The problem

Few topics in education have dominated the news since 2021 as much as efforts to ban critical race theory (CRT) from public schools in the United States. The larger problem is the widespread effort to impede public education, stifling students’ opportunities to think critically about our nation's history and denying them their right to a complete education. In September 2020, after protests over the police killing of George Floyd prompted new conversations about structural racism in the US, the Trump administration issued a memo to federal agencies directing them to identify and cancel any staff trainings that focused on CRT or “White privilege.” Weeks later, President Trump issued Executive Order 13950, prohibiting federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from teaching “divisive concepts,” including the idea that the US is “fundamentally racist or sexist.” Trump's focus on CRT likely originated with a 2020 Fox News interview of Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative scholar, who warned of the “cult indoctrination” of CRT and the “danger and destruction it can wreak”; Rufo helped draft the Executive Order.

Conservative think tanks, thought leaders, media figures, and politicians operationalized and conflated “divisive concepts” to mean “CRT”— a college- level analytical framework rarely taught in K- 12 schools that examines how race and racism intersect with other forms of social identity, power, and oppression. The theory, which emerged in the mid- 1980s in American law schools, holds that racism is not simply expressed on a microlevel but, rather, is deeply rooted in the nation's laws, policies, regulations, and institutions (such as the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system).

Although the Order was rescinded by President Biden on his first day in office, its impact on K- 12 education was already well underway: As of December 2022, all states except Delaware have introduced anti- CRT legislation that, in practice, seeks to ban books, vet teaching practices, and restrict curricula in American history, civics, and government, and 28 states have adopted measures that ban the teaching of race and racism, affecting over 22 million public school children— almost half of the country's 50.8 million public school students.

Two themes have dominated philosophical discussions concerning the rationality of believing a report of a miracle. The first relies on the idea that miracles are by definition massively improbable. The second theme involves the thought that testimony is, in general, not a very reliable source of information. The result of combining these two themes is that it is very difficult – some suggest impossible – to rationally believe that a miracle has occurred on the basis of testimony: on its own, testimony is too weak to outweigh the improbability of a miracle. Both themes are addressed in Hume’s famous essay on miracles. This chapter examines each theme and critically discusses interpretations of and replies to Hume’s argument.

The Problem

COVID-19 has forced all facets of daily life to shift. This has been particularly difficult for institutions like schools that depend on in-person, daily instruction. Across the United States, students, their families, schools, and districts have had to scramble to ensure instruction continues. With little precedent, responses have varied greatly, leaving the potential for unequal provision. In particular, the national patchwork of responses to the pandemic has exacerbated the uneven provision of special education in the US, potentially increasing the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their general-education peers, and contributing to academic and social regression.

Students with disabilities (SWD) in the US are guaranteed rights under various federal and state laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The latter mandates that a “free appropriate public education” and related accommodations, supports, interventions, and services be provided to SWD. Federal and state legislatures and courts have repeatedly found such rights under IDEA to be mandatory and non-negotiable, even when difficult or expensive to provide. At the end of April 2020, the US Department of Education sent a report to Congress reaffirming the rights of SWD to have equal access to education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report stated that the Department would not request waiver authority to give school districts the option to forgo critical provisions of IDEA. IDEA, however, does not address how schools should respond during crises like COVID-19, leaving states and districts to decide how to deliver special education to SWD. Some districts initially refrained, only changing course when the federal government dictated so, from providing online instruction to any students during the closure, thus skirting the requirement to provide special-education services during the same period. Other districts, including over 30 in New Jersey, asked parents to sign waivers releasing any claims of liability under IDEA as a condition of their children receiving special-education services during COVID-19— a violation of state and federal law. Other districts have elected to provide distance instruction and services.