American Culture Studies Ph.D. Dissertations

The New Culture War: Critical Race Theory, Gender Politics, K-12 School Board Meetings, Founding Myths, and the Religious Right

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

American Culture Studies

First Advisor

Timothy Messer-Kruse (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Vibha Bhalla (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Andrew Schocket (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Jessica E. Kiss (Other)

Abstract

In 2021-2022, once routine school board meetings erupted into intense showdowns because of the presence of what many believed to be Critical Race Theory within the school curriculum, Comprehensive Sex Education, disagreement over gender identity, and the nature of parents’ rights. There were shouting matches and accusations that schools, board members, and parents were racists, hated America and members of the LGBTQ community, were trafficking in communism, and were harming children. Commenters made fiery pledges to remove board members, and board members received hate mail including death threats. This research project interrogates parents’, guardians’, and concerned community members’ publicly expressed beliefs and anxieties about Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender identity, and Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), at 10 geographically diverse K-12 public school board meetings in the U.S. available online in 2021-2022. It considers what their comments at the board meetings reveal about their understanding of the world, of America, American identity, and of their own values, hopes, and fears. The methodology used in the project is anthropological. There is close textual analysis to better ascertain the content, context, and meanings of the discourse formations and cultural codes. These are the primary sources analyzed: comments at the school board meetings, written and televised speeches, personal letters, newspapers, op-eds, slogans, protest signs, campaign commercials, websites, and social media. In addition, historical and archival research trace the genealogy of these discourse formations within American culture among the secular and white evangelical Religious Right. The anti-CRT commenters and those who hold to traditional gender ideologies want to maintain a particular culture, an ordering of the world, including ideology and theology that is rooted in hierarchy, exclusion, and particular gender norms heavily influenced by the Southern way of life. Anti-CRT and opponents of LGBTQ inclusivity at the public-school board meetings end up reproducing white supremacy and discrimination against the LGBTQ community because of their actions, perhaps despite their intentions. This research shows how the intense backlash against the teaching of CRT and Comprehensive Sex Education and gender inclusivity in public schools is linked to unspoken assumptions about religion, race, history, gender, and American identity.

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