She also implied that Judge Jackson had pushed for transgender rights and decried that “educators are allowing biological males to steal opportunities from female athletes in the name of progressivism.”
Understand the Debate Over Critical Race Theory
Card 1 of 5An expansive academic framework. Critical race theory, or C.R.T, argues that historical patterns of racism are ingrained in law and other modern institutions. The theory says that racism is a systemic problem, not only a matter of individual bigotry.
C.R.T. is not new. Derrick Bell, a pioneering legal scholar who died in 2011, spent decades exploring what it would mean to understand racism as a permanent feature of American life. He is often called the godfather of critical race theory, but the term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s.
The theory has gained new prominence. After the protests born from the police killing of George Floyd, critical race theory resurfaced as part of a backlash among conservatives — including former President Trump — who began to use the term as a political weapon.
The current debate. Critics of C.R.T. argue that it accuses all white Americans of being racist and is being used to divide the country. But critical race theorists say they are mainly concerned with understanding the racial disparities that have persisted in institutions and systems.
A hot-button issue in schools. The debate has turned school boards into battlegrounds as some Republicans say the theory is invading classrooms. Education leaders, including the National School Boards Association, say that C.R.T. is not being taught in K-12 schools.
It was not clear how the issue related to Judge Jackson, or when or if she had ever made any comments on the issue of transgender rights.
But other Republicans also stoked fears about what potentially controversial views Judge Jackson might bring with her to the high court, calling upon issues that might scare voters.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, reiterated his attack that Judge Jackson had been soft on child sex abusers. The attack touched on the central allegation of the viral pro-Trump conspiracy theory known as QAnon, which spreads false claims that Democrats are part of a cabal of Devil-worshipping pedophiles.
Multiple news organizations fact-checked Mr. Hawley’s attack and found it to be misleading, noting that Judge Jackson had generally followed common judicial sentencing practices and recommended penalties supported unanimously by a bipartisan federal commission.
That didn’t stop more than a dozen G.O.P. House members, including Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 Republican in the House, from signing a letter raising concerns about what they called her “troubling pattern of leniency” when it came to sentencing for child sex crimes.