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University culture wars over race theory recall 1920s fight to teach evolution

Arguments for quality work better than quibbles over facts.
  1. Adam Laats

    1. Adam Laats is a professor of education and history at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the author of the books Creationism USA and Fundamentalist U.

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When Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick declared earlier this year that he would remove tenure protections so that a “handful of professors” can no longer “indoctrinate students with critical race theory”, he was unwittingly repeating rhetoric from the unsuccessful side of a 100-year-old culture war. Across the United States, there at least 49 active bills that would crush the freedom to learn and teach on university campuses — 25 of the 50 states have at least one.

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Nature 604, 219 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00922-w

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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