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Australia's Senate Approves Rejecting Critical Race Theory From National Curriculum

Australia's Senate Approves Rejecting Critical Race Theory From National Curriculum

The theory looks at a country's systemic and institutional nature of racism, however it looks like it won't be taught in Australia.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

The Australian Senate has voted in favour of Pauline Hanson's motion to reject critical race theory from the national curriculum.

The One Nation leader was concerned about the controversial idea being taught in schools and moved quickly to ensure kids weren't educated on it.

It's a movement that has been going in the US since the 1970s and attempts to look at the social, cultural and legal issues of a society and how it relates to race and racism.

It examines how the law is designed and whether it is skewed or biased against people of colour. It essentially dives into any one country's systemic and institutional nature of racism.

However, Ms Hanson doesn't want this to be taught in Australian schools and it appears the Senate agreed.

jfish92/Creative Commons

The motion was passed 30 votes to 28 after Pauline Hanson won the support of the Coalition and faced criticism from Labor and the Greens.

Greens anti-racism spokesperson Mehreen Faruqi said: "The government cannot viably claim to be taking far-right hatred seriously when they fall in line behind crap like this."

Labor Senator Katy Gallagher added: "It is longstanding practice that the Australian curriculum - the national curriculum - is developed by education experts, not by senators and not by motions in the Senate."

According to The Conversation, the 'win' in the Senate won't have much effect.

A draft of the curriculum was released in April and indicated students would be educated on different perspectives on history and would be taught more about First Nations people's persecution during colonisation.

A report in The Australian newspaper suggested the theory would be applied in Aussie schools to help teach the 'oppression, discrimination and struggles of Indigenous Australians'.

Critical race theory has become a massive dog whistle for people on the far-right in America and has been slammed by Republicans and conservative commentators.

Pauline Hanson brought forward her motion because she believes it pushes kids into focusing on irrelevant issues.

Her original motion wanted the Senate to 'ban' the theory from the curriculum, however she opted with the word 'reject' to give the motion 'the best chance of success'.

She won support from the likes of Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries Jonathon Duniam, who said the theory insinuated 'the laws and institutions of our nation are inherently racist'.

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Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Australia