Americans confront racial past in debate over critical race theory

New Orleans, Louisiana — The teaching of America’s racial history is dividing voters as state governments and federal judges weigh in on what is known as critical race theory. “What we are seeing is that America is having a very public argument about how to discuss race in our country,” explained Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks. “It is a conversation about how we talk about the racist incidents in our past but also about how the past continues to shape inequalities in the present. ...