Pernicious Campus Polarization over Critical Race Theory: A Case Study

Abstract

Legislatures have banned CRT across many states in America, altering the country’s campus climate. This case study surveys more than 200 students, faculty, and staff on campus to understand their points of view on CRT. The authors find a “pernicious polarization” dividing the university and suggest that university faculty consider a “Critical Patriotic Civic History” to provide a multi-perspectival pedagogy to prepare our multicultural student body to become our country’s next generation of citizens.

Keywords:

• Critical race theory
• political polarization
• campus climate
• mixed methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Approved by IRB # 2022-029.

2 We classify the state as conservative because in addition to enacting legislation banning CRT, the state’s elections have gone solidly Republican in recent decades. The state’s electoral college votes were last won by the Democratic presidential candidate in 1964, and Donald Trump carried the state with over 65% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. Currently, Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 500,000 of the 2.3 million registered voters, and the GOP controls the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and both chambers of the state legislature. This Republican trifecta (i.e., governor and both legislative chambers controlled by same party) has been uninterrupted since 2011. All of the state’s U.S. Representatives and both U.S. Senators are Republican.

3 In labeling these survey items, PS indicates public schools, while U indicates universities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Wood

John Wood, Ph.D. is a professor of public administration and co-director of the MPA program at the University of Central Oklahoma and is an affiliate faculty at Swansea University in Wales, UK. He teaches in leadership, public policy, municipal management, intergovernmental relations, urban sustainability, environmental policy, local budgeting, urban politics, and the capstone. He is the former council member (2009–2017) of the city of Guthrie, Oklahoma and vice mayor (2013–2017), chairing the finance and street committees and served as vice chair of the Garber-Wellington committee for the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG). Wood published the edited volume Taking Sides: Clashing Views in State and Local Government coedited the 7th Edition of Oklahoma Government and Politics. He serves as a regular contributing columnist for the Oklahoma Observer, as well as in peer-reviewed articles in the areas of public administration, ethics, sustainability, and policy. He has also traveled to more than 36 countries, served 8 years in the U.S. Marine Corps including during the Gulf War (1990–1991), and is married to his beautiful wife, Bonnie.

Kenneth Kickham

Dr. Kenneth Kickham is a Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Central Oklahoma, former president of the National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics, and coauthor of Managing in the Public Sector: A Casebook in Ethics and Leadership. His research appears in political science, public administration, public policy, sociology, anthropology, education, and economics journals.