Conservatives have recently found their latest boogeyman: critical race theory (CRT). It’s a topic that they’ve been successful at introducing into not only the public sphere, but also state legislatures and school board meetings.

According to Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz, critical race theory is a political agenda pushed in schools to indoctrinate America’s children into believing ideas like, “whites and blacks have to hate each other” and, “all white people are racist”.

In reality, the gap between this false portrayal of CRT and its actual definition is enormous. Critical race theory started in law schools as an in-depth analysis of how race interacts with the law. It’s not something that’s being taught in high schools, or even colleges.

To learn critical race theory, you need to be a law student specifically choosing that course of study. So, the idea that it is an anti-white ideology being pushed on kids in public schools has no truth to it.

According to Creighton law professor Kendra Fershee, “What’s happening is that classes are teaching basic historical facts like segregation, slavery, and civil rights movements. This is just reporting of facts, and people are calling that critical race theory. So, when people say that they don’t want critical race theory being taught, what they mean is they don’t want history taught.”

This rejection of history is being seen around the country as state lawmakers introduce bills that ban teaching or funding lessons on “CRT” or “divisive concepts” related to race. Not only is this an affront to free speech, but it is also deliberately broad phrasing that allows for the ban of many topics. Are classrooms just supposed to ignore slavery, segregation and police brutality?

It’s extremely concerning that so many states are trying to hide the real history of this nation from students. If we keep going in the direction of these legislators, history class will further become an American propaganda message that ignores the very real atrocities that have been carried out by the United States.

When conservatives talk about CRT invading our schools, it’s a complete and deliberate misrepresentation. And this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In the past, Republicans have thrown around terms like “cultural Marxism” and socialism to describe anything they don’t like. Critical race theory is just the latest catch-all evil they can point to. It’s a distraction to rile up their base, but now it’s having real world consequences as representatives bring it into legislatures.

The outrage against critical race theory is, at its very roots, anti-Black and anti-education. Children need to be taught the reality about our history and its impact. We wouldn’t accept it if the math curriculum skipped over topics just because people don’t like talking about them, so why should we accept the same standard in history?