© Screenshot / Fox News Sunday Screenshot captured Jan. 15, 2023 shows Shannon Brame asking Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders about her executive order banning CRT.
Fox News host Sarah Huckabee challenged Sanders Sunday to one of her first assignments as Arkansas governor: a ban on critical racial profiling (CRT) in public schools.
Sanders, who was sworn in as the state's first woman governor on Tuesday, immediately issued a series of executive orders, including a ban on CRT. Supporters hailed the move as a milestone in the broader GOP culture, but critics said the theory did not even make it into the school curriculum.
"CRT is not taught in the classroom," said Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bram, referring to the Democratic lawmaker who pressed Sanders on the issue. He also cited an article in Axios that stated, "There is no evidence that college-level education is offered in Arkansas public schools."
Republican Bram Sanders asked, "If that's true, why the executive order?"
"It is imperative that we do things to protect our state's students," Sanders said. “We need to make sure that we do not punish our children and that these policies and ideas do not see the light of day. We should not teach our children to hate America or that America is a racist and demeaning country. In fact, it should be the opposite.”
next one:
Sanders, 40, is the youngest governor in the country and the daughter of former Republican Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. She was once the White House press secretary to then-President Donald Trump.
Legal scholars developed the CRT in the 1970s as a framework for explaining systemic racism in American institutions and laws. Arkansas is the latest in a series of conservative states that have tried to dissuade young Americans from coming to terms with this idea.
In his inaugural address last week, Sanders did not mention CRT by name, but criticized the "left-wing political agenda" for "brainwashing our children." Soon after his term ended, he signed seven executive orders, including one intended to remove any form of "indoctrination," including CRT, from school education policies.
It wasn't just the controversial academy that Sanders was trying to block.
He also signed an executive order banning the use of the word "Latino" in official government documents. The term gender neutral has gained popularity in academic circles in recent years, where it is often used as a substitute for Latin/Latina.
However, an August 2020 report by the Pew Research Center found that only about 3% of Hispanic adults across the country felt this way.
Newsweek has reached out to Sanders' office for further comment.
Related articles:
Start your unlimited Newsweek experience
