On Monday, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) announced that his office would be opening up an anonymous tip line for Virginia parents to report teachers and schools that they believed to be teaching curriculum that includes Critical Race Theory (CRT).
As reported by The Daily Caller, Youngkin made the announcement during an interview on the John Fredericks Show, with Youngkin saying that parents “can send us an email at helpeducation@governor.virginia.gov.”
“We’re asking for folks to send us reports and observations that will help us be aware of things like privileged bingo, be aware of their child being denied their rights that parents have in Virginia and we’re going to make sure that we catalogue it all,” Youngkin continued. “It gives us great insight into what’s happening at the school level and that gives us further ability to make sure that we’re rooting it out.”
Youngkin was referring to a recent incident where Fairfax County Public Schools assigned students to play a game called “privilege bingo,” where students were told that they had inherent “privilege” if they were White, male, Christian, cisgender, or the child of a member of the military, among other factors.
Since his inauguration on January 15th, Youngkin has taken numerous actions to eliminate CRT from Virginia’s schools, which was one of his signature promises on the campaign trail last year. His first executive order after taking office called for the end of “the use of inherently divisive concepts – including Critical Race Theory – in public education.”
On January 19th, Youngkin nominated Angela Sailor, a former vice president at the Heritage Foundation who has been outspoken in her opposition to CRT, to serve as Virginia’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Upon taking office, her first action was to eliminate the word “equity” from the title and replace it with “opportunity.” Sailor has previously described CRT as “the textbook definition of racism.”
Critical Race Theory is a far-left and widely-debunked claim that all White people are automatically racist and “privileged,” and also claims that America, as a nation founded by White people, is inherently a racist nation. The spreading of this ideology and the subsequent pushback by parents, particularly in public schools funded by taxpayer dollars, proved to be one of the driving forces behind Youngkin’s victory and the broader red wave that swept Virginia last November.