Condoleezza Rice Calls Critical Race Theory in Schools ‘Unproductive’

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discusses critical race theory on The View. (Credit: ABC)

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says there’s no reason to teach critical race theory (CRT) to children.

During a guest hosting appearance Wednesday on The View, Rice told the panel teaching CRT may be harmful to kids.

“I’m not certain seven-year-olds need to learn it,” she said during a debate about CRT.

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Co-host Joy Behar said parents shouldn’t be interfering in school curriculums.

“It’s nice to hear from them, but if they are adamant and they don’t want you to teach what is going to be taught, period, they’re going to have to home-school their kids because this is not going to wash,” Behar said.

“Well, they’re actually homeschooling them in increasing numbers and I think that’s a signal,” Rice responded.

“First of all, parents ought to be involved in their children’s education. Their children are in school seven hours, that’s a very formative period,” Rice added. “I think parents ought to have a say. We used to have parent-teacher conferences. We used to have PTAs. There are lots of ways for parents to be involved, and they should be.”

She then explained why she’s concerned about teaching CRT.

“One of the worries that I have about the way that we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow White people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past –- I don’t think that’s very productive — or Black people have to feel disempowered by race,” she said. “I would like Black kids to be completely empowered, to know that they are beautiful in their Blackness, but in order to do that, I don’t have to make White kids feel bad for being White.”

Rice noted that she experienced segregation while growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, but her parents taught her she could “overcome” prejudice.

“I went to segregated schools until we moved to Denver. My parents never thought I was going to grow up in a world without prejudice, but they also told me, ‘That’s somebody else’s problem, not yours. You’re going to overcome it and you are going to be anything you want to be,'” Rice said. “That’s the message that I think we ought to be sending to kids.”

Rice became the first female African-American secretary of state and the first woman to serve as National Security Advisor. The longtime Republican currently serves as director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.


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