Plantation Pedagogy and the Politics of Erasure: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis of anti-CRT Laws in Higher Education

Across the country, there have been 870 anti-critical race theory (CRT) legal instruments introduced, attempting to curtail learning about race and racism in the United States. Some of these bills target higher education learning environments, raising the question: What can professors do as pedagogical acts of resistance in the classroom, attempting to maintain bell hooks’ ideal of “education as a practice of freedom?” The purpose of this article is to offer a critical policy discourse analysis (CPDA) of legal instruments targeting higher education learning environments utilizing the framework of plantation pedagogy to identify how the legislative attacks represent recent efforts to protect White interests and maximize White privilege. Patterns in the data suggest these policies seek to implement: 1) reclamation of the learning environment: prohibition and policing of CRT; 2) ideological severing of the minds and bodies of racially minoritized students; and 3) acculturation and assimilation to whiteness: (re)enforcing White hegemonic pedagogical practices. Implications for minimizing the negative impact of these anti-CRT legal instruments are presented as we offer considerations for educators to engage in resistance teaching.