Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas helped lead the Republican prosecution against anti-racism efforts at a private school in Washington during this week’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. But leaders at the private school in Houston, where the senator sends his two daughters, expressed a similar commitment.
Mr. Cruz said during the hearing that the curriculum at Georgetown Day, an expensive private school in northwest Washington where Judge Jackson is one of 23 board members, was “stuffed and brimming with critical race theory.” Critical race theory is an academic concept that Republicans are increasingly using as a loose catch-all term for criticizing how educators inject ideas about racism and inequality into the curriculum.
On Tuesday, surrounded by an enlarged page from Ibram X. Candy’s “Antiracist Baby,” Mr. Cruz held book after book, which he called prescribed school reading, and questioned Judge Jackson about whether she supported their messages.
Cruz’s comments were part of a surprise attack on Georgetown Day as Republicans attempted to use barely coded incitement to racism during the hearing of Justice Jackson, who is poised to become the first black woman on the Supreme Court. The school her daughter attends has been educating children of the liberal and conservative elite for decades. Parents who enroll their children pay over $40,000 a year.
St. John’s School, where Mr. Cruz’s daughters attend, is also an elite school with annual tuition in excess of $32,000, according to its website. And leaders there advocated a similar anti-racist stance.
In June 2020, shortly after black George Floyd was killed by a white police officer who placed his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck, sparking protests across the country, school leaders wrote to the community about their approach.
“St. John’s as an institution must be anti-racist and eradicate racism of any type, including institutional racism, in our school community and beyond,” wrote Mark Desjardins, then Principal, and John Moody, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
The Community and Inclusion Statement, endorsed by the council in 2018, says the school provides “cultural intelligence and professionalism” to all members of the community. It also includes “cultural excellence, diversity, global awareness and inclusiveness in all aspects” of the curriculum.
The New Republic and The Washington Post have previously reported on St. John’s. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cruz did not immediately respond to questions late Thursday evening.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Kruse said his questions during the hearing were not intended to suggest that parents did not know what their children were studying, or that any action should be taken against the school that would undermine such principles like choosing a school. and the autonomy of private schools advocated by the Republicans.
“I say that Judge Jackson is on the board of a school that aggressively teaches critical racial theory,” he said, “and it is an extreme and divisive theory that sets children against other children, divides us along racial lines, and teaches a false and revisionist history of our people.”