Naming the unnamed: a Millsian analysis of the American educational contract

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article uses Charles W. Mills' Racial Contract to interrogate the political, historical, and philosophical roots of the conservative campaign against critical race theory (CRT) in schools. Prescribing that political power will be used to maintain a white supremacist racial hierarchy, the Racial Contract connects itself to American schools through what I have termed the American Educational Contract (AEC). To investigate these connections, I rely upon critical race hermeneutics (CRH) to better understand how American educational history and philosophy have been interpreted in ways that legitimate and normalize the whiteness inherent in the AEC. Finally, I demonstrate how the American Right resurrected time-tested tactics of the white polity – fiscal oppression, epistemological tampering, and emotional responses – to leverage the unique power of schools and reify Mill’s Racial Contract.