CRITICAL RACE THEORY

SUMMER SCHOOL

FREEDOM ​SUMMER ​2024:

NO U-TURN ​ON RACIAL ​JUSTICE

JULY 28TH - AUGUST 2ND | NASHVILLE, TN + ZOOM

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE AT BIT.LY/CRTSS24_SCHOLAR

Subjects to be covered in Critical race ​theory Summer School 2024 include

8:30AM CT

Check-in & Coffee

9:30AM CT

Welcome & Overview of Day

9:45AM CT

Morning Movement, Meditation, & Mobilization

11:00AM CT​

Lunch

12:00PM CT

Homeroom

12:45PM CT

Plenary

2:15PM CT

30 Minute Break

2:45PM CT

Breakouts + In-Person Intensives

4:15PM CT

Happy Hour

4:45PM CT

Break

5:30PM CT

Dinner

6:30PM CT

Break

7:00PM CT

Group Activities + Networking

Scarritt Bennett ​Center

RATE: $95 per night (1 Twin or ​Double Bed). Space is Limited.

Single-occupancy rooms offer ​college-dorm style lodging, ​most with a twin bed and a ​suite-style bathroom adjoining ​another guest’s room

Hilton Garden Inn ​Nashville/Vanderbilt

1715 Broadway, Nashville TN 37203

Phone: 615-369-5900

Click HERE to make a reservation

Use CODE: CRT24

RATE: $159 per night (1 King ​Bed) + taxes and fees*

Includes breakfast voucher, a ​$20 value. There is a nice ​fitness center and indoor pool ​at this property with onsite ​laundry.

Home2Suites by Hilton ​Nashville/Vanderbilt

1800 Division St, Nashville TN 37203

Phone: 615-257-2170

Click HERE to make a reservation

Use CODE: CRT24

Embassy Suites ​Nashville at Vanderbilt

1811 Broadway, Nashville TN 37203

Phone: 615-277-4965

Click Direct Booking link HERE to ​make a reservation

RATE: $189 per night (2 Double ​beds + living room with ​sofabed) + taxes and fees

Includes breakfast with an ​omelet station. The separate ​living room and bedroom ​makes these suites easy to ​share.

WORKSHOPS

Morning ​Movement, ​Meditation, & ​Mobilization

The PLENARY SESSIONS are designed to ​address why the “war on woke” has become ​conservatives’ retrenchment tool of choice to ​delegitimize a broad range of progressive ​projects, particularly those that center on racial ​justice. Cumulatively, the plenaries will make ​clear that the War on Wokeness is ​compromising not only Black people’s freedom ​to learn, but also Black people’s freedom to live. ​That is why “call to action” items—to both fight ​back and move forward—will figure prominently ​throughout Summer School.

sunday

6:00PM CDT/7:00PM EST

Tip of the Spear: Tennessee on the ​Frontlines of the War on Woke

Our kick off plenary for CRT Summer School focuses on Tennessee ​as the “tip of the spear” for the nationwide backlash against racial ​justice and democracy. This plenary will foreground the work of ​local and state activists working on several overlapping struggles ​for equity. From legislative battles over Critical Race Theory and ​reproductive justice to public school funding and assaults on the ​rights and freedoms of the LGBTQ community, Tennessee activists ​and progressive lawmakers are fighting against some of the most ​reactionary legislation and political forces in the country. ​Understanding the threat posed in Tennessee and also learning ​from those who are organizing against it provides us with the ​analytical and practical tools necessary to build our national pro-​democracy movement.

featuring

Kimberlé Crenshaw, ​TN Rep. Justin Jones, ​AdriannE Gott, ​Bernard Lafayette, ​Learotha Williams ​and Tim wise

monday

12:45PM CDT/1:45PM EST

Fight the Power: Using History ​to find the courage to resist

This plenary will uplift the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer ​1964 by highlighting the importance of historical memory in ​resisting the nationwide assault on racial justice. We will hear from ​activists from that historic period, who, despite the threat of deadly ​violence, found strength and inspiration in multiracial community ​and in the knowledge that emerged from their Freedom Schools. ​We’ll hear from historians and modern experts on America’s racial ​climate to make the connections between past and present. At a ​time when reactionary forces are leading an assault on the last 70 ​years of civil rights gains, it is imperative that we learn how our ​nation’s freedom fighters have organized throughout history and ​how we might do so again.

featuring

Kimberlé Crenshaw, ​Michael Eric DysoN,

Kevin kumashiro,

Nancy MacLean, and ​Jason Stanley

tuesday

12:45PM CDT/1:45PM EST

massive Resistance 3.0: The Shape ​shifting nature of racial ​backlash

The Supreme Court recognized in Brown v. Board of Education that ​there couldn't be a functioning democracy while there existed a ​racist, segregated and inequitable school system. That decision was ​widely embraced as representing the rejection of the continued ​subordination of Black Americans on account of their race and ​paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement. However, 70 years ​since the decision many of its promises remain unfulfilled. This ​plenary will trace the broad political, economic and cultural ​resistance to the pathway towards a truly multiracial democracy ​opened up by the Brown decision, while also sketching the ways in ​which the law, and the legal ideology of colorblindness developed ​to further subvert the aspirations of Brown by hijacking its ​meaning. With reference to the contemporary struggle to erase ​race conscious pedagogies as a tool to tackle the continued ​consequences of race, this plenary will describe how while racism ​may reinvent, morph and transform itself our fight to overcome ​white supremacy must be attentive to its shape shifting nature.

featuring

Kevin Minofu, Janel ​George, Elizabeth ​Gillespie McRae, Cheryl ​Harris, Daniel HoSang, ​and Gloria Ladson-​Billings

wednesday

12:45PM CDT/1:45PM EST

“can crt save dei?”: Reviving ​Equity and Rejecting ​Colorblindness

This plenary will outline how the backlash to the racial uprisings of ​2020 and the Supreme Court’s dismantling of race-conscious ​admissions in higher education, provided the fuel for an all-out ​assault on DEI efforts not only in colleges and universities but also ​in the public and private sector workforces. This new attack is made ​possible by an old idea: that anti-racism (whether that is CRT, ​affirmative action or DEI) is anti-white. Now, in response to this ​backlash, some institutions have begun to preemptively dismantle, ​rename or shutter their existing DEI initiatives out of a fear of ​lawsuits or bad publicity. This plenary will highlight the ​destructiveness of the campaign to destroy DEI, the ideological ​underpinnings that sustain it and why an organized resistance to ​this assault is so critical. Panelists will offer essential insights on ​how we can build a cohesive coalition for equity and inclusion that ​can recapture the moral and practical high ground for the cause of ​racial justice.

featuring

sumi cho, Devon ​Carbado, Tanya Katerí ​Hernández, Damon ​Hewitt, Jamelia ​Morgan, and tina kim ​philibotte

thursday

12:45PM CDT/1:45PM EST

With Friends Like These: How the ​Media, Politicians, & Civil Society ​Choose to Fold rather than Fight

Amid ongoing backlash to civil rights and antiracism initiatives – ​from affirmative action to DEI efforts to school curriculum that deals ​honestly with the nation’s history – individuals and institutions that ​proclaim support for racial inclusion have often hedged and run ​from racial equity as a value. The supposedly “liberal” media, for ​instance, too often focuses on “both sides” narratives, in which ​activists pushing for racial justice are equated to extremists seeking ​to roll back seven decades of racial progress. Likewise, Democratic ​Party candidates and pundits often pivot from racial justice, ​encouraging less talk about such matters, lest it “turn off” white ​voters. And finally, many colleges and universities, proclaimed to be ​hotbeds of “woke indoctrination,” are instead folding and running ​from the equity battlefield for fear of angering donors, trustees, and ​wealthy alums. This session will explore how the retreat of our ​“allies” is both morally suspect and practically counterproductive in ​the fight for a more just and antiracist society.

featuring

Kirsten West Savali, ​David Johns, Daria ​Roithmayr, Alvin ​Starks, Trey Walk and ​Tim Wise

friday

12:45PM CDT/1:45PM EST

We Are the Majority! How to ​Fight the Autocratic Takeover of ​Our Public Institutions

Our closing plenary will reflect upon how an extremist conservative ​minority has been able to upend broadly shared values of civil ​rights and multiracial democracy in just a few years. From backlash ​narratives claiming that anti-racism is anti-white to colorblind ​fundamentalism limiting the scope of available remedies for racial ​inequity to civil rights cooptation and widespread liberal ​enablement, our democratic foundation has been weakened and is ​susceptible to authoritarian usurpation, as revealed by the 100+ ​conservative organizations seeking to implement Project 2025. The ​road to autocracy is paved not only by the outrageous actions of ​those seeking to subvert our democracy, but by good people who ​stand by and do nothing. Summoning the spirit and courage of ​Freedom Summer 1964, this plenary will challenge us to apply ​lessons learned to activate the majority of Americans who embrace ​the beloved community and multiracial democracy. We will hear ​from the frontlines about how inspiring leaders and political ​activists are applying lessons from Freedom Summer 1964 to 2024.

featuring

Kaye Wise Whitehead, ​Shavon Arline-​Bradley, Barbara ​Arnwine, Wisdom ​Cole, Brendien ​Mitchell, Paul Ortiz, ​and Julie Womack

breakout channels

MON, TUE, THU, FRI

2:45PM CDT/3:45PM EST

Know Your Enemy: How to Challenge and Defeat Project 2025, Book Bans, and the ​Latest Racial Backlash

This breakout channel will help participants understand the broad range of adversaries and strategies presently faced by ​racial and social justice movements. From local and state censorship campaigns in schools to national efforts to radicalize ​the courts and federal government in the service of white, Christian nationalism, the enemy is well-financed, organized, ​and zealous in pursuit of their goals. We must be as knowledgeable and committed to resistance as they are to the frontal ​assault on democracy, and in this channel, we’ll build narrative and organizing strategies for fighting back.

Issac

Kamola

Wealthy Donors Gone Wild: ​How Wall Street is Hijacking ​Higher Education

Parental Rights for Some, But ​Not Others: Moms for Liberty ​and the New Censorship

Daniel

H​oSang

Unusual Suspects: How the right ​wing is building a base in ​communities of color”

breakout channels

MON, TUE, THU, FRI

2:45PM CDT/3:45PM EST

“Our History Has Always Been Contraband”: Reading What the College Board, ​Moms for Liberty, and State Legislatures Don’t Want You to Know

In this breakout channel, participants will read and engage with the scholarship and teaching of Black Studies that anti-democratic ​forces are seeking to erase and that appeasing institutions such as the College Board have allowed to remain whitewashed from ​curricula. From outright bans on books to restrictions on theoretical lenses for understanding history to the erasure of entire schools ​of thought, the new censors – be they educational organizations, right-wing parents groups, or powerful lawmakers – are ​perpetuating longstanding efforts to limit critical thought and knowledge when it’s needed more than ever before. In this channel, ​we’ll read our contraband knowledge and reinvigorate ourselves with liberatory frameworks. Note: participants should access the ​free download of Our History Has Always Been Contraband here.

“But Some of Us Are Brave”: ​Contesting The Erasure of Black ​Feminism & BlackQueer Studies

Beverly Guy ​Sheftall

The Centrality of the Black ​Church to Freedom Struggles: ​From Liberation Theology to ​Freedom Summer 1964 [and ​today]

When Black Lives Matter, All ​Lives Will: Why BLM is a Critical ​Part of the American Story

Jesse

Hagopian

More Than Mere Prejudice: ​Teaching Racism and White ​Supremacy as Systemic Forces

breakout channels

MON, TUE, THU, FRI

2:45PM CDT/3:45PM EST

The Weaponization of Colorblindness: The Attack on Race-Consciousness as a ​Tool for Racial Equity

This breakout channel will help participants recognize the deceptive ways in which the right uses the concept of formal ​colorblindness to pursue the highly color-conscious goal of reinforcing white racial dominance and hierarchy. Aside from ​the inherent problems with colorblindness, including its inability to respond to color-specific inequity and injury, the use ​of colorblindness as a concept has long been a cynical ploy to eviscerate the entire infrastructure of civil rights law. In this ​channel, we’ll examine how the concept has been weaponized, why it matters, and how we can reclaim the moral and ​practical high ground with systemic, color-conscious practices and policies.

Paul

Ortiz

Colleges as Cocoons: How the ​Right is Censoring Knowledge ​and Attacking Critical Thinking ​on Campus

“Do No Harm”?: How ​Colorblind Healthcare ​Endangers Us All

Katrina

Gipson

Tanya Katerí ​​Hernández

Anti-Racism is Not a Therapy ​Session: How CRT Can Reverse ​the Watering Down of DEI ​Initiatives

breakout channels

MON, TUE, THU, FRI

2:45PM CDT/3:45PM EST

Why CRT Matters: Making Sense of Inequality and Picking the Lock of Racial ​Subordination

In this breakout channel, participants will explore some of the key tenets of Critical Race Theory and their importance to ​racial justice discourse and practice. With so much misinformation and outright distortion about CRT on social media, in ​the mouths of policymakers, and among the general public, understanding CRT – and, importantly, why its concepts can ​actually strengthen our equity initiatives – has never been more vital. In this channel, we’ll provide folks with the ​knowledge they need to defend critical race theory, not merely as a lens for understanding racial disparities but also as a ​template for addressing them.

Devon

Carbado

Know Your Theory So You Can ​Know Your Rights: What Critical ​Race Theory Is and Isn’t and ​Why Knowing the Difference ​Matters

Gloria

Landson-​Billings

Inequality Is Not a Bug, but a ​Feature: Using Critical Race ​Theory to Address Educational ​Disparities

Whiteness as Property: How the ​Legal Construction of Race Has ​Cemented Injustice (and How ​We Fight Back)

Cheryl

Harris

Jamelia

Morgan

Intersectionality as a Theory of ​Power, Not Identities: Beyond ​Intersecting Identities and ​“Oppression Olympics”

breakout channels

MON, TUE, THU, FRI

2:45PM CDT/3:45PM EST

With Friends Like These: How Media, Politicians, and Self-Proclaimed Allies ​Embolden the Assault on Racial Equity

In this breakout channel, participants will do a deeper dive into some of the topics explored in our plenary session of the ​same name: specifically, why do individuals and institutions that proclaim themselves allies in the fight for greater equity ​often capitulate to those attacking that goal? Media, political figures, and “liberal” educators have been all too quick to ​accommodate right-wing backlash against racial justice, and in this channel, we’ll discuss why this happens and what can ​be done to keep the pressure on our erstwhile supporters to walk the talk when it comes to equity.

Akil

Bello

College Board Capitulation: ​African American Studies, the ​AP Test and the Power of ​Right-Wing Pressure

Daria

Roithmayr

The Dangerous Myth of Both-​Sides-ism: How Media ​“Objectivity” Papers Over ​Racism and Empowers the Right

From George Floyd to Palestine: ​How the Right Weaponizes ​Racial Anxiety to Discredit ​Progressive Movements?

Jonathan

Feingold

Alvin

Starks

“The Revolution Will Not Be ​Funded”: How Philanthropy ​Folds, when It Should Fight, for ​Racial Justice

in-person intensive

Intersectionality and the #SayHerName Movement

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Mon, July 29, 2024

Tue, July 30, 2024

Thu, Aug. 1, 2024 &

Fri, Aug. 2, 2024

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Columbia University and University of California, Los Angeles

Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law

Distinguished Professor of Law and Promise Institute Chair in Human Rights

Co-Founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum

Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies

Author, #SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence, ​Co-editor Critical Race Theory: Key Documents that Shaped the Movement

Intensive Course Description: Black women and girls as young as 7 and as old as 93 ​have been killed by police. The majority of these Black women were unarmed, and ​the rates at which they are killed is disproportionately high. During this one-week ​intensive, founding scholar of intersectionality and the #SayHerName campaign, ​Professor Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, will explore the importance of intersectional justice ​in addressing the persistent silences and erasures around Black women who have ​lost their lives to police violence. The intensive will not only provide a theoretical ​underpinning in intersectional analysis but also paint a more comprehensive picture ​of state violence inflicted on Black bodies in the United States, both historically and in ​the present.

in-person intensive

Intersectionality and the #SayHerName Movement

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Monday, July, 29: The opening intensive session will serve as an introduction to intersectionality and the #SayHerName campaign, currently in ​its 10th anniversary year. The session will explore the research and rich testimony that went into #SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of ​Police Violence and Public Silence which was published by Haymarket Books in 2023. Professor Crenshaw will uplift why an intersectional lens, ​which is attuned to the structural implications of racial and gender subordination, was critical to naming the problem of Black women’s erasure ​from police violence discourse and essential in breaking the silence about their deaths.

Tuesday, July 30: Tuesday’s intensive will provide a deep dive into the historical and generational marginalization of violence against Black ​women. Professor Crenshaw will explore these predicates, both in the past and the present, for intersectional violence, the importance of ​frameworks like intersectionality in recovering these lost histories and why if Black Lives Matter then all Black lives need to matter.

Thursday, August 1: Thursday’s session will focus on the importance of community and bearing witness. This intensive will highlight the ​advocacy of the #SayHerName Mothers Network in the face of silences and erasures, and explore the connection between that erasure and ​their family bonds to the period of enslavement. Additionally, Professor Crenshaw will explore the impact of the “loss of the loss” experienced ​by the #SayHerName Mothers network, whose loved ones’ names are lost not only in wider public discourse but in movements for social justice ​as well. Consequently, the intensive will explore the necessity to combat the erasures of Black women killed by police in both feminist and anti-​racist spaces, with explicit intersectional organizing.

Friday, August 2: The closing session will combine theory with praxis by exploring the importance of ritual, remembrance and artivism in ​justice-seeking demands. The session will trace how rituals have always formed a part of Black women’s resistance to oppression and how the ​#SayHerName movement descends from this tradition. In doing so, participants of this closing session will be provided with practical tools and ​next steps on how to become involved with the #SayHerName campaign and the intersectional movement for racial justice.

in-person intensive

Genealogies of Anti-Blackness

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Mon, July 29, 2024

Tue, July 30, 2024

Thu, Aug. 1, 2024 &

Fri, Aug. 2, 2024

Michael Eric Dyson, Vanderbilt University

University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies

University Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Divinity School

Centennial Chair in African American and Diaspora Studies

Author, Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America (2020)

Ordained minister & Radio show host

Intensive Course Description: Over the course of four days, best-selling author and ​public intellectual Michael Eric Dyson will explore “Genealogies of Anti-Blackness,” a ​theme he examined in his 2020 book, Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in ​America. Where the book focused principally on state violence against Black bodies, ​from the slave ship to the corner where George Floyd was murdered, these daily ​intensives will break the silence and broaden the discussion about the myriad ways ​in which anti-Blackness appears in multiple spaces within American society. Dr. ​Dyson will be in conversation with local Nashville advocates and scholars throughout ​the week.

in-person intensive

Genealogies of Anti-Blackness

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Monday, July, 29: The first day will explore anti-Blackness in media. From print to broadcast mediums, American media is saturated with racialized ​imagery that reinforces common stereotypes about Black people and communities. Discussions of crime and violence, poverty and need, as well as ​representations of Blackness in popular culture too often strengthen anti-Black tropes that stigmatize and ultimately bring harm to Black folks. In ​this first mini-course, Dr. Dyson will help attendees identify and respond to media-driven anti-Blackness.

Tuesday, July 30: Tuesday’s intensive will explore anti-Blackness in higher education. Despite claims that colleges and universities are places of ​“woke indoctrination” in which people of color are protected from even the mildest criticism while white students are blamed for all the world’s ills, ​the reality is quite different. From elitist admissions standards and skyrocketing costs to the retreat from DEI and affirmative action, American higher ​education remains a place of entrenched white dominance in which the belonging of Black bodies has never been taken as a given. In this second ​mini-course, Dr. Dyson will help attendees identify and act against anti-Blackness in colleges and universities.

Thursday, August 1: Thursday’s intensive will explore anti-Blackness in communities of faith, and especially the white church. Although there has ​always been a tradition of Christianity in the service of racial justice – from the abolition struggle to the Civil Rights Movement – far too often ​American Christianity has been deeply intertwined with white supremacy. From Christian apologetics for enslavement and segregation to the current ​right-wing evangelical push against racial equity (and even discussions about racism), anti-Blackness has long figured prominently in the American ​church. In this third mini-course, Dr. Dyson will help attendees identify and challenge anti-Blackness in communities of faith.

Friday, August 2: The closing session of this one-week intensive will explore anti-Blackness in public policy debates over issues ranging from gun ​control to health care to taxation and immigration. Why does the United States among all industrialized nations stand so alone when it comes to gun ​ownership (and a reluctance to regulate firearms), lack of truly affordable and accessible health care, and opposition to programs for persons in ​need? And why has the so-called “nation of immigrants” turned so hostile to immigration in recent years? In this fourth and final mini-course, Dr. ​Dyson will help attendees recognize how anti-Blackness (and broader hostility to people of color) is implicated in all of these areas, and others.

in-person intensive

Doubling Down on DEI: Defending Equity From Myth and Misunderstanding

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Mon, July 29, 2024

Tue, July 30, 2024

Thu, Aug. 1, 2024 &

Fri, Aug. 2, 2024

Tim Wise, AAPF Senior Fellow and Anti-Racist Educator

Senior Fellow, African American Policy Forum, and author of nine books, including ​White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (2005, 2009, 2011); ​Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity (2010); ​Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority (2012); Under the Affluence: Shaming ​the Poor, Praising the Rich, and Sacrificing the Future of America (2015), and ​Dispatches from the Race War (2020)

Intensive Course Description: Over the past three years, 44 states have introduced ​legislative bans on the teaching of topics related to DEI in K-12 schools. DEI ​initiatives also have been defunded at hundreds of colleges and universities in ​Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and other states. This summer, Republican congress ​members introduced the ‘Dismantle DEI Act,’ which aims to eliminate all federal ​funding for DEI programs, contractors, organizations receiving federal grants, and ​educational accreditation agencies. Across industries, businesses have significantly ​rolled back their internal DEI efforts. Many chief diversity officers have been fired ​and DEI initiatives have been dismantled in companies. In this weeklong intensive, ​AAPF Senior Fellow and antiracist educator Tim Wise will explain why these attacks ​on DEI are occurring, how they are harming our democracy, and ways to fight back. ​They will counter myths being used to advance the anti-DEI movement with ​evidence-based truths and analyze the arguments and rationales to dismantle DEI ​programs, from higher education and law firm diversity programs, to the world of ​venture capital funding and the NASDAQ.

in-person intensive

Doubling Down on DEI: Defending Equity From Myth and Misunderstanding

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Monday, July, 29: The first day will explore the chronology of the politicized movement to dismantle DEI in schools and workplaces. Attendees will ​learn the history of where attempts to block or roll back equity efforts from Reconstruction to the present day, and the ways in which the rhetoric used ​to justify this backlash has remained remarkably consistent over time. This session will examine decades of resistance to DEI initiatives and the ​proliferation of anti-DEI legislative activities following the global movement for Black Lives in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and ​the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action in the Harvard and UNC cases. This first class will also lay out the risks to DEI professionals, and ​especially Black professionals, posed by the current backlash. (Reading Assignment: Nikole Hannah Jones, The Colorblindness Trap: How a Civil ​Rights Ideal Got Hijacked, New York Times Magazine, March 13, 2024).

Tuesday, July 30: On day two, attendees will discuss the importance of using data and personal narrative to counter lies about DEI. Those attacking ​equity efforts often highlight extreme and unrepresentative examples of DEI efforts gone wrong to indict the very premise of diversity, equity, and ​inclusion. and how we can combine legal analysis with both quantitative and qualitative data–including personal narrative and storytelling–to ​counter the backlash. (Reading Assignment: Shaun Harper, et. al,, Truths about DEI on College Campuses: Evidence-based Expert Responses to ​Politicized Misinformation, 2024; pp._14-16, 21-23, 25-29, 35-37, 39-41, and 43-45)

Thursday, August 1: On day three, attendees will learn why some DEI efforts fail, and how critical race theory can actually enhance those efforts. ​Contrary to popular belief, most DEI trainings don’t involve the kind of systemic analysis at the core of CRT, and that’s the problem. When DEI focuses ​only (or mostly) on personal bias, personal privilege, and personal fragility, it produces resentment, guilt, and push back. But by taking a systemic ​and structural approach, CRT de-personalizes the blame for racial inequity while encouraging everyone within an institution to take ownership over ​creating a more equitable and inclusive workplace for all. (Reading Assignment: Tanya Kateri Hernandez, Can CRT Save DEI? Workplace Diversity, ​Equity, and Inclusion in the Shadow of Anti-Affirmative Action” 71 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 282 (2024).)

Friday, August 2: The campaign to dismantle DEI is well-financed with dark money and well-coordinated by conservative extremists. Our counter-​movement isn’t. Thus, the final day will be devoted to coalition building and other strategic ways to defend, improve, and sustain DEI programs and ​policies. We’ll explore how to build coalitions to fight for DEI, the importance of leveraging political and philanthropic power, and how to connect the ​fight for DEI to the larger effort of defending democracy from increasing attack. (Reading Assignment: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Dark Money and ​the U.S. Courts: The Problems and Solutions, 57 Harv. JOL 273 (2020))

in-person intensive

Democracy in Chains: The Right’s Strategy and How We Can Beat It

Nancy MacLean

William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy.

Author of three multiple award-winning books Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The ​Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (coming out this summer in a 30th anniversary ​edition that covers today’s radical MAGA right); Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening ​of the American Workplace; and most recently, Democracy in Chains: The Deep ​History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. Booklist called it “perhaps the ​best explanation to date of the roots of the political divide that threatens to ​irrevocably alter American government.” A New York Times bestseller, Democracy in ​Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of both the Los ​Angeles Times Book Award in Current Affairs and the Lillian Smith Book Award for ​outstanding writing about the U.S. South.

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Mon, July 29, 2024

Tue, July 30, 2024

Thu, Aug. 1, 2024 &

Fri, Aug. 2, 2024

Intensive Course Description: Over the course of four days, the best-selling author ​and prizewinning teacher Nancy MacLean will convey the racist roots, interconnected ​operations, and devastating impact of the strategy the radical corporate libertarian ​right has followed over the last seven decades to enchain democracy and roll back ​the popular social movement victories of the last century. Building on her book, ​Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for ​America, she will enlist history to illuminate puzzles of our current crisis moment, and ​engage participants in crucial conversations on how we can effectively fight back and ​finally win the battle for robust, fully inclusive, multiracial democracy.

in-person intensive

Democracy in Chains: The Right’s Strategy and How We Can Beat It

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Monday, July, 29: The opening day of this intensive will focus on a little-known legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, this year marking its 70th anniversary. ​In the wake of the decision, segregationists and the emerging neoliberal cause joined together to fight its implementation by providing state subsidies for all-​white private schools—the origin of today’s attacks on public education and push for privatization through voucher schemes. Dr. MacLean will equip attendees ​with knowledge they need to expose the true agenda of groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education and their pro-voucher allies and save ​our public schools, the foundation of inclusive democracy. (Recommended reading: Democracy in Chains, Introduction, and Chapters 1, 3, and 4).

Tuesday, July 30: Tuesday’s intensive will explore the prequel to today’s panic about critical race theory, attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, ​and targeting of Black leaders in higher education and beyond: the right’s reaction when the Black freedom movement came to higher education in the late ​1960s. In that crucible arose the multi-prong strategy being applied in today’s siege on campuses: miring students in college debt; stifling honest history, ​academic freedom, and faculty governance; harshly punishing protesters; and giving top donors and right-wing alumni unprecedented control of university life​—as we saw most recently with the driving out of Dr. Claudine Gay as President of Harvard. Dr. MacLean will share this essential history and lead a discussion of ​what we can do to reclaim our campuses. (Recommended reading: Democracy in Chains, Chapters 7, 11, and 12).

Thursday, August 1: Thursday’s intensive will unveil the underlying strategy today’s right is enlisting to enchain democracy: changing the fundamental rules of ​democracy, by weaponizing state-level power and capturing the courts. Dr. MacLean will explain how and why this rule-altering stealth plan came into being, ​and the devastating effects it has had from mass voter suppression, gerrymandering, and efforts at union destruction, to recent Supreme Court decisions ​undermining affirmative action, regulation to prevent corporate pollution and other harms, and the revocation of women’s constitutional right to abortion and ​reproductive autonomy. As attendees grasp the logic of the multiple rules changes being inflicted on us, we will discuss how to use jujitsu moves to reclaim ​state-level democracy (as has been done in Michigan) to restore and renew democracy at the national level too. (Recommended reading: Democracy in Chains, ​Chapters 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9).

Friday, August 2: The closing session of this intensive will lay out what will happen if we fail to rise to our generational challenge: the right has two mutually ​reinforcing plans well-underway to shackle democracy in America--permanently. Project 2025 is its “promise” to radically remake the federal government ​and give dictatorial powers to Donald Trump if he is elected in November. If Republicans also gain control of the House and Senate, expect them to convene an ​Article V Constitutional Convention in 2025. These are, in effect, the right’s bid to take our queen and king in the game of three-dimensional chess it has been ​waging against government of, by, and for the people. But there is a silver lining to their audacious gamble: these power grabs, appalling in their gall, are just ​the tools we need to build the energetic coalition it will take to expose and defeat the combined forces of white plutocracy and Christian nationalism that seek ​domination over the vast majority. Our final discussion, then, will capture both the peril and the promise of the months ahead. (Recommended reading: ​Democracy in Chains, Chapter 10, Conclusion, and Preface to the 2023 Edition).

in-person intensive

Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Mon, July 29, 2024

Tue, July 30, 2024

Thu, Aug. 1, 2024 &

Fri, Aug. 2, 2024

Jason Stanley, Yale University

Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Author of seven books, ​including How Propaganda Works, which won the 2016 PROSE award for philosophy; ​How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, and his latest , Erasing History: How ​Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, which will be published in September, ​2024.

Intensive Course Description: Over the course of four days, award-winning author ​and philosophy professor Jason Stanley will help attendees place the current far-​right attack on history education in US schools in a global, historical, and ideological ​context. The course will explore the ideological roots of fascism, using US history as a ​case study and cautionary tale. Then, attendees will look closely at examples where ​reactionaries sought to erase – and often succeeded in erasing – historical ​narratives as a way to promote, maintain, or re-establish hierarchies of race, ​religion, and gender, and to feed dangerous myths of national greatness and ​innocence presumably “lost” to progressive reform and modernity.

in-person intensive

Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future

2:45-4p CT (3:45-5p ET)

Monday, July, 29: On the first day, we will look at the ten core traits of fascist politics, and consider how they manifest in the present day US. These ​include: the articulation of a mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, a cultivation of unreality, hierarchy, a victim mentality, an emphasis on ​law and order, male sexual insecurity, drawing a sharp contrast between the “decadent” city and pastoral, placid rural communities, and an ​emphasis on hard work as a virtue (particularly for the poor and working class), which must be forced if necessary. This session will form the basis for ​the rest of the classes, which will explore how indoctrination can make fascist politics effective.

Tuesday, July 30: On the second day, we consider colonialism and nationalism and will explore Black American history through the lens of internal ​colonization: the notion that the African American community is both part of the larger national story and structure and a distinct and internally ​colonized community in which the power to speak and teach one’s truth has been contested by reactionary and racist forces. We consider how the ​current attack on history reflects these structures, focusing on white Christian nationalism as a prototypical example.

Thursday, August 1: On the third day, we consider how libertarianism and fascism – though seemingly ideologies at cross-purposes with one ​another – actually manage to coalesce when it comes to their hostility to public education, thereby making strange but dangerous bedfellows in the ​fight against the teaching of accurate history. Fascists seek to erase history to re-establish hierarchies by marginalizing the narratives of disfavored ​groups, especially in public schools. Libertarians don’t believe in public schools at all, in most cases, and thus often join with their fascist counterparts ​to attack “wokeness.” The combination of fascists and libertarians all pushing for historical erasure, even if for slightly different reasons, makes the ​current moment especially dangerous, and requires the building of coalitions of resistance aimed at all parts of the reactionary project.

Friday, August 2: What we face in the United States must be put in the international context of a world wide attack on democracy. How is an attack on ​public education an attack on democracy? We will look at what is happening today in the United States alongside situations in Hungary, India, Russia ​and elsewhere. In all of these locations the attack on democracy has been foreshadowed by an attack on public education, and it is the same ​predictable playbook to which far-right groups and individuals are turning in the US. In this final session, attendees will explore how to resist this ​increasingly dangerous phenomenon and fight back against the reactionary forces seeking to erase history as part of a larger anti-democratic ​project.

WORKSHOPS

Morning ​Movement, ​Meditation, & ​Mobilization

For more information about

Critical Race Theory

Summer School,

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