After the White House Office of Management and Budget released a memo Sept. 4, barring federal agencies from funding race-related training sessions, UNC’s Department of History responded. The department called the directive dangerous and emphasized the importance of teaching and learning about the history of racism and privilege in a statement.
The directive bans any spending on training that suggests or teaches that people in the United States are inherently racist or evil, or that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country. Additionally, it prevents training sessions on topics including “critical race theory” and “white privilege.”
“The President has directed me to ensure that federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions,” OMB Director Russell Vought said in the memo.
Vought described critical race theory as “demeaning propaganda,” and said these trainings “undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce.”
Members of the history department disagree.
Just days after the memo was released, the history department’s Equity and Inclusion Working Group, composed of faculty, staff and graduate students, drafted a statement.
“It was really a collective effort,” history department Director of Equity and Inclusion and professor Miguel La Serna said. “Several colleagues in our department were expressing concerns about this and the slippery slope of having the federal government engage in censoring training and education over issues of racism and white supremacy.”
History professor Malinda Lowery helped co-write the response.
“A newer take on an older pattern has emerged,” Lowery said. “We’re seeing another phase of backlash against Americans’ widespread consensus that structural racism matters. These authority figures have said, ‘Dismiss the study of structural racism. If we can convince people not to learn about it, we can convince people it doesn’t exist.’”
