Countering Racist Gaslighting in Education Policy and Politics: A Critical Race Discourse Analysis

Rican Vue and Katrya Txay Ly

The Journal of Higher Education, 2025, vol. 96, issue 7, 1436-1462

Abstract: Amid a conservative backlash that frames Critical Race Theory as a threat to suppress race-conscious education, this study examines how anti-gaslighting discourses function as strategies of refusal and reimagination in education policy debates. Drawing on abolitionist and decolonial traditions and using critical race discourse analysis, we analyzed 19 hours of legislative debate across seven states. We find that legislators opposing the bans counter racist gaslighting and advance new political imaginaries by naming contradiction, grounding positionality, and refusing oppressive rules of engagement. These strategies foreground BIPOC epistemologies and articulate collective interdependence as foundational to envisioning alternative social arrangements. The study deepens understanding of liberatory discourses in policy and contributes to education policy scholarship by conceptualizing anti-gaslighting as a generative and affective praxis that unsettles dominant logics. We conclude by proposing a shift from anti-gaslighting to liberatory groundtruthing, a term that more precisely names the praxis of advancing epistemic justice.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2025.2558452

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