Texas AG Paxton Launches Ad Revealing Challenger Eva Guzman’s Support for CRT-Style Training

Early voting is already underway in the Texas primaries, and state Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an ad on Friday calling out challenger Eva Guzman for taking part in the CRT-style “Beyond the Bench: Law, Justice, and Communities Summit” in 2016.

“She was the most liberal judge on the Texas Supreme Court,” the ad’s narrator says. “She spent our tax dollars on a woke critical race theory summit that claimed our justice system is racially biased and called for mandatory CRT training for every police officer in this state, and to indoctrinate kids in school. Guzman wants to give Texas children an app that tells them about their racial bias.”

“Eva Guzman is just too woke for Texas. She hosted a ‘Critical Race Theory’ style conference that pushed for bias training in the criminal justice system and even an app for kids to help them “recognize bias at a really young age,” Paxton said on Twitter, where he posted the ad.

The state courts’ website still has information about the CRT-style summit. The description of the event — “spearheaded” by the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Court of Appeals — includes credit to Guzman for organizing the summit.

The text describing the summit said, in part:

On the morning of the Summit, more than 200 state and local leaders gathered at Paul Quinn College, a historically black university, located in South Dallas, Texas. Chief Justice Hecht, Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, and Justice Guzman commenced the event by encouraging participants to take the first step of acknowledging concerns for trust in the judiciary and listening and learning from one another to develop solutions. Justice Guzman opened the Summit with the recognition that one day was not enough to ensure complete trust in our justice system, but asked participants to consider Paul Coelho’s words, “when we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.” 

Following Justice Guzman’s cogent remarks, Paul Quinn College President, Michael Sorrell, welcomed the participants and challenged them to have uncomfortable conversations, be courageous, and tell the truth.

Following the summit, a “big ideas” summary was posted online. It included:

• Mandate training/education regarding cognitive/implicit bias for all stakeholders in the criminal justice system.

• Develop a childhood app that helps children to recognize bias at a really young age. They have pattern games. Why not something that changes how they group people, cultures, etc., on the common thread that isn’t an easily seen pattern but has a commonality.

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