Republican governors like Ron DeSantis have elevated critiques about racial and gender politics in schools and universities to the center of American politics, quickly transforming both K-12 and higher education policy debates. What are schools and universities actually doing and why have critiques of critical race theory and educators gained such political power now. Carson Byrd finds that universities are not achieving racial equality but have still become the place for conservatives to react against cultural change. Jonathan Collins finds that critical race theory has become an effective bogeyman despite wide public support for teaching about racism in public schools. Both reflect on how these debates quickly became the center of our culture wars and merged K-12 and university politics.