In a floor speech Tuesday morning, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) delivered a scorching rebuke of Critical Race Theory and "those things that divide us," as the Biden administration tightens its embrace of critical theory and its proponents.
"Service to this country is an act of selflessness that affirms our nation is a place worth believing in. But I'm concerned that the present administration and this president, President Joe Biden, do not share this point of view. I'm worried that President Biden is nominating for federal office individuals who do not share a view of America as a good and decent place, who do not believe that the history of this nation is worth celebrating. Nominating instead people who believe that this is a country founded in racism and shot through with corruption."
Hawley, who is leading opposition to Biden's nominee to head the Office of Personnel Management, lit into the ideology being pushed by Kiran Ahuja as "a view of America as corrupt, a view of American society as one that needs to be deconstructed, that needs to be pulled apart, torn down, and then rebuilt in a fundamentally different way."
Addressing recent claims from Democrats and their media allies that Critical Race Theory is a conservative concoction, Hawley flashed back to his time in higher education before explaining the nefarious effects of CRT he's witnessed.
Senator @HawleyMO rips CRT as the "animating ideology" of the Biden administration:
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 22, 2021
"Dr. Kendi and his followers are in no uncertain terms advocating for state sanctioned racism in the United States of America." pic.twitter.com/6gJcO6gJCf
"As someone who has taught in our nation's universities, someone who has seen our institutions of higher learning up close," Hawley reflected, "I would say to those in the media and elsewhere who now deny that there is any such thing as critical theory, that critical theory is in fact very real, it is very influential."
As Townhall has covered in Idaho and other states, governors and legislators have already taken action to ban critical theory from being pushed to students through public school curricula. Now, Hawley is leading the charge to make sure Americans — including his fellow senators — know what CRT supposes.
"Critical theory is an ideology that says the United States is rotten to its core. The leaders of this movement think our society is defined by white supremacy. They think our leaders are complicit at best. They think that all Americans are either oppressors or oppressed. In our world-class military, these critics see a vehicle for discrimination. In our American flag, they see propaganda. In our family businesses, they see white supremacy. In our police officers, they see agents of racial oppression. These critics allow no room for merit, for experience, for grace in our life together. They pit whiteness and blackness against each other in a manner that reduces every American — no matter their character or their creed — to their racial identity alone."
Renewing a call to oppose Critical Race Theory across society, Hawley declared "we cannot allow the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth, to legitimize a new era of racial engineering. The past few years, Critical Race Theory has gained new prominence at the giant corporations, the media, the military, even in our children's schools. We're seeing this across the country. We see too many of our children exposed to a curriculum like the 1619 project and its derivatives that encourages division rather than unity, that rewrites our history in the service of an ideological agenda rather than in the service of truth."