Crafting Good Legislation Against Teaching CRT

Crafting Good Legislation Against Teaching CRT

We have with us Jack Richardson today on the podcast, and I'd like to thank Jack for being with us. It certainly is a pleasure to talk to you. We've actually met up and talked a few times, and you've been very helpful in the issues concerning critical race theory in the church and Christianity.

But now you're kind of focusing on the realm of politics. You're trying to inform legislators about the threat that comes from critical race theory and how some of their laws they're passing to crack down on this just aren't really adequate.

So I have your book right here, which people can find if they go to the info section, they'll find your email right there, and they can email you. But I want to hear from you for just a few minutes here.

What problem were you addressing? How bad is this problem? And then, and what are some of the solutions as far as laws you see that are good, people that are doing good work in this area?

Defining Critical Race Theory and the Need for Legislative Action

John, first of all, good to see you again and to talk with you. What we were running into, and what I was running into, was legislators were coming up to me, and they would say, what does this CRT mean, or what is wokeness?

And at first, I didn't even know myself. I thought that it was just the contemporary slang, and then I thought it was just going to be a fad, that it would fade away. But the more I started learning about it, I said, no, there is a bigger agenda behind this, and it has to be stopped, because it all plays into a global Marxism, a global authoritarian concept that people and legislators aren't aware of.

They need to be aware of it, and our kids are being indoctrinated, not educated. But in order to be able to get this into the hands of the legislators in a manageable form, I knew that the thousands of pages of academic materials that had been written on this in the last year or two was going to have to be condensed down into more of a tutorial, a manageable form, so that it would be a one-night read.

They would have enough information to know that this is toxic, and it has to be addressed. And other states had already passed legislation, like Missouri and Oklahoma and Alabama, and they had good legislation.

So I figured that, well, I have to sit down, and I have to put this into a manageable form so that they can read it, understand it, and then act upon it. And so that's what prompted the book.

Good and Bad Examples of Anti-CRT Laws

Yeah, so some people are, some states, I should say, are passing laws against critical race theory, and they're just saying that our teachers in our state and, you know, the high school level and junior high, elementary school, they can't teach this, but their laws lack teeth.

And then other states have laws that do have some teeth, and I'm assuming that's based on probably the extent to which the people crafting the legislation actually understand what critical race theory is.

Can you give us some just good examples and versus bad examples, perhaps, and what kinds of things, what ingredients should be included in a law that is against this particular teaching?

Well, for instance, in Kentucky, we've got a Senate bill and we've got a House bill. And I analyzed both of them. I looked at the Senate bill, which was atrocious, and they used things, terminology like a personal agency, and I asked several legislators, what's the meaning of personal agency?

Nobody knows what it means. And it was so ambiguous that guess what? It's going to be left to the courts to interpret, but whenever you leave anything to the courts to interpret, they are going to, and that is they, the left, the leftist, these woke crowds, they are going to circumvent the intent of the legislation.

So what you have to do is you have to inoculate yourself from the circumvention that they're going to get from the left, and you have to promulgate and you have to write your legislation correctly. If you don't, they're going to circumvent it.

We have a House bill that's very good. It says prohibit, prohibit, prohibit, shall not. And that's the kind of language you need in there, clear, concise language that immunizes yourself as much as you can from leaving it to the courts for interpretation.

Because you know, the left always seeks out the courts because the courts have been left leaning until the last administration came along. And now we're getting a little bit closer to balance. But particularly in some red states, we're not only getting rid of some radical school board members, but we're also beginning to flip the courts too.

We're seeing the problem and how the left has an agenda and they've used the, they've really hijacked the court systems in order to push their agenda, which is not a good agenda.

Why Parents Need Legislative Help Against School Boards

Yeah. Well, for those who don't know, you are a lawyer. You understand this very well. You have a law firm. And I think conservatives tend to be sometimes two steps behind whatever's going on in the culture as far as moving left.

They seem to understand it. And by then the left move on to something else. But right now we're kind of we're hot. I mean, this critical race theory thing is a raging battle. And you know, there are some parents and I haven't read all the legislation in some states who seem fine comfort.

And while we have a law, but as you're saying, it may not be a law that actually has teeth and it may not change anything that your children are actually learning. So this is very important. And I don't know of anyone else really doing this, but trying to inform legislators on this, your your little book here is pretty unique.

Do you know of anyone else doing this?

Not that I know of, but I knew that my first focus was on the legislation in Kentucky. Others had moved ahead, but Kentucky had not. And I wanted to get this in because in in helping some of the parents and dealing with some of the issues we are in Louisville, we've got a very leftist school board.

And it's amazing what they're trying to do. And moms and dads need help. And I've said they needed legislative help. They it's very difficult to build an organization from the grassroots. A lot of these parents aren't in politics.

They don't understand how the political system works and they do their best and they're frustrated and they get before these boards. And the board members are condescending little tin horn dictators. And you give somebody you give a nobody a little bit of power and they go crazy with it.

And so the board members, they don't care. They don't care about the students. They don't care about the parents. They're just they're just so convinced that their way is the right way. And they're taking raising kids from the parents and they're going to raise the kids in the way they think.

Well, first of all, they're not their children. Parents need to be involved in the curriculum. And when you see what's been taught to children, you say something has to be done. Well, the parents go to the school boards.

They they yell and scream because out of just frustration, the school board members placate them and then they just go ahead and do what they want. They forget that they're the servants of the people.

And so I said, we've got to have legislative help. So, again, that gets back to, well, if they're going to get help from the legislators, they've got to have the right type of legislation. Otherwise, everything will be caught up in the courts.

And so I did an analysis of both Senate bill and House bill. And the House bill is far better. But there are a couple of things in the House bill that need to be changed. And I met with legislators yesterday to get that corrected.

But we're going to be running out of time within the next few weeks to get legislation passed because we have a long session this year. But if we don't get it in within the next few weeks and push it, it won't it won't pass.

And another thing I did is I told the legislators in Kentucky we have a super majority. But I told them in the last line of my book is that once these indoctrinated students become voters, you go extinct.

So you better wake up and you better start passing legislation or the people, the next voters that come along will never see eye to eye with you and you will never have a seat at the table. So, yeah, the legislators need to wake up because they're first on the list for extinction if they don't act and act now.

Why Plain Language and Definitions Matter in Legislation

Well, the beauty of this booklet, I know you made it for Kentucky, is you can use it anywhere. It's short. People who don't know anything about critical race theory. They get a little crash course. You have definition of terms, anti-racism, what's equity, whiteness and privilege, all of that.

And then you have some examples of legislation. I know the Oklahoma bill is one you like. What specifically did you like about Oklahoma, if you don't mind me asking?

Well, either Oklahoma or Missouri, I really like Missouri. But what it was, it was plain words. And, you know, in law, what you do when I write a contract, I identify who the parties are. And then the next section you have is definitions.

And if you define the terms that are in the contract and everybody agrees on the terms, then there can't be any ambiguity. And that's what I was trying to do with the definitions, is to make sure that people understood the glossary, the Webster's, if you would, that the wokeness use because they're always shape shifting.

They're always in there changing the meaning of words. And they know the words, they know the definition that you will attribute to a word, but they have a completely different definition. It's used for deceit and deception.

And so what I did is I wanted to go in there and define the terminology. But what these other states have done is that they specifically, very specifically and clearly define what is to be taught, what's not to be taught.

And that's why I liked these particular statutes. But another reason for that in doing the language, as I did in the definitions in there is to help legislation and to promulgate the legislation. And that's what we've that's what we've done here.

But yeah, and also put the exemplary legislation in the back of the book so that legislators, if they get lazy, they have no excuse because I've already provided the language for the statutes they should be working on.

You know, they'll have a thousand different excuses. Most of them don't even read the bills that they vote on. So I said, well, how do you how do you get legislation through if they're a lazy group? I said, OK, take away the excuse that they don't have time or they don't know how to write it.

Well, I've already provided that for them in the back of the book. And those are exemplary pieces of legislation.

Using the Book to Equip Legislators and Constituents

Well, I like to encourage everyone, you can email Jack Richardson and request a copy of this book. Jack IV at RRLaw .net is the email put it in the info section. And this is great for people who are trying to inform their representatives on this particular issue.

And if you have a bill, that's a lot of states are proposing these bills. You may want to check into it. Look at the wording and contact your representative. There's holes in it. Many of them do have holes.

So, Jack, as always, thank you so much and God bless. John, thank you.