Report: Arizona Dept. of Education reviewing 'equity' toolkit that suggests babies are racist

The Arizona Department of Education has launched an internal review in response to revelations that it promoted a number of controversial claims in its "equity" toolkit, including the notion that babies as young as 3 months old can be racist, according to filmmaker and City Journal contributing editor Christopher Rufo.

What are the details?

Rufo posted a statement from the state education department on Twitter, in which the department announced the review while suggesting the resources were part of a "school improvement process" and were "intended for use by school leaders as they work closely with the families they serve."

In the statement, the department noted that it "recognizes the need for resources that explore equity and inclusion issues" in order "to ensure that every student has access to an education that allows them to achieve their full potential," but admitted it is "currently conducting an internal review" of certain resources in light of the recent scrutiny.

What's the background?

Rufo broke the news last week that some of the resources recommended for educators and parents on the department's website advanced controversial claims associated with the critical race theory agenda.

He took screenshots of a number of the resources and posted them in a Twitter thread. One of the resources included an infographic entitled, "They're not too young to talk about race!" which cites a study claiming, "At birth, babies look equally at faces of all races. At 3 months, babies look more at faces that match the race of their caregivers."

Another resource suggested that babies are not "colorblind" and that parents must instill "antiracist attitudes and actions" starting at birth in order to prevent their children from "absorb[ing] bias from the world around them."

Still, additional resources reportedly recommended by the department suggest to white parents that they "can have a black friend, partner, or child and still be racist" and claims that white people deny their own racism to "alleviate some of their white fragility."

Rufo discussed the troubling toolkit with Fox News host Laura Ingraham over the weekend.

What else?

The news is only the latest example of critical race theory and progressive identity politics making their way into classrooms across the United States.

Rufo discovered last month that Buffalo Public Schools in upstate New York had woven similar ideas into its "woke" new curriculum, which teaches students that "all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism" and that American society was designed for the "impoverishment of people of color and enrichment of white people."

Last week, TheBlaze broke news that a public school system near St. Paul, Minnesota separated a class full of middle schoolers into "privileged" and "targeted" groups in order to demonstrate how oppression is carried out against minorities in the U.S.