President Trump has ordered federal agencies to “cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars” to fund trainings on “critical race theory” – a theory that asserts “the law and legal institutions are inherently racist.”
The White House memo also bans taxpayer dollars from being used to fund trainings on “white privilege” and “any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.”
According to the memo, millions of dollars have been spent by Executive Branch agencies to date on these “divisive, anti-American propaganda” trainings.
“These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce,” the memo states.
The issuing of this memo follows an investigation from Christopher Rufo, the director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty, and a YouTube video from Casey Peterson, an electrical engineer at government contractor Sandia Labs, exposing and pushing back on critical race theory trainings inside the company.
Rufo said these trainings were “re-educating” white male employees on racism and “white privilege” while Peterson debunked critical race theory in a video and said he opposed the training because the management at a government contractor shouldn’t force their political and ideological perspective on employees.
Many Sandia Labs employees watched the video and shared messages of support with Peterson but management tried to suppress it by censoring Peterson’s communications on the company’s internal servers.
This triggered the Streisand Effect and made the video even more popular online.
Peterson was then placed on administrative leave and an investigation was opened to “evaluate whether [his] actions comprised or posed a threat to Sandia computing and security systems.”
“On Tuesday, I called on the President to abolish critical race theory in the federal government. Tonight, he delivered,” Rufo tweeted in response to the memo. “This executive action is the first successful counterattack against critical race theory in American history.”
Peterson also thanked the President for banning trainings on critical race theory.
