response there too, so does the committee agree to note the report?”
It was at this point that Cllr O’Quinn interrupts with a reasonable hint of sarcasm: “I’d like to say something if that’s okay? Thank you again Mr Hart for bringing this again. I have to say there is some concern among some councillors that we have not been able to access this critical race theory; that we are not allowed to see the content of it and I think our feeling is that it should be transparent”.
There followed a brief wrangle over whether “commercial sensitivities” can be a proper excuse for not sharing the online training (‘racial literacy’ teacher training) with residents, parents and councillors. Cllr McNairs comments to follow…
Notes.
You can view the webcast here (go to 0:06:16)
2. https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/19386344.brighton-councils-anti-racism-row-adrian-hart/
3. Equalities Act 2010: By continually focusing on skin-colour (e.g inferring society is organised around ‘white’ oppressors and non-white victims), the strategy breaches the Public Sector Equality Duty (section 149 1c) ‘the duty to foster good relations between groups’. In 7.2 of Deb Austin’s November 9th report to CYPS, which recommended the anti-racism strategy, legal officer Serena Kynaston discusses the Public Sector Equality Duty (s149). Under ‘Legal Implications’ she concludes, “The development of an anti-racist strategy for schools will assist the Council to fulfil this statutory duty”. Despite the strategy quoting CRT exponents like Prof Gillborn, is it possible that Serena Kynaston knew nothing of CRT when she reviewed legal implications? If so she will have overlooked the controversies associated with it and the question of whether the policy will foster division.
With this in mind, its not surprising that a review of legal implications would ignore the Education Act in relation to CRT. Kynaston’s entry in Deb Austin’s report to CYPS is dated 21st October. However, the next day national news covered a speech to Parliament given by Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch addressing the legality of CRT head on. In relation to the Nov 9th report, a question arises: why was scrutiny on legal implications not updated in order to address Badenoch’s comments?
CYPS must show evidence to residents that, as a public authority, its actions in schools are lawful in relation to the Education Act 1996 s406 (political indoctrination) and s407 (Duty to secure balanced treatment of political issues). Moreover, are they lawful in relation to s78 of the Education Act 2002?
4. See Strategy document p215 ‘Racial Literacy for Pupils’.
“There is ample evidence spanning decades that children as young as 3 years old begin to learn the markers of racial categories and racial hierarchy (Apfelbaum, Sullivan, and Wilton, 2020; Brown, 2005) and yet the widespread view that children, particularly young children, are racially ‘innocent’ persists. In addition, children learn throughout their schooling that racism is an uncomfortable topic for adults and consequently have few opportunities to develop their own understanding and capacity to discuss this complex topic.
Some aspects of pupil racial literacy can be addressed through curricula changes. However, particularly at key stages 2/3/4 pupils additionally need specific racial literacy focussed lessons as part of their PSHE and critical thinking programmes.”
Also see p214 ‘Training for Staff’ for reference to “colour blind approaches”.
“Key aspects of racial literacy include a historical understanding of the construction of ‘race’, an understanding of structural/systemic racism and an understanding of contemporary manifestations and reproductions of ‘race’ both in and out of schools. This is in contrast to ‘colour blind’ approaches that have dominated race equality strategies in recent decades (Gillborn, 2008).”
Both the report to CYPS and the ‘Anti-Racist Schools Strategy (Draft)’ can be viewed here: https://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s156944/Anti-racist%20schools.html?CT=2
5. What is CRT?
Love it or loath it (or have no idea what the hell it is) one thing is certain: it takes just a few minutes on google to learn that CRT is hotly contested. In the U.S, criticism comes from the republican right who regard CRT as some kind of Marxist Trojan horse. In Britain CRT comes under fire from across the political spectrum (indeed one of its most vociferous critics is the academic, leftwinger and former Brighton councillor Dave Hill). A key CRT text is referenced in the Strategy and, I gather, cited in ‘racial literacy’ teacher training. Its author, UK CRT exponent David Gillborn, views racism as ingrained within a system of white privilege. CRTs version of racism locks-in race inequality as an eternal feature of society. You can’t really change it. Factors like social class are relegated by critical race theorists because, they assert, the politics of skin colour lie at the centre of everything (albeit intersectional with other factors). When the CYPS chair and her officers (and their consultants and advisers) use the terms “embedded” or “entrenched” or indeed “structural” or “systemic” they speak the language of CRT. Peering through their “CRT lens” they imagine they can see trace-evidence of racism way beyond explicit acts of racial hatred or obvious instances of discrimination. CRT soon teaches it’s disciples to appreciate that ‘racism’ also refers, as Gillborn puts it, ‘to the more subtle and hidden operations of power’. When advocates of CRT speak of racism as ‘systemic’ they refer, as a member of BHECC helpfully put it to the November 2020 CYPS, “…[to] systems that impact our thinking whether we are aware of it or not”. This psychologised approach is a far cry from liberal or left understandings of racism. Possibly the worst feature of CRT is that it starts with its conclusions. In CRT, ‘systemic racism’ (cast as an integral feature of white supremacy) exists as an a priori belief leaving the task of detecting the many and varied manifestations of racism as endless. It is a far cry from liberal or leftwing formulations.
A tactic of CRT exponents when defending it is to foreground the one principle it shares with liberal anti-racism i.e to assert “Race is just a social construct, there is only one human race!”. We all agree on that. But this is a fig-leaf. They assert that CRT is not an ideological belief-system but merely an enlightened view on the structural aspects of racism, one that simply encourages critical thinking skills in pupils. Even the most eminent CRT academics and writers would have to differ with that! (see: http://www.adrianhart.com/critical-race-theory-in-its-own-words/). An article on CRT demonstrating good critical thinking skills can be read here: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/11/27/critical-race-theory-a-ruling-class-ideology/
You or I may well subscribe to all manner of political or religious ideas but I doubt you’d expect them to flood into schools from nursery level up and be presented as fact. This is because liberal democracies value knowledge-based education. We encourage free-thinking autonomy among pupils and regard attempts to inculcate religious or political belief as indoctrination. For decades, this consensus on schooling has adopted a ‘colour-blind’ approach (and no, this is not meant literally, nor is it code for ‘racism blind’). Children discussing issues around ethnicity and difference can be a good thing (DDU have released a film for schools – Only Human – encouraging just that). However, Martin Luther King’s dream that we might one day judge one another not by colour but by the content of character sounds a unifying note long accepted as appropriate for children – especially those at primary level. Yet CRT sneers at liberal universalism. Quoting Gillborn, the council strategy promotes the CRT understanding of structural/systemic racism “in contrast to ‘colour blind’ approaches”.