Guidance from former Trump White House official Russ Vought and his organization -- the Center for Renewing America -- appears to be helping state legislators ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools. Since January 2021, 22 states have either introduced bans or signed them into law, and Media Matters has determined that a majority of these bills have similar language to each other and to model legislation from Vought’s group and/or executive orders he authored as a Trump administration official. These bills are being used to push a right-wing education agenda, negatively affecting hundreds of thousands of students. 

Phrasing in Vought’s executive orders that presented critical race theory and similar approaches as “divisive concepts” and further prohibited teachings that an individual is “inherently racist” or that the U.S. or relevant state is “fundamentally or systemically racist,” have been generally replicated — sometimes nearly identically — in measures in the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

Molly Butler / Media Matters

Here's one example of the similarities in language:

Vought’s Center for Renewing America also created guidelines for states to follow, which included a section on “penalties” for schools that teach critical race theory; the Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and Kentucky proposals all include specific financial penalties. Michigan ,Missouri, and South Carolina even go as far as to have the same pointed banning of the 1619 Project from school curricula, as suggested in the model legislation.

 In September 2020, Vought, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget, authored the executive order which directed federal funding to be stripped away from “agency spending related to any training on ‘critical race theory,’ ‘white privilege,’” and other “divisive” trainings. The order identified such training as a “propaganda effort” teaching that America is “an inherently ‘racist’ or ‘evil’ country.” A second, Vought-authored executive order was issued later that month further detailing the supposed “divisive concepts” taught in critical race theory. 

In an interview with The Federalist’s Ben Domenech, Vought said his office took on this issue because the Trump administration was not willing to tolerate training with a “Marxist bent.” His executive orders helped galvanize months of right-wing hysteria over critical race theory. 

After leaving the White House in January 2021, Vought launched the Center for Renewing America. His group also tackles other issues such as election integrity and securing the border, but stopping critical race theory in schools is a major focal point. Its website describes critical race theory as “the imposition of state sanctioned racism by progressive ideologues.” Recently, the organization published a 33-page “A to Z guide” on how individuals can stop the implementation of critical race theory curricula in their districts, along with model legislation to combat it in schools. The model legislation and the executive orders both establish that “divisive” concepts are to be exiled from society altogether. In May 2021, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) introduced the Stop CRT Act to defund what he called teaching of a “neo-Marxist propaganda” in schools, echoing Vought’s interview with The Federalist. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) went so far as to recently thank Vought for his part in helping to craft the bill. 

While criticism of critical race theory is not new, right-wing attacks on the academic framework for examining systemic racism have risen with startling frequency. In the past three-and-a-half months alone, Fox News has mentioned critical race theory nearly 1,300 times; monthly mentions shot up from practically nothing in June 2020 to over 530 in May. People like Vought are presenting a false and manipulated explanation of the theory to argue its intention is to teach an anti-white ideology to students. In reality, the decades-old theory is a framework to understand the legacy and construction of race and racism in America. It does not attack America or white people. Anthropologist Khiara Bridges has laid out some of the core tenets:

As more states start to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory, it will leave massive gaps in the education of history and race. Educator Antony Farag explained the benefit of critical race theory in classrooms, writing: