by Danielle Wingfield, JD, PHD
Introduction
At school board meetings across the country, parents demand the removal of books that present diverse perspectives on history and society. State legislatures introduce bills banning the teaching of so-called “divisive concepts.” Politicians insist that “parental rights” are under attack and portray public schools as dangerous places where children are indoctrinated rather than educated. These campaigns are not new. They echo an earlier period when lawmakers and officials mobilized against the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Then, Virginia Senator Harry Byrd led a strategy known as “Massive Resistance,” designed to block desegregation and weaken public education. Today’s battles over curriculum, censorship, and parental control are part of that same lineage. The core of Massive Resistance—both in the 1950s and today—is about controlling knowledge, limiting access, and undermining the democratic promise of public schools. When public education is weakened, children lose the opportunity to learn the full truth of our history, families lose a vital site of community, and democracy itself becomes more fragile. The strategies have evolved over time: in the past, resistance took the form of closing schools and creating private segregation academies; today, it surfaces through book bans, coordinated digital campaigns against public education, and the expansion of charter schools. But the underlying project remains the same: to deny equal education and to curtail schools as places of belonging and democratic formation. Understanding the connection between past and present resistance is critical. Just as the Byrd Organization’s rhetoric and policies helped normalize segregation and silence, current attacks on curriculum and public education are shaping how a new generation will think about democracy, justice, and belonging. This is not simply a culture war or a battle over lesson plans. It is a struggle over who counts as part of the American story and whose children will be fully prepared to participate in our democracy.
Today’s Playbook of Resistance: Following Virginia’s Blueprint
The current wave of attacks on public education has three defining strategies: political rhetoric that sows fear and mistrust, censorship that narrows what children can learn, and “parental rights” campaigns that aim to privatize power in schools. Each mirrors earlier efforts, but adapted to the twenty-first century. To understand the depth of the parallels, we must return to Virginia in the years after Brown v. Board of Education. There, Senator Harry Byrd and his political machine pioneered the strategy of Massive Resistance. It was more than a slogan; it was a coordinated set of policies designed to halt desegregation and maintain the status quo.
1. Political Rhetoric as Weapon In the years following Brown, Byrd and his allies sowed fear, framing the Supreme Court’s decision as an existential threat to freedom. They used rhetoric warning that integration would destroy public education and corrupt white children. They invoked states’ rights and constitutional crisis, insisting that federal courts had overreached. This rhetoric gave legitimacy to defiance and emboldened officials to ignore the law. The words served their purpose: they turned segregation into a noble cause rather than a legal violation. Today, the language of fear remains one of the most powerful tools of resistance. The term “Critical Race Theory” has become a catch-all label for any classroom discussion about race, inequality, or justice. Politicians and advocacy groups have used it to generate panic, portraying teachers as indoctrinators and students as victims of radical agendas. Then and now, the goal is not accuracy but mobilization—turning schools into battlefields in order to rally political support.
2. Censorship and Curriculum Control In Virginia, the period after Brown also witnessed the battle extend to curriculum and textbooks. Censorship became policy. The state created “approved” history books that celebrated the Confederacy and omitted the realities of slavery and racial violence. Libraries were purged of pro-integration materials, and entire courses were rewritten to emphasize “states’ rights” and glorify the Confederacy. Teachers who sought to present a fuller history faced pressure and retaliation. The goal was to ensure that generations of children learned a distorted version of the past—one that protected racial hierarchy by silencing truth. In the contemporary resurgence of Massive Resistance, book bans and curriculum restrictions are again spreading rapidly. School districts across the country have pulled titles ranging from Toni Morrison’s Beloved to children’s books about civil rights leaders. In some states, teachers face penalties for addressing systemic racism, while administrators issue lists of prohibited terms. The effect is a chilling silence in classrooms where history and literature should spark curiosity and debate. The old playbook is being employed anew but with similar intent. The tactic works by controlling whose stories can be told, and whose histories can be erased.
3. The Rise of “Parental Rights” Finally, during Byrd’s Massive Resistance, parental rights were deployed as a shield. Virginia lawmakers insisted that white parents should not be forced to send their children to integrated schools. They created tuition grants and private academies where white families could flee, diverting public money to private segregationist institutions. These schools flourished even as public schools were closed or starved of resources. In the name of “choice,” Virginia officials undermined the very idea of public education as a shared democratic good.
Yet again today, the language of parental rights has become the centerpiece of modern resistance. Groups claim that parents should have absolute authority over what their children learn and whom their children learn with. On the surface, this may sound reasonable. But in practice, these campaigns often elevate the demands of some parents while silencing others, especially minoritized families who want schools to tell the truth about history and to create inclusive environments. Today, as in Massive Resistance’s early days, “parental rights” have become a tool for undermining public education itself.
This Massive Resistance blueprint—rhetoric, censorship, parental rights—provides a model for resistance that resonates today. Together, these three deeply interconnected strategies reinforce a vision of schools that are less democratic, less inclusive, and less accountable to the full public. Then, as now, the impacts go far beyond education policy, shaping democracy, determining whose voices matter, and defining the boundaries of belonging.
Lessons for Democracy
What does this history teach us about the present moment? There are three urgent lessons.
1. Resistance is Cyclical, Not New The first lesson is that resistance to equity in education is not an aberration but a recurring strategy. Just as Brown was met with organized defiance, today’s modest efforts to create inclusive curricula have sparked backlash. Recognizing the cyclical nature of resistance helps us see today’s fights not as isolated culture wars but as part of a long struggle over education and democracy.
2. History and Truth Are Central to Democracy Second, the control of history and knowledge is not a side issue. It is central to the health of democracy. When students are denied access to honest accounts of slavery, segregation, civil rights, and continuing inequalities, they are denied the tools to understand the society they live in. A democracy built on silence and distortion cannot endure. Public schools are not just sites of academic instruction; they are where young people learn what it means to be citizens and how to participate in a pluralistic society.
3. Law Can Be a Tool, But Not Alone Third, law has a complicated role in these struggles. Courts and legislatures can advance equality, but they can also entrench resistance. During Massive Resistance, state lawmakers wrote new laws to block integration, while courts were slow to enforce desegregation. Today, legal battles over curriculum bans and parental rights show the same dynamic: the law can be used to dismantle democracy as well as to protect it. The lesson is that legal strategies must be paired with grassroots organizing, community advocacy, and cultural change. Democracy is defended not only in courtrooms but in classrooms, libraries, and school board meetings.
Conclusion
The attacks on public education we see today are not simply debates about lesson plans or parental involvement. They are the newest expression of a long tradition of resistance to equality, echoing the Massive Resistance of the 1950s and 1960s. By recycling the strategies of rhetoric, censorship, and parental rights, today’s campaigns seek to weaken public schools and silence histories that are essential to understanding our democracy.
But history also teaches us that resistance can be met with resilience. Communities, educators, and students themselves have long fought back—demanding the right to learn, to tell the truth, and to participate fully in public life. The task now is to recognize the stakes, connect the lessons of the past to the challenges of the present, and build coalitions that can defend public education as the foundation of democracy.
The struggle over schools has always been about more than what happens in the classroom. It is about who counts, whose stories are told, and what kind of future we will share. If we can meet this moment with clarity and courage, we can ensure that our schools remain places of truth, belonging, and democratic possibility. n
Danielle Wingfield, JD, PHD is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law. This article is adapted from The Resurgence of Massive Resistance, 82 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 259 (2025). Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol82/iss1/6.
