• New Year, • NEW VARIANT

face with cases rising. I wasn’t as scared to attend my classes in-person last semester because of the social distancing and mask guidelines.

As of January 14, Richmond has 36,150 active, meaning still in the infectious phase, COVID-19 cases according to the Virginia Department of Health. In comparison, at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester there were around 100 COVID-19 cases in Richmond according to the Virginia Department of Health.

The increase in the number of COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant makes me hope that VCU will be flexible and lenient

Youngkin’s first few days

ISHAAN NANDWANI Opinions Editor

Following his inauguration as Governor of Virginia on Jan. 15, Gov. Glenn Youngkin immediately signed 11 executive actions into law.

These actions include ending the use of the Critical Race Theory in K-12 public education, allowing parents the decision of whether their children wear masks in public schools and rescinding the vaccine mandate for state employees.

Since the U.S. shutdown due the pandemic in March 2020 and the racial reckoning that ensued a few months later, issues of mask and vaccine mandates and racebased education in schools have been under major contention.

The Critical Race Theory (CRT), in particular, has long been under assault from conservatives clueless to its actual meaning or intent.

First of all, several sources including the Brookings Institution, the California School Board Association and the Association of American Educators have shown that CRT is not taught in K-12 public schools to begin with, and is predominantly explored at the university level on an elective basis. The Association of American Educators reported 96.9% of educators surveyed were not mandated to teach CRT. This begs the question: what is really under attack?

The answer: to avoid discussing race. The real backlash we’re seeing is the deluded belief that the education system brainwashes students into a liberal agenda from a young age, fostering white guilt and self-hatred.

Indeed, conservatives have donned the idea that even discussions about the existence of privilege or systemic racism have