In his first weeks in office, Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin appointed three officials who have spread misinformation via right-wing and local media about critical race theory, naming them to important posts overseeing education and efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. One of his appointees also has ties to an anti-CRT organization that paints itself as a parent advocacy group, despite being rife with GOP operatives.

Critical race theory (CRT) is a graduate-level academic framework that analyzes how racism is embedded into U.S. policies, institutions, and culture. Right-wing media and politicians have inaccurately used the theory’s name to demonize a wide variety of anti-racist practices. 

Even though CRT is not taught as a subject in K-12 settings, conservative politicians nationwide are placing restrictions on teaching and increasing surveillance of teachers under the guise of combating CRT. These restrictions include outlawing substantive discussions of racism or the history of racial oppression in K-12 schools, proposing cameras in classrooms, and banning books about race and LGBTQ identity. Many Black parents and students suggest these policies are whitewashing U.S. history, and many teachers say such bans are hampering important conversations about race. 

Meanwhile, conservatives are using the CRT boogeyman to stir up racist backlash for legislative and electoral gain. Youngkin’s gubernatorial run was an early test of this electoral strategy. On the campaign trail, Youngkin bashed CRT and said his “Day One Game Plan” included a pledge to ban CRT. On his first day in office, Youngkin signed an executive order banning the teaching of so-called “divisive ideologies” in schools — a move that Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Paul Williams said amounted to “right-wing political indoctrination and the epitome of systemic racism.” 

Youngkin’s picks for the state’s top education and diversity positions cemented his administration’s anti-CRT stance. He named Jillian Balow and Elizabeth Schultz as the superintendent and assistant superintendent, respectively, of the Virginia Department of Education. In a statement, Youngkin said that Balow and Schultz would work to “ban critical race theory and political agendas from our classrooms, and rebuild our crumbling schools.” Later on, Youngkin announced his pick for Virginia’s chief diversity officer, Angela Sailor, whose role he said will include “eliminating disparities in prenatal care," being "an ambassador for unborn children,” and ensuring that Virginia’s history curriculum is “honest, objective, and complete.”

These three appointees all have histories of using right-wing media and local outlets to undermine social progress, attack critical race theory, and advance a conservative agenda.

Jillian Balow

Virginia’s new superintendent of public instruction publicly promoted anti-CRT legislation at her previous job in Wyoming and has said she favors “school choice,” a policy stance rooted in efforts to segregate schools and defund public education.

Balow, a former schoolteacher and policy adviser to Wyoming’s former Gov. Matt Mead, had been serving as superintendent of public instruction in Wyoming from 2015 until Youngkin appointed her to the same position in Virginia. While acting as superintendent in Wyoming, Balow wrote a guest column in Wyoming’s Powell Tribune, titled “Take a stand against teaching critical race theory.” In the column, Balow called CRT a “radical thrust to undermine Martin Luther King Jr’s American dream” and lied that “CRT teaches that the only way to change our racist ways is to become more racist, more discriminatory — especially against privileged white oppressors.” 

She also bashed racial justice protestors, painting them as destructive “rioters,” and falsely claimed that “legally enforced racism ended with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Balow also touted the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) as “an excellent resource for information about critical race theory in America.”

FAIR is a nonprofit organization led by anti-CRT academics and media personalities which has previously advocated against initiatives to improve school diversity. FAIR also supported two anti-CRT parents whose kids were denied reenrollment to their private school after the parents broke rules by appearing on right-wing media to protest lessons about race and racism. The organization wrote an open letter to the school decrying “the intimidation and bullying of students ... based on political ideology,” backing the parents to further its misinformed narrative about CRT in schools.

During her tenure in Wyoming, Balow also supported legislation intended to deter schools from teaching about systemic racism by requiring them to release extensive details about guest lectures, assemblies, and their civics, social studies, and history curricula. 

In a press conference on the bill in September 2021, Balow decried supposed teaching of critical race theory “and other related radical political theories that are entirely inappropriate for K-12 education,” including “white oppression, systemic racism, and white privilege,” which she claimed had begun to “creep” into Wyoming public schools. She also claimed that because of CRT, students were being taught to support Marxism “in the absence of any comparison to other theories or other concepts.” As evidence, she cited a middle schooler’s notes on fundamentals of Marxism, though later admitted to WyoFile that she had never asked the student’s school about the specific lesson or course material. 

When she resigned from her position in Wyoming to join Youngkin’s cabinet, Balow penned a statement published in the Cheyenne Post. She wrote that she hopes to “restore parents’ voices in education” and expand school choice. Balow added, “When it comes to politics in the classroom, I’ve made my position crystal clear that partisan politics and radical theories should not be forced upon our children.”

Elizabeth Schultz

Youngkin’s choice for assistant superintendent of public instruction is a former Trump official with a history of pushing anti-LGBTQ policies and opposition to racial justice initiatives in various media outlets. 

Schultz was elected to the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia in 2011, where she was the only member to vote against adding gender identity to the school district’s nondiscrimination policy. Schultz also promoted an article from the conservative outlet The Blaze that falsely claimed that trans people are mentally ill.

In 2015, Schultz voted against a measure to expand the district’s sex education curriculum to include lessons on “gender identity and transgender issues.” Defending her vote, Schultz said, “Everywhere I go, parents tell me they feel disenfranchised. … It’s as if common sense and pragmatism have been sold out for political ideology.” The Traditional Values Coalition, an extreme anti-LGBTQ  group, endorsed her reelection bid in 2015.

When she lost the reelection in 2019, Schultz briefly worked for the Trump administration as the deputy director of the Office of Educational Technology. 

In March 2021, Schultz joined the anti-CRT activist group Parents Defending Education (PDE) as a senior fellow. While at PDE, she bashed critical race theory and argued against anti-racist teaching in various media outlets. 

She and PDE colleague Asra Nomani wrote an opinion article for Newsweek in May railing against Fairfax County Public Schools’ plans for an anti-racist curriculum. In an interview on Fox News the same month, Schultz claimed without evidence that “our education system is being weaponized by school boards” that are “using taxpayer money to embed things like critical race theory,” and she urged parents to “take back your schools.” 

In June, Schultz wrote an op-ed for the Fairfax County Times, titled “Yes, Virginia – there is Critical Race Theory in our schools.” In it, she again bashed racial equity measures in the local public schools and decried critical race theory. She falsely claimed that CRT “pushes the distorted concept that the most important thing about a person is their race” and that under the framework of CRT, “all inequities are … ascribed to racism.” 

In an op-ed for the conservative local news site Bacon’s Rebellion titled “The Left Is Lying: CRT Is Peddling Hate in Our Schools,” Schultz again attacked anti-racist education, lying that CRT “sells a nifty-sounding concept, ‘equity,’ cloaked in divisive practices and poisonous ideology.” She also claimed that it “race-shames children … and quashes American exceptionalism while falsely promising equal outcomes for all.”

At a school board meeting in October, Schultz again criticized critical race theory; claimed that the schools needed more curriculum transparency to protect students; and bashed what she called “porn” in schools, parroting a line the right-wing often uses to target books about race and LGBTQ identity. She said, “I am telling you, stop peddling porn to our kids — it’s child abuse. Stop making children hate each other — it’s racist. Stop teaching children revisionist history — it’s lying.”

During a Newsmax appearance later that month, Schultz touted her anti-CRT activism and complained about increased security measures at school board meetings, claiming parents were “standing up and saying, ‘Stop the ideological mind games with our children. Stop sexualizing the content in our children’s schools.’”  

Angela Sailor

Youngkin’s pick to lead the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — which Youngkin supports officially renaming as the Office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion — has a history of spreading right-wing rhetoric through her work at the Heritage Foundation and prior experience in the Bush administration. 

Sailor previously held positions in the George W. Bush administration, working in the Department of Education and the White House Office of Public Liaison. Most recently, Sailor served as a vice president of the Feulner Institute, a branch of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation that aims to “restore confidence in America’s founding values and principles.” 

While at Heritage, Sailor published multiple articles fearmongering about the threat that CRT supposedly poses to young children. Sailor accused schools of “hiding behind diversity and inclusion rhetoric” to spread CRT, an especially concerning statement from the incoming head of Virginia’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In another article for Heritage, Sailor pointed parents in the direction of multiple anti-CRT parent groups, including Moms for Liberty – whose right-wing ties Media Matters has previously uncovered. 

Before conservative hysteria over CRT ramped up in 2021, Sailor publicly railed against so-called “cancel culture.” In a July 2020 op-ed for the Miami Herald, Sailor wrote that cancel culture “is a direct assault on the construct of forgiveness,” describing it as a “poison pill.”

Sailor also appeared on the right-wing Lars Larson radio show in October 2020 to stir skepticism about cancel culture, which she called “the aftertaste of critical race theory.” She also raised doubts about colleges of education in the United States, claiming that those institutions are “training grounds” for bringing “leftist academic theories” into K-12 classrooms.