Teachers will be breaking the law if they paint the ideas of Critical Race Theory as fact, Kemi Badenoch says in a speech to Parliament.
In a speech on Tuesday, the Equalities Minister, Kemi Badenoch, strongly and wholeheartedly condemned the partisan teaching of Critical Race Theory.
Mrs Badenoch stated at the start of her speech that Black History Month remains an opportunity to highlight those whose contribution deserves to be better known.
In response to MPs who called for Black History Month to be taught in greater detail at school, she called to attention the progress that the school curriculum had taken over the past 50 years.
Now, children are learning about topics like the British Empire, the transatlantic slave trade (including its abolition) and other world empires.
Following that she denounced the promotion of any political ideology, whether it be communism, socialism or capitalism, on the part of the Government. She argued that Critical Race Theory should follow the same rule.
The MP for Saffron Walden then spoke personally about a worrying trend in race relations, “that has come far too close to home in my life and it is the promotion of ‘Critical Race Theory’. An ideology that sees my blackness as victimhood and their whiteness as oppression“. She finished the first part of her speech by saying that the Government is unequivocally against CRT.
Moving on to schools, she noted that some schools openly support the anti-capitalist BLM movement, throwing aside their duty to remain politically impartial in all matters.
Making the distinction between the organisation and the words themselves, she recounted how, during BLM protests, a white BLM activist shouted a racial slur at a black police officer outside the Prime Minister’s residence.
After condemning the movement and its ideas, Ms Badenoch invited the Opposition to do the same, saying they should stop pretending that BLM is “a completely wholesome anti-racist organisation” and should instead look at the “pernicious” ideas they advocate.
In the closing remarks of her speech, the junior Minister warned that if schools teach CRT as fact, or other ideas such as defunding the police, without presenting an opposing viewpoint, they will be breaking the law.
The speech has sharply divided people, with many on the left claiming that it avoids teaching young people about the difficulties of modern-day racial discrimination and inequality.
Others on the right hail it as a triumph for the Government, calling out and intervening in the prevalent political bias of our education system and schools ignoring their legal duties.
The speech can be watched here in its entirety:
