Anti-critical race theory org launching with over $1M ad buy

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FIRST ON FOX: A new organization is joining the fight against critical race theory (CRT), launching Thursday with over $1 million in ads.

Fox News has learned the group, Free to Learn Coalition, is running the ads on national cable networks and in local markets. It's specifically targeting New York City, Arizona and Virginia, where its president, Alleigh Marré, resides.

Her state has seen a flurry of controversy surrounding racial curricula and other issues. 

Loudoun County, in particular, has seen testy school board meetings over CRT. One of Free to Learn Coalition's ads is focused on Fairfax County, where the nation's top high school is being sued for alleged anti-Asian discrimination in a new admissions process.

A narrator says: "While our students fall behind the world in reading, writing, math, and science, bureaucrats in Fairfax County are weakening Thomas Jefferson high school, one of the best in the country."

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It goes on to demand an end to "political agendas," adding "our kids deserve better." 

Marré, a mother of two, told Fox News: "While American students fall behind the rest of the world in reading, writing, math, and science, our school systems are prioritizing political agendas over academic achievement."

She added: "After a year of having a seat in the classroom with virtual learning, parents across the nation have had enough. Free to Learn will help parents hold school boards and administrators accountable."

Free to Learn Coalition, a 501(c)3 tax-exempt group, was just one of many organizations to start over the past year or so in response to racial content in education. Others include Parents Against Critical Theory, 1776 Action, Oregonians for Liberty, Educators for Quality and Equality, Parents Defending Education, 1776 Project, Fight for Schools PAC, and No Left Turn in Education.

The growing backlash to CRT has been observed not only in formal organizing, but at school board meetings as well. A number of states have also considered legislation while activists have pursued lawsuits and recall campaigns.

And on Wednesday, Indianan Attorney General Todd Rokita released a Parents Bill of Rights geared toward clarifying how the law allows parents to combat racial and other controversial materials in their school districts. Rokita previously led a group of attorneys general in calling on President Biden to withdraw an education proposal viewed as a way to fund CRT in schools.

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Defenders argue that CRT-type training helps enhance dominant groups' understanding and empathy of what the oppressed experience on a regular basis. These types of trainings have also been promoted as ways to "dismantle" or weaken alleged structures imposing burdens through bias and discrimination.

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, an expert on critical race theory at Boston University School of Law, told the Boston Globe that critical race theory helped people understand the complexity of race — beyond "simple" narratives that they may have been taught.