Raytheon's critical race theory program calls on White employees to acknowledge 'privilege': report
The report comes as people in multiple sectors push back against 'critical race theory' trainings and teachings
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Internal documents showing Raytheon's critical race theory (CRT) program calls on its White employees to acknowledge their "privilege" and reject "equality" for "equity."
The documents revealed on Twitter by Manhattan Institute senior fellow and investigative reporter Christopher Rufo also urge White employees working for the second-largest U.S. defense contractor after Lockheed Martin to "decolonize" their bookshelves, among other things.
Raytheon did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News.
Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes in July 2020 launched the company's "Stronger Together" campaign that aims to guide employees in "becoming an anti-racist today" and asks them to sign a pledge to "check [their] own biases" and initiate "sometimes difficult" conversations with colleagues, an employee guide reviewed by Rufo shows.
Part of the program is based on "intersectionality," or the idea that someone who comes from a marginalized background is less privileged than someone who is, for example, a White, straight, able-bodied person.
It encourages employees to identify their "everyday privilege" and learn how to use it. One section quotes part an essay by New York University Stern School of Business Professor Dolly Chugh: "In America, if you are white or Christian or able-bodied or straight or English-speaking, these particular identities are easy to forget," which Chugh has dubbed "ordinary privilege."
The Raytheon program bases its "privilege" section on that quote and asks employees to "identify" their privileges; learn about others' disadvantages; "speak up" and use their own privileges to help others; and "step aside" to allow more disadvantaged voices to be heard, according to Rufo's screenshots of internal documents.
The training calls on employees to "identify everyone's race" as part of the initiative and give "those with marginalized identities … the floor in meetings or on calls, even if it means" certain employees must "silence" themselves. It then instructs white employees on how to approach tough conversations with Black colleagues who may be "exhausted, mentally drained, frustrated, stressed, barely sleeping, scared and overwhelmed."
Finally, a list of recommendations for White employees suggests that they familiarize themselves with the meaning of the phrase "Defund the police," "participate in reparations," "decolonize" their bookshelves and "join a local ‘white space,'" documents obtained by Rufo show.
The Raytheon documents come as Rufo prepares to release "the internal ‘antiracism’ documents for 26 of the Fortune 100 companies…one by one," the reporter and filmmaker said in a Tuesday tweet.
Rufo will appear on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Tuesday to discuss the employee documents.
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His reporting comes as employees and parents push back against antiracist teachings and training programs that have fallen under the blanket term of "critical race theory" or "CRT," which is formally understood as an academic and legal analysis of race recognizing racism as a systemic problem affecting certain areas of society, argue that the movement is divisive in classrooms and separates children into groups of oppressors versus oppressed, privileged and underprivileged.
Democratic politicians and left-leaning pundits have pushed back against the idea that CRT may be divisive, as Republican politicians and right-leaning pundits argue, as well as use of the phrase "CRT" to describe what is being taught within companies and at schools across the country.
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Proponents argue that CRT or more general antiracist teachings believe it will guide people toward an equitable — rather than equal — future.
Former President Trump banned ideas associated with CRT from being utilized in federal government trainings – something President Biden quickly repealed after taking office. A number of state lawmakers have moved to ban CRT-esque teachings in public schools.
Fox News' Cameron Cawthorne and Sam Dorman contributed to this report.