by James A. Bacon

Last week Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government issued findings from its latest public opinion poll. Some of the results were interesting, which I’ll get to in another post. But one was worthless to the point of being deceptive.

Here is the question: “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The history of race should be taught in K through 12 schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

The implication is clear. Either the history of race is not taught in Virginia’s K-12 schools, or there are people who don’t think it should be. Here is the result:

What a surprise — roughly four out of five Virginians agree that history of race should be taught.

What a blow to the Youngkin administration! As the Virginia Mercury dutifully wrote in providing context to the poll finding, “Since 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration has been examining and revising educational content related to race and equity, which the governor branded ‘divisive’ in his first executive order.” 

Just one problem.

The Youngkin-endorsed history Standards of Learning do teach the history of race. And slavery. And discrimination. And Jim Crow laws. The standards just don’t provide the ideological overlay of systemic racism, White guilt, etc., that leftists want to impose on the curricula. The debate has been so routinely misrepresented by Youngkin critics that the only question worth asking is whether (a) they are knowingly lying, or (b) brainlessly repeating the misrepresentations of others in a never-ending loop.

Of course the history of race should be taught. As Governor Glenn Youngkin has repeatedly said, K-12 history should teach the good with the bad. I don’t know a single person who would disagree. The question is how much emphasis should be on the good, and how much on the bad. That is the real issue that divides the public, and it’s an issue the poll question sheds no light upon whatsoever.

The poll asked a follow-up question about teaching race in Virginia’s colleges and universities.

Another majority believes in teaching race at the college level. Bowl me over!

The only thing remarkable about this poll is that 44% somewhat or strongly disagreed. That speaks to a massive level of distrust in higher ed.

If there’s a place where the history of race absolutely, positively, for sure should be taught — not in mandatory courses, but offered those who wish to enroll — it’s in our colleges and universities. Students should be exposed to a wide range of interpretations, even interpretations that I vehemently disagree with, because that’s how they learn to think critically.

But, again, that’s not the issue. Higher-ed critics are concerned that the dominant strain of history taught today is through the leftist prism of intersectional oppression in which U.S. and world history are seen as a struggle of oppressors versus oppressed, and Western Civilization is regarded as the fount of all the world’s ills. That’s a widely held view, and students should be exposed to it. But they should also be exposed to competing views. That’s the issue, and the VCU poll misses it entirely.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the Wilder School researchers who composed the polls should share the assumptions and biases of the leftist academic sub-culture of which they are a part. It’s up to citizens to evaluate accordingly what we hear from them.