CRT is just a sophisticated legal theory taught only in law schools and graduate schools. Others say that CRT is the simple factual truth about the history of race and politics in the U.S. and conservative opponents are trying to block teaching that in public schools. These two claims cannot both be true. A complexly sophisticated idea taught only in graduate school cannot simultaneously be a simple idea taught in elementary and high schools. One need not even critique CRT to agree to this. So why do its defenders contradict themselves?

In recent months defenders of Critical Race Theory have given two conflicting stories. Some tell us that the flap over critical race theory (CRT) in K-12 education is a strawman because CRT is just a sophisticated legal theory taught only in law schools and graduate schools. Others say that CRT is the simple factual truth about the history of race and politics in the U.S. and conservative opponents are trying to block teaching that in public schools. These two claims cannot both be true. A complexly sophisticated idea taught only in graduate school cannot simultaneously be a simple idea taught in elementary and high schools. One need not even critique CRT to agree to this. So why do its defenders contradict themselves?

In our search for a reason, we should look for an explanation that is both charitable and grounded. By charitable, I mean we assume CRT’s defenders are not consciously trying to deceive. By grounded, I mean one that easily fits known facts and theories, without need for special pleading. Collectively, these two principles are the foundation of Hanlon’s razor, which warns us to never assume malice when ignorance is an adequate explanation.

In the case of CRT, I believe we can explain its defenders’ confusion through the simple lens of costs and benefits. Put simply, acquiring knowledge is costly, and thinking logically is costly, but feeling morally righteous or smugly superior is psychologically valuable and attained at low cost. Just as any of us prefer a good meal we don’t have to pay for, we face a temptation to latch on to the feelings of moral or intellectual superiority without paying the costs of gaining real knowledge and engaging in careful thinking.

Let’s begin with those who say critical race theory is just a high-level academic theory. They clearly err, because no influential academic theory remains only at the law school and graduate school level for decades. Although CRT originated in law schools, legal scholarship is not hermetically sealed off from the rest of academia. Some social science and humanities scholars found the ideas of CRT useful for their scholarly pursuits and adopted them. Blossoming scholars then learned these ideas in graduate school and applied them in their own scholarly thinking, and then, when they got academic jobs, in their undergraduate courses.

That sophisticated scholarly ideas sometimes get watered down in undergrad courses is no secret. So the CRT a student learns in an undergraduate Sociology or African-American Studies course may be incomplete in the same way that undergrads get an incomplete version of Plato or Marx. That doesn’t make it not critical theory. And if some of these undergrads go on to teach in elementary or high schools, some likely will introduce some of these ideas, likely in an even more watered-down way.

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