South Dakota professor complains about Critical Race Theory ban

The parent-led fight against Critical Race Theory’s implementation in public schools is not losing momentum, contrary to the expressed wishes of left-wing teachers, college professors, education bureaucrats and administrators. One example of Critical Race Theory’s statewide loss is in South Dakota, where the Republican-majority state legislature passed a law banning the flawed and inaccurate theory from being taught in all education levels in the state.

The local news outlet KELOLAND News interviewed an assistant professor of curriculum instruction at the University of South Dakota named Dyanis Conrad-Popova. Conrad-Popova said that she has voluntary left employment with the state university in part over “divisive concepts” making its way from politics into education.

But her professional profile shows that she is keenly interested in race-related academic studies. Her University of South Dakota profile page notes that she “holds a graduate certificate in Race and Social Policy, Dr. Conrad’s research interests center on educational equity, racial literacy, critical social justice, and the deconstruction of colonial legacies.”

Her listed teaching interests are a list of left-wing ideologies, some of which are:

• Anti Racist Education
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
• Critical Autoethnography
• Race and inequality

Her research interests are very similar, with a race-focused bent:

• Social and Educational Inequalities
• Racial Literacy
• Implicit Bias
• Indigenous and Endarkened Methodologies
• Critical Autoethnography
• Critical social justice
• Deconstruction of colonial legacies

The professor noted that she teaches an academic theory called Critical Social Justice, which she claims is not the same as Critical Race Theory. She said that her class helps students recognize preconceived beliefs and biases and teaches them how these beliefs and biases affect person-to-person interaction.

It does sound eerily similar to Critical Race Theory, which is a catch-all phrase to describe lessons and curriculum that focuses entirely on race and promotes inaccurate and flawed information about America’s founding.

But Conrad-Popova said that the Critical Race Theory ban affected her work, such as restricting “access to funding for my research or access to resources for my research nearly impossible.”

Also, it was reported that the office of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, cited Conrad-Popova’s work as an example of teaching “divisive concepts” to college students in South Dakota. The professor said that the governor’s action on Critical Race Theory “shapes what is taught at all levels in the state.”

Based on Conrad-Popova’s professional profile, it appears that Gov. Noem’s office was not making up facts or data because the professor lists many race-related topics as her teaching and research interests. The local news outlet’s portrayal failed to accurately describe her background as an academic specializing in race issues.

Conrad-Popova told the local news outlet that bans such as South Dakota’s tie the hands of educators, which limits the effectiveness of their profession. She said, “Both my colleagues at the institution and people within the community are silenced by these kinds of bills.”

On the social media platform Twitter, Conrad-Popova recently announced that she was hired by Randolph-Macon College in Virginia because “I get to do the work I was meant to do, that I am not ‘allowed’ to do in the state of SD.” She added, “I will continue disrupting the status quo in SD from a less relentlessly violent space.”

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