What it Is, Why it Exists, and How it Harms Multi-Racial Democracy

Published January 2026

In the lead-up to the 2024 general election, vice presidential candidate JD Vance spread a baseless rumor on Twitter/X that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating wildlife and pets.¹ Later, during the September 10, 2024, presidential debate, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump repeated the falsehood: “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”² By stigmatizing Haitians as frightening foreigners, this fabricated story disregarded their inherent human dignity. Vance and Trump knew that the claims about Haitian immigrants, who are predominantly Black, were not true. In fact, during a televised interview, Vance confessed his willingness to spread disinformation: he was willing to “create stories”—like the story targeting Haitians—if they captured media attention (and therefore the public’s attention).³

As intended, the false and dehumanizing narrative about Haitians spread through social and broadcast media like wildfire. During the September 10, 2024, presidential debate, sixty-seven million viewers heard Trump repeat the rumor.⁴ By the next day, Vance’s social media post had already garnered more than eleven million views.⁵ By September 12, 2024, a quarter of individuals surveyed by YouGov believed the rumor was true.⁶

Unfortunately, the 2024 disinformation campaign about Haitians was not an isolated event. In the past and still today, individual actors and interest groups across the political spectrum as well as the Trump administration have intentionally manufactured disinformation.⁷ Disinformation falls under the broader category of misinformation, which is the spread of incorrect or misleading information. The trait that differentiates disinformation from other subsets of misinformation is intent.⁸ Disinformation is intentionally spread by individuals or groups, often for political, financial, or personal gain.⁹ Essentially, disinformation peddlers (or “disinformationists”)ⁱ intend to deceive the public.¹⁰ As shown in the table below, disinformation can appear in different forms.

Types of Disinformation

“[T]he strategic manipulation by governments and players in positions of power of either one’s own or a foreign population. It is frequently used to sustainably disrupt societal order and unilaterally manipulate public opinion.”

“The reporting of misleading or manipulated content in the same or similar forms as established news sources.”

“Misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual.”

“Correct information [is presented] in an incorrect context.”

“Genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive.”

“New content is entirely false, designed to deceive and do harm.”

This table describes some of the most common forms of disinformation.¹¹

ⁱJoseph R. Hayden, PhD, refers to people who spread disinformation as “disinformationists.” Joseph R. Hayden, A History of Disinformation in the U.S. (Routledge 2024).

Constructing a New Conceptual Framework for Racial Disinformation

Moving forward, this Brief will refer to disinformation about racially marginalized groups as “racial disinformation.” A handful of scholarly articles (at least six) have explicitly used the term “racial disinformation.”¹² They focused their analyses on specific subtypes of racial disinformation, namely racial hoaxes and racial propaganda.¹³ Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), and global immigration trends, these scholars assessed the harmful effects of racial disinformation on marginalized groups. However, they neither adequately defined nor conceptualized racial disinformation. Consequently, despite its appearance within existing literature, the concept of racial disinformation remains underdeveloped.¹⁴

To further the public’s understanding of racial disinformation, this Brief introduces a new conceptual framework that articulates three key attributes of racial disinformation: what it does, why it is spread, and how it impacts multi-racial democracy. To construct this conceptual framework, this Brief builds upon existing disinformation scholarship across various disciplines, including law, history, politics, and sociology. It also engages with both historical and contemporary sources, such as newspaper articles, social media posts, and expert analyses. In bringing together disparate ideas and sources, this Brief aims to advance a nuanced understanding of racial disinformation.¹⁵

To that end, this Brief argues that by spreading dehumanizing content about racially marginalized groups, racial disinformation reinforces harmful assumptions about the value and abilities of non-white people.¹⁶ In turn, these faulty assumptions bolster a dangerous racial ideology in which people categorized as white are considered superior.¹⁷ This racist ideology gives rise to a racially hierarchical social order¹⁸ that benefits people occupying positions of supposed superiority while justifying the unequal treatment of non-white people.¹⁹

Racial disinformation harms the United States’ pursuit of multi-racial democracy, both in principle and in practice. To be considered a democracy, a society must treat its members equally, which is essential to the basic idea of a government of, by, and for the people.²⁰ If members of a society do not see one another as equals, they will struggle to exercise collective deliberation.²¹ To exist as a functioning representative democracy (a form of governance in which the citizenry has the power to collaboratively select and influence decision-makers), a society’s members must both include and value one another. Historically and even still today, racial disinformation undermines the United States’ realization of a multi-racial, representative democracy.

Both political actors and interest groups spread racial disinformation through mass media to build public support for exclusionary policies that allow certain groups to keep resources, opportunity, and political power.²² In these campaigns, racial disinformation vilifies racially marginalized people as less than human—that is, it falsely portrays them as threats to both social and political order. Beneficiaries of a racial hierarchy can use racial disinformation to justify Black people’s racial subordination because it provides a veneer of legitimacy for socially and politically exclusionary policies. As a result, those who create and spread racial disinformation effectively weaken democracy by undermining both the principle of equality²³ and the practice of collective deliberation.²⁴

This Brief has three parts. Part I explains the relationships between racial disinformation in mass media, racial ideology, and racial hierarchy. It then discusses how the spread of racial disinformation within institutions of learning reinforces race-based hierarchy and consequently threatens democracy. Part II further explores how racial disinformation about Black people not only reinforces racial hierarchy, but also indirectly threatens democracy. It analyzes three historical case studies: the First (1865 to 1877), Second (1954 to 1968), and Third (2008 to the present) eras of Reconstruction. In doing so, Part II tells a story of both change and continuity. Between 1865 and today, innovations in mass media have expanded racial disinformation’s audience. Nonetheless, the objectives of racial disinformation, its dehumanizing content, and its harmful democratic impacts have remained the same. Finally, Part III proposes strategies to disrupt the spread and influence of racial disinformation, and to equip the public with the knowledge needed to foster a well-informed, democratic citizenry.

Reconstruction Eras

Part 1 Racial Disinformation Indirectly Threatens Democracy

Part I makes the connection between racial disinformation in media, racial ideologies related to racial hierarchy, and democracy. It ultimately argues that racial disinformation in media indirectly undermines democracy, both in principle and in practice, because it erodes both equality and collective deliberation. Through the amplification of racist ideologies, racial disinformation reinforces racial hierarchy, which is inherently unequal and therefore in direct opposition to the basic democratic principle of equality. When racial disinformation infiltrates schools, it normalizes ideologies about racial superiority, teaching students to perceive racial hierarchy as a natural phenomenon, rather than as a socially constructed idea. Ultimately, when young people fail to see one another as inherently equal in worth and ability, they grow into adults who lack the capacity to engage in the democratic practice of collective deliberation.

The Relationships Between Racial Disinformation, Racial Ideology, and Racial Hierarchy

Racial disinformation uses propaganda, tropes, and myths to dehumanize specific groups of people, reinforcing the false idea that they are less moral, intelligent, or competent and thus less valuable.²⁵ In doing so, racial disinformation builds upon and spreads the very assumptions underlying the racial ideology of white superiority.²⁶ This misguided idea that some people possess more dignity and value than others on account of their racial classification helps justify the maintenance of a racial hierarchy—that is, an identity-based societal order that limits the political and social rights of certain groups of people.²⁷ Public figures can also use ideas about racial superiority to cultivate public support for policies that maintain racial hierarchy.

A racially hierarchical society is inherently and necessarily unequal. A hierarchy means that some people occupy higher positions on a societal ladder, while others are relegated to society’s bottom rungs. Where a person falls within a social hierarchy determines that person’s ability to access certain goods, exercise universal rights, and realize one’s full potential. This creates a society that is both built on inequality and also dependent on its preservation. Such social inequality is antithetical to democracy.

People who benefit from existing racial hierarchies often use racial disinformation to either justify their power or regain control when inequitable social and political orders are suddenly challenged.²⁸ Political figures, wealthy interest groups, and state actors typically respond to efforts to make society more equal by spreading racial disinformation that supports the preservation of the status quo.²⁹ As intended, racial disinformation manipulates its audience’s feelings of status anxiety, fear, and anger.³⁰ By tapping into emotions shown to influence political behaviors and beliefs, racial disinformation misleads and convinces the public to support policies that work against their best interests.³¹ This further concentrates political and economic power in the hands of the most privileged groups of people in the nation.³²

Racial Disinformation Undermines the Democratic Principle of Equality

Racial disinformation threatens the United States’ representative democracy because it undermines the key principles of equal citizenship and equal protection enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.³³ Equal citizenship refers to all citizens having access to the rights, legal protections, and privileges that allow them to influence political outcomes and participate in the social life of the nation.³⁴ Meanwhile, equal protection prevents the government from wrongfully depriving any person—citizen and non-citizen alike³⁵—of their life, freedom, and property. That is, it ensures that the laws protect all people equally, regardless of citizenship status.³⁶ At the heart of these democratic principles is the belief that all humans are equal and possess inherent dignity. Racial disinformation is anti-democratic because it seeks to reinforce the false idea that certain people are inferior and therefore not entitled to full membership within the representative democracy.

Racial disinformation’s disregard for equality may contribute to reduced support for democracy as a form of governance. In 2021, a group of researchers conducted a survey experiment to determine whether unequal citizenship, manifested as racial inequality, affected support for democracy.³⁷ They found that across racial groups, individuals exposed to racial inequality and structural racism were less likely to agree that democracies were the better form of governance.³⁸ Respondents were also less likely to report satisfaction with the way democracy operated in the United States.³⁹ Additionally, exposure to racial inequality led some respondents to question democracy’s ability to deliver upon its professed ideals.⁴⁰

Racial Disinformation Erodes the Democratic Practice of Collective Deliberation

Racial disinformation delegitimizes democracy not only through its promotion of inequality, but also through its vilification of racially marginalized groups, which weakens collective deliberation.⁴¹ In democracies like the United States, deliberation is the process through which people have the right, opportunity, and capacity to participate in discussions about the decisions that affect them.⁴² Deliberation serves three functions: it promotes mutual respect, establishes well-informed opinions and preferences, and ensures that people affected by decisions are included in discussions as equals.⁴³ Because racial disinformation discourages mutual respect for the perspectives and contributions of racially marginalized people, it can further exclude targeted groups from public deliberations and decision-making that affect their lives.⁴⁴ Consequently, racial disinformation can facilitate a breakdown in meaningful dialogue across racial and social differences, reinforcing deeply entrenched divisions that are detrimental to both informed decision-making and collective action.⁴⁵

One way to combat the deterioration of collective deliberation is through quality education that is inclusive of diverse experiences. In 1778, Thomas Jefferson singled out education as the most effective defense against tyranny, the antithesis of democracy.⁴⁶ More than a century later, legal scholar and former Legal Defense Fund (LDF) attorney Lani Guinier posited that the role of education was to prepare good citizens who have “the ability to work as a team.”⁴⁷ Diversity in education prepares students to work cooperatively alongside people with different identities. Research shows that learning in a diverse educational setting has positive implications for democracy. For example, scholars have found that engaging with race and diversity both inside and outside of class prepares students to participate in the practice of deliberative democracy as well-informed citizens, and such interactions have long-lasting effects on civic engagement, news consumption, and political awareness after college.⁴⁸

In 1778, Thomas Jefferson singled out education as the most effective defense against tyranny, the antithesis of democracy.

However, when racial disinformation infiltrates educational materials and spaces of learning, democracy loses one of its strongest defenses. Racial disinformation within classrooms and lecture halls, the petri dishes of democracy, teaches young people to expect and accept inequality. When textbooks and curricula present racial disinformation as fact or “common sense,” students are miseducated about humanity and the world in which they live.⁴⁹ If students are taught to accept dehumanizing mischaracterizations of racial groups as the truth (through little fault of their own), they will grow into uninformed adult members of society.⁵⁰ Moreover, they will be subjected to and perpetuate rampant inequality, a killer of democracy. To make the dream of a multi-racial democracy a reality, racial disinformation must first be understood and then disrupted.⁵¹

"Racial disinformation within classrooms and lecture halls, the petri dishes of democracy, teaches young people to expect and accept inequality. When textbooks and curricula present racial disinformation as fact or 'common sense,' students are miseducated about humanity and the world in which they live."

Photo: A member of the Black Student Union at the University of California, Berkeley, at a meeting to discuss how to improve life for Black students, staff, and teachers on campus. (Photo By Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Part 2 Racial Disinformation During the First, Second, and Third Reconstruction Erasⁱⁱ

Part II provides evidence in support of this Brief’s main argument, that racial disinformation indirectly undermines democracy. It analyzes case studies of three key periods in U.S. history: the First Reconstruction Era (1865 to 1877), the Second Reconstruction Era (1954 to 1968), and the Third Reconstruction Era (2008 to the present). This Brief focuses specifically on racial disinformation spread through mass media and immortalized through education. While the case studies presented in this Brief center racial disinformation targeting Black people, it is important to note that various racially marginalized groups in the United States have been harmed by racial disinformation.⁵²

The historical analysis in Part II highlights how racial disinformation functions in society—specifically, how it manifests, why people spread it, and its impact. What emerges is a story of both change and continuity, with a clear message: unless racial disinformation is recognized, challenged, and disrupted, it will perpetually stall any meaningful progress toward the United States’ realization of a multi-racial democracy.

The History of Racial Disinformation in Media: A Story of Change and Continuity

Over time, innovations in mass media have increased the ability of racial disinformation to influence more people. During the First Reconstruction Era, partisan newspapers reached only local and regional audiences.⁵³ By the Second Reconstruction Era, technological advancements created new mediums of communication—broadcast radio and television—that allowed agents of disinformation to reach national audiences.⁵⁴ Finally, the advent of the internet gave rise to digital media, which has been the dominant source of information-sharing during the Third Reconstruction Era and engages both domestic and international audiences.⁵⁵

Despite these changes in transmission methods and reach, the content, purpose, and impacts of racial disinformation have remained consistent over time. During the First, Second, and Third Reconstruction Eras, agents of racial disinformation vilified Black people as threats to the nation’s civil and political order, and therefore as less deserving of full and equal membership in the life of the nation.⁵⁶ During the First Reconstruction, Redeemers of the former Southern Confederacy falsely accused Black people of widespread voter fraud. In the Second Reconstruction, segregationists defamed Black civil rights advocates as being un-American Communists at the peak of the Cold War. Finally, during the Third Reconstruction, ethno-racial nationalists have intentionally disparaged Black leaders as unfit to govern and Black voters as fraudulent. Across each era, opponents of equality spread racial disinformation to justify their policy preferences and desired political conditions—conditions that benefited them while effectively depriving Black people of their political power and civil rights.⁵⁷

Anti-Black Racial Disinformation

ⁱⁱAs explained by historian Peniel E. Joseph, PhD, “reconstruction” can be defined as a period of conflict and change that is punctuated by consequential events that advance political and social equality. During the First (1865–1877), Second (1954–1968), and Third (2008–present) Reconstruction Eras, the United States grappled with competing ideas of equality, political participation, and democratic governance. Across each era, those who reaped the social, political, and economic benefits of a racially hierarchical society used racial disinformation to undo reconstructionist reforms and to weaken public support for equality. See Joseph, infra endnote 50, at 15-18. See also Eddie S. Glaude Jr., We Need to Begin Again, The Atlantic (July 18, 2020), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/why-we-need-begin-again/614326/; Wilfred Codrington III, The United States Needs a Third Reconstruction, The Atlantic (July 20, 2020), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/united-states-needs-third-reconstruction/614293/; Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own (Crown Publishing Group, 2020).

Case Study

The First Reconstruction Eraⁱⁱⁱ

1865–1877⁵⁸

Illustration depicting free Black men voting in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo via Getty Images)

The First Reconstruction began after the formal abolition of slavery in 1865 and ended twelve years later with the removal of federal troops from the South in 1877.⁵⁹ In 1868, three years after the Thirteenth Amendment officially abolished the institution of chattel slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment established birthright and naturalized citizenship.⁶⁰ It also required that all persons receive equal treatment and protection under the law.⁶¹ This part of the Fourteenth Amendment is commonly referred to as the Equal Protection Clause.⁶² In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment formally guaranteed Black men’s right to vote.⁶³ Over the course of a decade, these constitutional amendments and accompanying federal legislation officially redefined who “belonged” and could participate in the social and political activities of the nation.⁶⁴ However, opponents of Reconstruction, commonly referred to as Redeemers,⁶⁵ saw equal rights for Black people as disruptions to the political, social, and economic status quo of the pre-Civil War era.⁶⁶

Reconstructionist reforms affirmed the legal rights and political equality of Black people in two ways. First, the abolition of slavery gravely weakened the pre-existing economic order of the Southern plantation industry, which relied on the inhumane institution to keep labor costs low and profits high.⁶⁷ Now, Black people had the freedom to negotiate the terms and costs of their labor.⁶⁸ Second, the Reconstruction Acts (1867–1868) required former Confederate states to meet several conditions before they could be readmitted into the Union.⁶⁹ For example, Southern states had to grant formerly enslaved Black men the right to vote, which the Fifteenth Amendment later guaranteed in 1870.⁷⁰ Black people quickly demonstrated remarkable voter registration and turnout rates in Southern states. This led to more Black men assuming public office.⁷¹ On August 14, 1867, The Weekly Atlanta Intelligencer featured a clipping from The New York Tribune, which reported that of the 103,574 registered voters in Alabama, more than half (61,765) were Black.⁷² Based on this data, the Tribune inferred that there was a high likelihood that “the [Black] vote will be almost unanimously Republican.”⁷³

ⁱⁱⁱAfter the Civil War and the formal abolition of slavery, the First Era of Reconstruction (1865–1877) commenced, ushering in transformative legal, political, and social changes. W. E. B. Du Bois famously described this period as the “second founding” of the United States. From 1865 to 1877, Reconstructionist reforms, namely the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, dramatically expanded the boundaries of citizenship to include formerly enslaved Black Americans and their descendants. Practically speaking, the constitutional amendments officially redefined who “belonged” and therefore could participate in the social and political activities of the nation.

“First Colored Senator and Representatives in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States.” (Left to right) Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi, Representatives Benjamin Turner of Alabama, Robert DeLarge of South Carolina, Josiah Walls of Florida, Jefferson Long of Georgia, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina, and Robert B. Elliott of South Carolina.
By Currier and Ives, 1872. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.⁷⁴

Southern Redeemers Reported False Accounts of Black Voter Fraud in Newspapers

Over the course of the First Reconstruction, opponents of racial equality sought to regain control of Southern states.⁷⁵ Between 1869 and 1875, seven Southern states elected a total of sixteen Black men to Congress.⁷⁶ To mobilize white voter turnout and reverse these gains, beneficiaries of the established racial hierarchy spread racial disinformation. The Democratic Party^iv establishment falsely accused Black people of voter fraud and published the allegations in partisan newspapers. On March 6, 1868, about a week before the Arkansas election, The Van Buren Press published a clipping from the Arkansas Campaign Gazette titled, “To Vote, the Policy of White Men.” Writing in advance of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification, the author proclaimed it “imperative that we should have a full vote against the Constitution.”⁷⁷ The writer, who warned that white children would have to attend public schools with Black children if voters did not reject the amendment, also used the lie of Black voter fraud as a rallying cry, stating, “There will be frauds of every kind to overcome, and it will require a large majority [of white voters] to do so effectually.”⁷⁸

Unsubstantiated and intentionally false allegations of Black corruption played an important role in the decades-long campaign that ultimately resulted in the solidification of Democratic political control and white supremacist dominance. By 1874, the political landscape had begun to deprioritize inclusive and equal citizenship in favor of racial domination. After that year’s election cycle, many newspapers printed celebratory reports of white candidates winning public office. On June 18, 1874, The New Orleans Bulletin published a Cincinnati Enquirer clipping with the headline, “The Radical Outrage in Virginia.”⁷⁹ The write-up attributed white candidates’ victory in a local election in Petersburg, Virginia, to “special securities against the usual [N]egro frauds upon the ballot.”⁸⁰ The Vicksburg Herald wrote that Democratic victories in Mississippi in 1875 signaled “the beginning of a new era” marked by “progress and peace” and the end of “fraud and [N]egro rule.”⁸¹

The racial disinformation spread through newspapers offered justification for state constitutional reforms that denied Black people equal citizenship and political participation. In 1897, the St. Landry Clarion of Opelousas, Louisiana, advocated for a state constitution that would “eliminate the horde of ignorant and corrupt [N]egro votes . . . from our politics.”⁸² By the turn of the twentieth century, states across the South had amended their constitutions to strip Black people of their voting rights by enacting literacy tests, poll taxes, and discriminatory assessments of other kinds.⁸³ The often-repeated accusations of voter fraud mischaracterized the nearly 2,000 Black officials who held public office between 1865 and 1900—and the people who voted for them—as illegitimate and undeserving of full membership in the body politic.⁸⁴

^ivNote that “Democrat” and “Republican” had different meanings during the nineteenth century. These political parties changed over time, and they are not the same as the current political organizations that bear the same names.

The Infiltration of Racial Disinformation Into Education Reinforced Anti-Black Racial Ideology and Racial Hierarchy

The racial disinformation that arose during the First Reconstruction Era left a lasting impression well into the 1960s, as demonstrated by the prevalence of revisionist accounts of slavery, the Civil War, and the First Reconstruction. Disturbingly, by the mid-twentieth century, historically inaccurate accounts of Reconstruction had been widely circulated in classrooms and lecture halls across the United States.⁸⁵ In fact, several renowned institutions of higher education in both the North and the South reinforced false retellings of the history of both the Civil War and the First Reconstruction.⁸⁶ As early as the late nineteenth century, scholars like John W. Burgess and William A. Dunning of Columbia University helped cement the “lost cause” narrative, and they incorrectly claimed that the First Reconstruction was a failure because Black people were corrupt and incapable of engaging in self-governance.⁸⁷

A study published in 1934 analyzed textbooks used in sixteen Southern states and found that most presented an account of history that justified slavery, credited the South as the origin of abolitionist attitudes, and misrepresented the equality of Black people as the source of social harm and corruption.⁸⁸

At primary and secondary schools, racial disinformation in history textbooks reinforced harmful assumptions about Black people and legitimized the racial hierarchy.⁸⁹ A study published in 1934 analyzed textbooks used in sixteen Southern states and found that most presented an account of history that justified slavery, credited the South as the origin of abolitionist attitudes, and misrepresented the equality of Black people as the source of social harm and corruption.⁹⁰ The miseducation of white and Black children taught generations of students to expect, accept, and maintain racial inequality.⁹¹

Case Study

The Second Reconstruction Era

1954–1968

Students in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, protest segregation while holding a sign reading "We Resolve to Stand Up in the Face of Intimidation." (Photo via Getty Images)

The Second Reconstruction Era began with the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.⁹² In this landmark case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, the 1968 election of President Richard Nixon signaled the beginning of the end of the Second Reconstruction.⁹³ Nixon embodied a new form of political conservatism that exploited racial resentment and used “states’ rights” and “law and order” as codes for opposition to policies advancing racial equity.⁹⁴ Still, between 1954 and 1968, the nation made great strides toward renewing the promise of inclusive and equal citizenship through both Supreme Court and legislative victories. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations.⁹⁵ One year later, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned racially discriminatory voter suppression and intimidation tactics. The reforms of the Second Reconstruction expanded Black people’s access to economic and educational opportunities and increased their ability to participate in and influence politics.⁹⁶ However, massive resistance to such groundbreaking laws and court rulings thwarted the full realization of these structural advancements.⁹⁷

Segregationists Falsely Portrayed Civil Rights Activists as Existential Threats to Political Order and National Security

Despite the movement toward equal and inclusive citizenship during the Second Reconstruction, opposition to racial equality persisted. In Mississippi, an epicenter of resistance to civil rights, segregationists established the Association of Citizens’ Councils of Mississippi in direct response to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Composed of white-collar professionals, church elders, politicians, and business owners of the middle and upper classes, the Citizens’ Council chapters sought to distinguish themselves from other white supremacist groups, like the Ku Klux Klan.⁹⁸ In 1956, the establishment of the Citizens’ Councils of America (commonly referred to as the Citizens’ Council) connected the emerging local and state chapters under a national umbrella organization. By 1961, it had built a powerful network of influence in state and national politics.⁹⁹ According to Mississippi state Rep. Wilma Sledge of Sunflower County, “reliable white male citizens” organized the Citizens’ Council for “the sole purpose of maintaining segregation.”¹⁰⁰

The Citizens’ Council sought to build opposition to racial integration by intentionally mischaracterizing Black people as politically subversive. At the height of the Cold War, when bombing drills sent school children scrambling to shelter under their desks, the Citizens’ Council falsely alleged that supporters of racial equality were Communist assets.¹⁰¹ Newspaper editorials, such as those published in Mississippi’s Jackson Daily News, frequently targeted Black civil rights advocates like Medgar Evers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as young white field workers like Jo Freeman, falsely claiming they had Communist affiliations.¹⁰² This was all part of the Citizens’ Council’s strategic campaign to turn public opinion against desegregation.

One particular racial disinformation campaign received a bold response from the NAACP. On April 26, 1958, the Shreveport Journal of Louisiana published a public condemnation by A.B. Cox, a spokesperson for the local Citizens’ Council.¹⁰³ In it, Cox denounced the Louisiana State Council AFL-CIO union for electing Ellis A. Bryant Jr., a Black man who served as the President of the Shreveport Branch of the NAACP, to the vice presidency of the union.¹⁰⁴ According to the Citizens’ Council, the NAACP was “an organization infiltrated by Communist[s], Socialists, and subversives.”¹⁰⁵ The NAACP did not take the accusation lightly. Clarence A. Laws, Field Secretary for the Southwest Regional Office of the NAACP, responded to Cox’s allegations in a letter published in the Arkansas State Press on May 9, 1958.¹⁰⁶ Laws tactfully exposed and surgically deconstructed Cox’s attempt at racial disinformation. He wrote that there were only two reasons someone would mischaracterize the NAACP in such a manner: either they were ignorant about the organization or they intended “to deliberately misrepresent the Association to enhance some selfish end.”¹⁰⁷

The NAACP recognized that the Citizens’ Council levied accusations of Communist affiliation as part of a campaign to build broad national opposition to school desegregation.¹⁰⁸ NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins spoke out against the Citizens’ Council’s public opinion initiatives during a February 1958 dinner meeting of the NAACP Sacramento Branch in California.¹⁰⁹ He called attention to a full-page ad printed in a New York City daily publication and paid for by members of the Citizens’ Council. The ad purportedly articulated “the position of the South on race relations” and urged the North to oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board.¹¹⁰

The message of the Citizens’ Council remained consistent regardless of the medium used to spread racial disinformation. On the radio show Citizens’ Council Forum, hosts and featured guests accused civil rights advocates of “wittingly or unwittingly” advancing the “exploitations of the Communists” in the United States.¹¹¹ For example, in one episode, guest Myers G. Lowman of Circuit Riders, Inc., conceded that Communist agents did not officially control the NAACP; however, he still argued that “the [Communist] influence has been tremendous.”¹¹² To support its false claims, the Citizens’ Council pointed to sit-ins, protests, and other Civil Rights Movement tactics as proof of Communist influence.¹¹³ The objective of the Citizens’ Council was not to speak the truth; rather, it was to manufacture the fear needed to fuel massive resistance against integration.¹¹⁴

Segregationists Spread Racial Disinformation Through Print, Radio, and Television

As part of its public opinion and communications strategy, the Citizens’ Council spread racial disinformation through print publications, radio shows, and broadcast television.¹¹⁵ Robert Patterson, the Executive Secretary of the Association of Citizens’ Councils of Mississippi, believed that public opinion had the “supreme power” to influence what the government does and how it acts.¹¹⁶ To that end, in 1955 the Citizens’ Council established its own regional tabloid newspaper¹¹⁷ and began producing fifteen-minute weekly films called Citizens’ Council Forum Films.¹¹⁸ In April 1957, the Citizens’ Council aired the first segment of its television program, Forum, on WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi, and soon began distributing free audio recordings to radio stations.¹¹⁹ The Citizens’ Council reached twelve television markets across a handful of Southern states, and its radio tapings played across more than fifty stations in the region.¹²⁰

The Citizens’ Council’s reach expanded thanks to support from members of the U.S. Congress from Mississippi, who granted the Council access to government recording studios in Washington, D.C.¹²¹ Through Forum, the Citizens’ Council could now spread racial disinformation to broader audiences across the nation.¹²² From 1958 to 1966, Forum invited representatives from both the South and the North to speak on the platform, in an effort to appeal to audiences outside the South.¹²³ This geographic shift helped the Citizens’ Council couch its positions on race and civil rights within larger policy debates about law and order or national security (that is, Communism).¹²⁴

The Citizens’ Council had the capacity to spread its racial disinformation through print and broadcast media because it had ample ideological and financial support from powerful local and state entities.¹²⁵ For example, the Clarion-Ledger and Jackson Daily News in Mississippi published content on behalf of the Citizens’ Council, pushing its ideas to a combined readership of more than 80,000.¹²⁶ To fund its radio and television programming, the Citizens’ Council received a lump sum of $20,000 in 1960 and additional monthly provisions of $5,000 from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC).¹²⁷ Operating primarily as an investigative agency, the MSSC was established by the Mississippi Legislature in 1956 in response to the Brown v. Board of Education decision.¹²⁸ Notably, William J. Simmons, the editor of the Citizens’ Council newspaper, had a close relationship with Governor Ross Barnett, the ex officio Chairman of the MSSC in 1960, and every member of the MSSC was also a member of the Citizens’ Council.¹²⁹

Racial Disinformation’s Influence on Education Undermined Equality and Collective Deliberation

Although the Supreme Court did not overturn the Brown decision, the Citizens’ Council used a racial disinformation campaign to build massive resistance against desegregation.¹³⁰ Public support for racial segregation by other means—namely, privatizing education—quickly gained traction.¹³¹ Private academies, which had the backing of the Citizens’ Council in cities like Jackson, Mississippi, created an alternative to abolishing public schools altogether.¹³² In 1956, the Vice President of the Texas Citizens’ Council of Dallas, Rev. Carey Daniel, offered up three church buildings for the establishment of an all-white private school.¹³³ By perpetuating school-based segregation, these private schools adhered to the letter of the law, but not its spirit of equality. The Citizens’ Council shared its private school blueprint to facilitate the establishment of similar institutions across the South.¹³⁴ The Citizens’ Council also continued to spread racial disinformation to turn public opinion against the Civil Rights Movement and build support for segregationist policies.

Massive resistance against educational desegregation had immediate and long-term consequences.¹³⁵ Between 1954 and 1965, Southern legislators passed more than 400 laws to derail desegregation, including policies to redirect school funding from public schools to private schools.¹³⁶ In 1961, Georgia implemented a law, under the slogan “school choice,” that allowed students to attend private schools through the provision of vouchers.¹³⁷ As a result of sustained efforts to both undermine and resist Brown v. Board, approximately 3,000 private academies had taken root in Southern states by September 1975.¹³⁸ According to a New York Times journalist who reported on the situation in 1975, these academies were “acquiring solid semblances of permanence.”¹³⁹ A physical manifestation of racial hierarchy, school-based segregation—and the segregated curricula that often accompany it—deprives students of the ability to recognize people different from themselves as both fully human and equal collaborators in the democratic practice of collective deliberation.

Case Study

The Third Reconstruction Era

2008–Present

Photo: Demonstrators gather to protest the killing of Daunte Wright by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 17, 2021. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Some scholars and activists say the United States is in the midst of a Third Reconstruction Era and point to the 2008 election of President Barack Obama as the dawn of the period.¹⁴⁰ Others describe this moment as a third moral reckoning, the precursor to Reconstruction.¹⁴¹ Regardless of how people describe this period, they acknowledge the tensions between the steady (though glacial) pace of racial progress and the regressive backlash it quickly provoked. For the first time in its history, the nation had elected someone whose identity was not at the top of the country’s deeply embedded racial hierarchy. Perhaps more significantly, Obama’s election highlighted the political impact of changing demographics. In 2008 and again in 2012, Obama secured more than fifty percent of the popular vote. The Obama coalition in 2012 included ninety-three percent of Black voters, seventy-three percent of Asian American voters, seventy-one percent of Latinx voters, and more than a third of white voters.¹⁴²

The diversification of the electorate has coincided with growing demands for racial justice and policy reforms aimed at confronting structural inequalities.¹⁴³ The 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked the creation of Black Lives Matter, a national protest movement against police killings of unarmed Black people.¹⁴⁴ During the summer of 2020, a record number of people protested law enforcement’s murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.¹⁴⁵ Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, protesters’ demands for racial justice not only increased public awareness about systemic anti-Black racism but also created a window for political and legislative changes.¹⁴⁶ People demanded changes such as: justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; the reallocation of funds away from law enforcement and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; investments in social and community services; economic justice; and health care reform.¹⁴⁷ In response to widespread public pressure, many businesses, policymakers, and philanthropic foundations made commitments to increase racially marginalized people’s access to opportunities and resources.¹⁴⁸

Simultaneously, several states passed voting laws to reduce the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. Although legislators introduced these policies to protect public health, the interventions had the added effect of enhancing voting accessibility. These laws expanded absentee voting, extended deadlines for registration and early voting, and increased ballot drop-off locations.¹⁴⁹ In response to concerns about election administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 1,664 counties across thirty states enacted local policies in 2020 that made it easier to vote by mail.¹⁵⁰ Similarly, twenty-nine states and D.C. passed laws that made voting safer and more accessible.¹⁵¹ Although almost half of these seventy-nine laws were temporary, such policies likely contributed to increased voter turnout overall, and a few states even saw improved turnout among communities of color.¹⁵² For example, during the pandemic, California initiated a universal vote-by-mail policy that sent a ballot to every actively registered voter.¹⁵³ Analysis of the 2020 elections showed a three-percentage-point reduction in the turnout gap between Black and white voters in the state, with the exception of Los Angeles County.¹⁵⁴

Ethno-Racial Nationalists Spread Racial Disinformation

Similar to previous moments in history, the movement toward a more inclusive and equal citizenry has been countered by a forceful, disinformation-fueled backlash. During the Third Reconstruction, ethno-racial nationalists have strategically deployed racial disinformation in response to multi-racial coalitions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and voter-expansion policies. To stoke opposition to policies intended to either remedy or prevent racial inequality, they have spread falsehoods about both Black politicians and voters in majority-Black cities.¹⁵⁵ Ethno-racial nationalists often blame historically marginalized groups for societal problems like economic inequality or perceived scarcity.¹⁵⁶ They are hostile toward people who do not share their identities because they believe such individuals do not constitute the “real nation.”¹⁵⁷ People who hold such beliefs support leaders who are committed to reinforcing a status quo that is economically, socially, and politically beneficial to only exclusive groups of people.¹⁵⁸ Leaders who espouse ethno-racial nationalist politics erode democracy by steamrolling over established rights, institutional guardrails, and the rule of law.¹⁵⁹

Racial Disinformation Portrays Black Politicians as Unfit to Govern

Throughout the Third Reconstruction, racial disinformation defaming Black voters and politicians as fraudulent has spread through not only print publications, radio, and cable news, but also through social media. Certain radio talk shows and cable networks have amplified racial disinformation by platforming ethno-racial nationalists.¹⁶⁰ By 2017, opponents of racially inclusive and equitable policies had also established their presence on platforms including, but not limited to, YouTube and Twitter.¹⁶¹ Social media platforms have allowed their users—both domestic and international—to spread disinformation to a wider audience, while targeting specific subsets of the population.¹⁶²

During Obama’s 2008 presidential candidacy, a concerted disinformation campaign sought to undermine his legitimacy by claiming that he lied about his birthplace.¹⁶³ Both Democratic and Republican individuals spread this disinformation, which intensified even after Obama provided evidence of his U.S. birth certificate.¹⁶⁴ The disinformation gained traction, in no small part, due to persistent coverage by ethno-racial nationalists platformed by radio and television networks. For example, media personalities like Rush Limbaugh repeated the birtherism^vclaims on the radio.¹⁶⁵ Presenters on networks like Fox News did the same.¹⁶⁶ Later, during multiple primaries and general election cycles, Trump similarly challenged the birthright citizenship of other non-white candidates, including Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley.¹⁶⁷

Other instances of racial disinformation have disparagingly mischaracterized high-profile Black officials and political figures as incompetent, referring to them as “DEI hires” (referencing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies).¹⁶⁸ Since 2023, there has been an uptick in discourse blaming public officials of color for tragedies related to wildfires, plane crashes, and bridge collapses.¹⁶⁹ Rather than calling attention to the structural and systemic issues that may have contributed to these tragedies, agents of racial disinformation have targeted Black people and other people of color in positions of authority, challenging their intelligence and qualifications based on their race alone. In doing so, those who spread racial disinformation have also attacked the very policies and programs designed to provide marginalized groups with equal access to opportunities.

^v Birtherism is the false belief or assertion that a natural-born citizen of the United States is lying about their birthright citizenship. People who ascribe to birtherism seek to undermine the legitimacy of non-white individuals or people of immigrant descent who decide to run for president of the United States.

Racial Disinformation Portrays Black Voters as Fraudulent

The spread of racial disinformation through both legacy media (print publications, televised news reports, and radio) and social media has also amplified false allegations of voter fraud in majority-Black and majority-Latinx areas. To overturn the outcome of the 2020 general election, which Trump lost, he and his associates claimed he lost due to voter fraud and strategically challenged the election results in cities like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Georgia; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.¹⁷⁰ Trump and his supporters demanded recounts and refused to accept the election certification.¹⁷¹

Recent attempts to weaken Black political power have coincided with intensified efforts to suppress turnout among Black voters. Throughout both the 2020 and 2024 election cycles, agents of racial disinformation sought to negatively influence Black people’s voting behaviors.¹⁷² In a groundbreaking report, Onyx Impact estimated that racial disinformation can reach approximately forty million people through popular influencers and social media platforms that cater to Black communities.¹⁷³ According to their in-depth analysis, misleading narratives about civic disengagement among Black voters, division, and government inefficacy posed the “most significant narrative threats to Black voter engagement in 2024.”¹⁷⁴

Despite the emergence of multi-racial voting blocs and coalitions, the spread of racial disinformation has also occurred alongside legislative voter suppression campaigns. The nearly 100 restrictive voting laws passed in states across the country between 2013 and 2023 disproportionately impeded Black voters’ ability to participate in elections.¹⁷⁵ Even as some states expanded voter accessibility laws in 2020, other states simultaneously passed laws that made it even more difficult to vote by mail or submit absentee ballots, such as shortening windows for ballot requests and delivery.¹⁷⁶ Several states passed laws that implemented stricter voter identification requirements and restricted access to ballot drop-boxes.¹⁷⁷

More than 150 years after the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed all men the right to vote, and sixty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act strengthened voting protections for all, LDF continues to challenge efforts to mischaracterize Black voters as contributors to voter fraud.

In 2017, LDF and its partners filed a lawsuit challenging the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity established by the Trump administration. The team of litigators argued that “the Commission was founded on the false and discriminatory premise that Black and Latino voters are more likely to perpetrate voter fraud. These statements and the planned actions of the Commission evince an intention to discriminate against [Black] American and Latino voters, in violation of the United States Constitution.” – LDF v. Trump¹⁷⁸

Racial Disinformation Is Spreading as the Information Ecosystem Is Eroding

During the Third Reconstruction, trustworthy and accessible information sources have been rapidly disappearing. Around the country, local newsrooms have struggled to meet the economic challenges of a changing media landscape.¹⁷⁹ With the advent of digital advertising, reductions in readership, and the dominance of companies like Google and Facebook, local newspapers have struggled to operate due to their reliance on an outdated, advertisement-dependent business model.¹⁸⁰ In many cases, hedge funds have purchased sinking newspapers only to lay off staff, shutter offices, and convert remaining physical assets into real estate deals.¹⁸¹ As of 2018, one hedge fund owned nearly 100 papers in multiple major cities.¹⁸² In broadcast television, three media conglomerates own forty percent of all local news stations.¹⁸³ By 2023, nearly fifty-five million people across 1,767 U.S. counties had very little to no access to local news.¹⁸⁴

Figure 1

¹⁸⁵

In areas where media conglomerates have taken over local newspapers and television stations, residents have few alternatives to the information pushed out by politically motivated entities like Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose coverage area reaches forty percent of U.S. households.¹⁸⁶ Those living in rural areas or low-income neighborhoods, as well as communities of color, are especially harmed by the disappearance of a robust local news ecosystem.¹⁸⁷ When local news outlets disappear, Black communities in particular lose a trusted source of information.¹⁸⁸ People in communities without reliable local news outlets increasingly turn to social media for news, where they may come across hyper-partisan or inauthentic sources (such as bots impersonating members of racial groups or fabricated news articles).¹⁸⁹

Figure 2

¹⁹⁰

As trustworthy news outlets have declined, social media platforms’ perverse profit incentives and rollbacks of internal regulations have exacerbated the spread of racial disinformation online.¹⁹¹ Ultimately, companies like Meta’s Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube consider themselves neither publications nor media outlets; rather, they function under a business model.¹⁹² Their primary objective is to generate profit. To that end, they deploy algorithms that are programmed to increase content engagement and ad revenue.¹⁹³ This content often produces strong emotional reactions, like outrage, that prompt users to respond to, share, or like a post.¹⁹⁴ Such emotional responses, in turn, fuel further engagement, pushing harmful content to wider audiences. During the 2016 election cycle, algorithms fueled the proliferation of polarizing and misleading content shared via Facebook ads and YouTube video recommendations.¹⁹⁵

Although social media companies like Meta partnered with third-party, independent organizations to fact-check misinformation and disinformation in the lead-up to the 2020 elections, by 2025 they had reversed course.¹⁹⁶ In January 2025, Meta announced that it would follow the lead of X by replacing its fact-checking program with a user-driven form of content moderation.¹⁹⁷ Without any meaningful regulatory mechanisms designed to hold social media platforms accountable to the public, and in the absence of real fact-checking processes, racial disinformation may pose an even greater danger to racially marginalized groups and democracy itself going forward. Viral mischaracterizations—like Vance’s false claim about Haitian immigrants eating pets—may become more normalized, resistant to correction, and politically advantageous.¹⁹⁸

The Infiltration of Racial Disinformation Into Educational Spaces

As was the case during the First and Second Reconstructions, the infiltration of racial disinformation into education during the Third Reconstruction threatens the realization of a multi-racial democracy.¹⁹⁹ Anti-truth laws and book bans are systematically depriving future generations of the knowledge and critical thinking skills needed to recognize and disrupt the spread of racial disinformation.²⁰⁰ Without adequate exposure to information about diverse lived experiences both past and present, the next generation of voters will lack the capacity to both understand and work across differences in pursuit of shared interests.

As of September 2025, local, state, and federal legislators had introduced at least 861 anti-truth measures around the United States.²⁰¹ On January 29, 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order prohibiting schools from providing education about racial history, facilitating discussions about racial identities, or encouraging the developmental process of self-actualization.²⁰² The executive order’s description of these topics mirrored the words often used to mischaracterize supporters of equality and structural change throughout history: “anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false.”²⁰³

Prior to the 2025 executive order, many states had already been passing laws to prohibit instruction about Black history in K-12 schools and to restrict discussions about critical race theory in higher education.²⁰⁴ Between 2019 and 2022, the number of states that had passed laws restricting factual and critical discussions in schools about U.S. history and the legacy of structural and systemic racism increased from one to sixteen.²⁰⁵ During the 2023-2024 academic year, the implementation of these laws resulted in both the removal of certain books from K-12 public school libraries in 220 districts and the disappearance of course offerings on many college campuses.²⁰⁶ In 2023 alone, 4,240 unique books were censored in school and public libraries, a sixty-five percent increase from 2022.²⁰⁷ Censorship efforts have disproportionately targeted books whose characters and perspectives represent the experiences of people who are racially or ethnically marginalized, as well as LGBTQ+ people.²⁰⁸

Figure 3

²⁰⁹

Part 3 Recommendations for Disrupting Racial Disinformation

The best defense against the spread of racial disinformation, and disinformation of any kind, is a well-informed and educated public. Therefore, federal, state, and local lawmakers must implement both media and education policies that protect and also increase the public’s access to truthful, accurate information.

1. Federal and state lawmakers should utilize tax benefits to incentivize both the establishment and support of local news outlets.²¹⁰

One model policy worth considering is the bipartisan, federal Local Journalism Sustainability Act.²¹¹ Initially introduced in 2020 and later re-introduced in 2021, the bill proposed a $250 annual tax credit to encourage people to subscribe to local news outlets, pay for memberships, or make donations.²¹² It also proposed creating a payroll tax credit to help news organizations hire journalists and pay for salaries.²¹³ Additionally, the bill proposed creating tax credits to incentivize small businesses to advertise in local newspapers and on local channels. Although the federal legislation did not reach the floor for a vote, states like New York and Illinois have successfully enacted similar policies.²¹⁴

Lawmakers should also consider policies that make it easier to “replant” news outlets in information deserts. “Replanting” refers to the act of donating or selling a for-profit news agency to a nonprofit, community-based organization.²¹⁵ Federal lawmakers can incentivize these transfers by making the transactions tax free or by providing larger tax deductions.

2. Federal, state, and local policymakers should subsidize media outlets that serve Black communities and other racially marginalized communities.

One way to financially support these media outlets is by purchasing ad space. Policymakers can look to California for a model intervention. When the state passed its 2021-2022 budget, it allocated $10 million to support media outlets serving ethnically and racially marginalized audiences.²¹⁶ California’s state agencies were then tasked with working with target outlets to facilitate outreach and public awareness campaigns.²¹⁷ While the funding proposal was introduced as part of the Asian and Pacific Islander Equity Budget, the initiative also sought to improve engagement with various underserved audiences, like those in Black communities.²¹⁸

Since 1827, Black media outlets—including newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media—have played an important role in both combating falsehoods and centering the human dignity and lived experiences of Black people in the United States.²¹⁹ Today, Black media outlets continue to keep Black communities informed about the political, economic, and social issues affecting them. For example, researchers found that amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 racial justice protests, Black media covered issues important to Black communities as much as six times more than mainstream outlets did.²²⁰ With the recent rise in xenophobic rhetoric, digital Blackface, and AI deepfakes targeting Black people, Black media outlets are especially necessary to counter racial disinformation within Black online spaces.²²¹ Now more than ever, Black audiences need trustworthy sources capable of challenging what Onyx Impact describes as “harmful revisionist history rhetoric” designed to “undermine the legitimacy of civil rights movements and progressive causes.”²²²

3. Federal lawmakers should reinstate the ability of both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and federal agencies to fund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Independent public media can serve a crucial role in debunking disinformation and challenging audiences to exercise critical thinking, through programming that integrates sharp analysis and accessible reporting on current events.²²⁴ Due to its diversified funding sources, public media has managed to survive the digitization of ads and the shifting landscape of journalism.²²⁵ In addition to philanthropic donations, ad revenue, and contributions from individuals, public media broadcasting received approximately fifteen percent of its funding in recent years through federal government appropriations to the CPB.²²⁶ Congressional support for public broadcasting had been relatively stable since the CPB’s inception in 1967;²²⁷ however, on May 1, 2025, Trump issued an executive order prohibiting federal funding of NPR and PBS.²²⁸ Congress must repeal any policies designed to facilitate the defunding of public media.²²⁹

“I therefore instruct the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

– Executive Order 14290, issued on May 1, 2025

4. Federal policymakers should levy what media policy and politics scholar Victor Pickard, PhD, calls a “public media tax” on the revenues of social media companies that facilitate and benefit from the spread of disinformation.²³⁰

To reduce the risk of regulatory infringement on freedom of speech, some researchers propose adopting regulations that target algorithmic designs, internal policies, and profit-maximizing strategies, rather than content moderation alone.²³¹ If social media companies fail to comply with regulations, they could incur higher taxes.²³² A one percent tax on profits could yield hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Moving beyond social media companies themselves, the organization Free Press recommends taxing digital advertisers that purchase user data collected by social media platforms.²³³ This plan could generate more than one billion dollars per year in revenue.²³⁴ Congress could then use the revenue collected through these taxes to establish a national endowment for journalism, which could fund public subsidies and grants for independent local journalism.²³⁵ Such taxes would require businesses to bear some of the costs associated with disinformation.²³⁶

5. State and local lawmakers should preserve the integrity of public education by passing laws that guarantee access to historically accurate curricula and inclusive learning materials.

In the face of increasing attacks on truthful education, state lawmakers should introduce legislation that proactively reaffirms students’ right to learn and access information in both classrooms and libraries. In September 2023, California enacted a law that prohibited school boards from banning books, teaching materials, or curricula that educate students about diverse communities.²³⁷ In 2023, Illinois also passed a law preventing book bans.²³⁸ Not long after, Vermont state legislators passed a law in 2024 to protect the rights of students, educators, and librarians to access and share knowledge, requiring that public schools and libraries safeguard young people’s privacy. Among other provisions, Vermont’s law prohibited libraries from sharing the records of patrons aged twelve and above without the adolescent’s consent.²³⁹

Conclusion

As of 2026, the United States is experiencing a constitutional crisis, economic uncertainty, and widening social divisions. Amid anxiety- and fear-inducing moments such as this, racial disinformation spreads through mass media and amplifies dehumanizing mischaracterizations of racially marginalized groups. Beneficiaries of the status quo and opportunists in pursuit of power spread racial disinformation to justify the exclusion and subordination of people based on their race, ethnicity, and ancestry. They callously exploit the fears and insecurities of their audiences to build public opposition to policies that would advance equal rights and access to opportunity for all.

In the United States—a nation in pursuit of a representative, multi-racial democracy—policies and politics should work for the people. Politics is the vehicle through which everyday people negotiate and win concessions to improve the quality of their lives. Through voting, the public elects representatives and holds them accountable. The deliberative nature of politics and policymaking requires that people respect each other enough to work together across differences to achieve larger, shared goals. However, people in the United States have struggled to do so because they have failed to recognize the equal humanity and dignity of people with different identities.

Time and again, powerful actors have exploited people’s differences to create division. One way they do this is by spreading racial disinformation, which repeatedly reinforces the lie that certain people are less human than others. If enough of the public accepts dehumanizing mischaracterizations of racially marginalized people, then efforts to deprive those same groups of equal rights and political participation may become reality. The people who benefit the most are the same people who spread racial disinformation to hoard both political power and socioeconomic opportunities for a select, privileged few.

Still, there is a way forward. It is the duty of the public to work together and relentlessly pressure political representatives into fighting for democracy. Now is the time to disrupt racial disinformation by demanding increased support for local journalism, sustained funding for public media, accountability measures for social media platforms, and historically accurate and inclusive public education.

Endnotes

Luke Garrett, Vance Defends Spreading Claims that Haitian Migrants Are Eating Pets, NPR (Sept. 15, 2024), https://www.npr.org/2024/09/15/nx-s1-5113140/vance-false-claims-haitian-migrants-pets; Gaby Del Valle, JD Vance’s Latest Cat Flub Is Bizarre Misinformation About Migrants Eating Them, The Verge (Sept. 9, 2024), https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/9/24240338/haitian-migrants-cats-springfield-disinformation-jd-vance-elon-musk.
Daniel Arkin & David Ingram, Trump Pushes Baseless Claim About Immigrants ‘Eating the Pets’, NBC News (Sept. 10, 2024), https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-pushes-baseless-claim-immigrants-eating-pets-rcna170537.
Edward Helmore, JD Vance Admits He Is Willing to ‘Create Stories’ to Get Media Attention, The Guardian (Sept. 15, 2024), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/jd-vance-lies-haitian-immigrants.
David Bauder, More Than 67 Million People Watched Donald Trump and Kamala Harris Debate. That’s Way Up From June, AP News (Sept. 11, 2024), https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-abc-ratings-aeafb814b675cc14edcf5a0441677ec8.
Layla Ferris, Trump, JD Vance Repeat Baseless Claim Haitian Immigrants Are Eating Pets as Ohio Officials Say There Is No Evidence, CBS News (Sept. 11, 2024), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baseless-claim-haiti-immigrants-cats-springfield-ohio/.
Taylor Orth & Carl Bialik, How Views of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Changed After Their Debate, YouGov (Sept. 17, 2024), https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/50548-how-views-of-kamala-harris-and-donald-trump-changed-after-their-debate.
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McKay & Tenove, supra note 21; Ercan et al., supra note 21.
Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9; Cooke, supra note 9; Hayden, supra note 7; Goudsouzian, supra note 9.
A racial hierarchy incorrectly suggests that some people are more talented, hardworking, or virtuous than others based on their race, ancestry, or nation of origin. See Thomas J. Mann, Oliver C. Cox and the Political Economy of Racial Capitalism, 46 Dialectical Anthropology 46 85–102 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-021-09646-1; Cooke, supra note 9; Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9; Gail C. Christopher et al., Racial Hierarchy, Race Narrative, and the Structures That Sustain Them, in Necessary Conversations 19–33 (Alonzo L. Plough ed., 1st ed., 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197641477.003.0002.
Danico, supra note 18. One’s placement within a racial hierarchy influences their ability to access certain rights, opportunities, and privileges. See Mann, supra note 26; Cooke, supra note 9; Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9.
Glenn L. Pierce et al., The Opportunity Costs of the Politics of Division and Disinformation in the Context of the Twenty-First Century Security Deficit, 2 SN Soc. Scis. 241 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-022-00514-5; Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9; Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9; Hayden, supra note 7.
Pierce et al., supra note 28; Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9; Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9; Hayden, supra note 7; Cooke, supra note 9.
Pierce et al., supra note 28; Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9; Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9; Hayden, supra note 7.
Jonathan M. Metzl, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland (Basic Books, 2019).
Pierce et al., supra note 28; Kuo & Marwick, supra note 9; Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9; Hayden, supra note 7.
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.
Bass, supra note 20; Skąpska, supra note 20, Liberal Democracy, supra note 20; Galston, supra note 20.
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.
Id.
Jana Morgan et al., Racial Inequality and Support for Democracy, Pol. Stud. (Dec. 29, 2024), https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217241303638.
Id.
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McKay & Tenove, supra note 21.
Id.; Ercan et al., supra note 21.
McKay & Tenove, supra note 21; Jane Mansbridge et al., A Systemic Approach to Deliberative Democracy, in Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale 11, 12, (John Parkinson & Jane Mansbridge eds., 2012).
McKay & Tenove, supra note 21; Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy 55 (2002).
Ercan et al., supra note 21. Economist Heather McGhee discusses the ways in which racial attitudes impede public support for and implementation of policies that benefit the greater public. See Dave Davies, ‘Sum of Us’ Examines the Hidden Cost of Racism—For Everyone, NPR (Feb. 17, 2021), https://www.npr.org/2021/02/17/968638759/sum-of-us-examines-the-hidden-cost-of-racism-for-everyone.
Thomas Jefferson, Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 526–27 (Julian P. Boyd et al. eds., Princeton U. Press, 1950).
Anya Kamenetz, Q&A with Lani Guinier: Redefining the ‘Merit’ in Meritocracy, NPR (Feb. 20, 2015), https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/02/20/386120632/q-a-with-lani-guinier-redefining-the-merit-in-meritocracy; Carrie Hagen, Lani Guinier: The Civil Rights Litigator Who “Dared to Be Powerful”, LDF Recollection (Sept. 23, 2024), https://ldfrecollection.org/stories/lani-guinier-the-civil-rights-litigator-who-dared-to-be-powerful.
Nida Denson et al., Preparing Students for a Diverse, Deliberative Democracy: College Diversity Experiences and Informed Citizenship after College, 11 Tchrs. Coll. Rec.: Voice Scholarship in Educ. 1–41 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811711900805; Nicholas A. Bowman, Promoting Participation in a Diverse Democracy: A Meta-Analysis of College Diversity Experiences and Civic Engagement, Rev. Educ. Rsch. 29–68 (2011), https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310383047; Nicholas A. Bowman et al., Racial/Cultural Awareness Workshops and Post-College Civic Engagement: A Propensity Score Matching Approach, 53 Am. Educ. Rsch. J. 1556–87, https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216670510.
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Reese & Simba, supra note 50; Joseph, supra note 50; Woodson, supra note 50.
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Rebecca Onion, Hate in the Air, Slate (Apr. 23, 2019), https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/04/citizens-council-radio-forum-tapes-racism.html.
Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9.
Ciaran Ross, Introduction to Sub-versions: Trans-national Readings of Modern Irish Literature 1 (Ciaran Ross ed., 2010); Jill Kastner & William C. Wohlforth, Subversion 101, in A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion 1 (2024); William Rosenau, Introduction to Subversion and Insurgency 4–5 (RAND Corp., 2007).
Joseph, supra note 50.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, 5-39 (Penguin Books, 2020).
Eric Foner, Rights and the Constitution in Black Life During the Civil War and Reconstruction, 74 J. Am. Hist. 74 863–83 (1987), https://doi.org/10.2307/1902157.
Id.; H.R.J. Res. 16, 38th Cong. (1865) [proposing the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution]; H.R.J. Res. 127, 39th Cong. (1866) [proposing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution].
Foner, supra note 59; H.R.J. Res. 127, 39th Cong. (1866).
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1; Legal Def. Fund, Timeline, Recollection, https://ldfrecollection.org/learn/timeline/ (last visited Jul. 20, 2025).
W. E. B. Du Bois, Reconstruction and its Benefits, 15 Am. Hist. Rev. 781–99 (1910), https://doi.org/10.2307/1836959; S.J. Res. 8, 40th Cong. (1868) [proposing the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution]; U.S. Const. amend. XV.
Libr. Of Cong., Reconstruction and Rights, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/civil-war-and-reconstruction-1861-1877/reconstruction-and-rights/ (last visited Jul. 20, 2025); Foner, supra note 59.
Foner, supra note 59; Joseph, supra note 50.
Foner, supra note 59; Joseph, supra note 50.
Du Bois, supra note 15, at 599–602.
Assistant Comm’r for the State of N.C. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Freedmen’s Labor Contracts, Smithsonian Inst. Afr. Am. Museum (Jan. 1865–Oct. 1868), https://www.si.edu/object/archives/components/sova-nmaahc-fb-m843-ref110; Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Labor Contract From the Freedmen’s Bureau Records in Petersburg, Encyclopedia Virginia (Jul. 8, 1865), https://encyclopediavirginia.org/contract/.
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Monroe N. Work et al., Some Negro Members of Reconstruction Conventions and Legislatures and of Congress, 1 J. Negro Hist. 63 (1920), https://www.jstor.org/stable/2713503; Afr. Am. Voices in Cong., Roll Call: Black Members of Congress, https://avoice.cbcfinc.org/roll-call-black-members-of-congress/ (last visited Jul. 16, 2025).
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Currier & Ives, pub., The first colored senator and representatives – in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States, Lib. of Cong. Prints & Photographs Div., https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.17564/ (last visited Nov. 17, 2025).
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Joseph, supra note 50; Winfree, supra note 82; W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 (Harcourt, Brace & Co. N.Y., 1935); U.S. Nat’l Park Serv., Reconstruction in the National Capital Area, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/reconstruction-in-the-national-capital-area.htm (last visited Jul. 16, 2025).
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Du Bois, supra note 84 at 718–20; Joseph, supra note 50 at 11; Reese & Simba, supra note 50.
Id.; Du Bois, supra note 84 at 718–20.
Lawrence D. Reddick, Racial Attitudes in American History Textbooks of the South, 19 J. Negro Hist. 225 (1934), https://doi.org/10.2307/2714214.
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Bruce H. Kalk, Wormley’s Hotel Revisited: Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the End of the Second Reconstruction, 71 N.C. Hist. Rev. 85, 88–91 (1994), https://www.jstor.org/stable/23521324.
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Donald R. Kinder & Lynn M. Sanders, Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals (University of Chicago Press, 1996).
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Onion, supra note 54.
Id.; Neil R. McMillen, The Citizens’ Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64 24 (Univ. Ill. Press, 1994), https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Citizens_Council/5djXaCZwXfQC?hl=en&gbpv=0; Hodding Carter, Citadel of the Citizens Council (Nov. 12, 1961), https://egrove.olemiss.edu/citizens_news/108.
McMillen, supra note 99 at 25 (referencing a quote featured in Jackson Daily News and Clarion-Ledger). Although the Council presented itself as the respectable, non-violent alternative to the Ku Klux Klan, it is important to note that members of the Council did engage in violence against Black Americans and civil rights advocates. The person who shot and killed Medgar Evers in front of his home in Mississippi was a member of the Citizens’ Council. Tell Me More, Mississippi Citizens Councils: What Were They?, NPR (Dec. 27, 2010), https://www.npr.org/2010/12/27/132364641/Mississippi-Citizens-Councils-What-Were-They.
The Kudzu Collection (T/019), Miss. Dep’t of Archives & Hist. (1965-1972), https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/manuscripts/t019; Stephanie R. Rolph, The Citizens’ Council, Miss. Hist. Now (Oct. 2019), https://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/the-citizens-council.
John R. Tisdale, Medgar Evers (1925-1963) and the Mississippi Press (Dec. 1996) (Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. N. Tex.), https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278976/m2/1/high_res_d/1002726709-tisdale.pdf; Professional Agitator Hits All Major Trouble Spots, Jackson Daily News (Frederick Sullens & James M. Ward, eds.) (Aug. 18, 1966), https://www.jofreeman.com/sixtiesprotest/clipping.htm; Carter, supra note 99.
Nat’l Endowment for the Humanities, Arkansas State Press. [Volume] (Little Rock, Ark.) 1941-1959, May 09, 1958, Image 3 (May 9, 1958), https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025840/1958-05-09/ed-1/seq-3/.
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Id.
Id.
Id.
Unita Blackwell, Summer of ‘64: A Mississippi Freedom Fighter Remembers the Struggle, Mississippi Free Press (June 30, 2004), https://www.mississippifreepress.org/summer-of-64-a-mississippi-freedom-fighter-remembers-the-struggle/; Carter, supra note 99; Tisdale, supra note 102; Onion, supra note 54.
Nat’l Endowment for the Humanities, The Detroit Tribune. (Detroit, Mich.) 1935-1966, March 01, 1958, Image 1 (Mar. 1, 1958), https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92063852/1958-03-01/ed-1/seq-1/.
Id.
John B. Williams & Dick Morphew, Racial demonstrations and communists, Citizens’ Council Radio Forum (1963), https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/mss-citizens-council-forum/22/.
Id.
Id.
Edwin Walker, Major General Edwin Walker discusses the communist plan and how it relates to forced integration at Little Rock, Miss. Dep’t of Archives & Hist. (1962), https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/ccffc/detail/530166; Strom Thurmond & Dick Morphew, Communism and Civil Rights, Citizens’ Council Radio Forum (1965), https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/mss-citizens-council-forum/262.
Onion, supra note 54.
McMillen, supra note 99, at 34.
Stephanie R. Rolph, The Citizens’ Council and Africa: White Supremacy in Global Perspective, 82 J. S. Hist. 617 (2016), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43918669.
Citizens’ Council Forum Films Collection, 1955-1966, Miss. Dep’t of Archives & Hist., https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/ccffc (last visited Jul. 23, 2025).
Carter, supra note 99, at 37–38; Rolph, supra note 101; Rolph, supra note 117.
Carter, supra note 99, at 38.
Carter, supra note 99, at 25; Onion, supra note 54; Rolph, supra note 101.
Carter, supra note 99, at 138; Rolph, supra note 117. The Forum resembles present-day broadcast media outlets, like Fox News. See Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting, 122 Q. J. Econ. 1187 (2007, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25098871).
Rolph, supra note 101.
Id.
Carter, supra note 99, at 25; Onion, supra note 54; Rolph, supra note 101.
Carter, supra note 99, at 25.
Sovereignty Commission Online, Miss. Dep’t of Archives & Hist., https://da.mdah.ms.gov/sovcom/scagencycasehistory.php (last visited Jul. 23, 2025); Carter, supra note 99, at 38.
Rolph, supra note 101; Carter, supra note 99.
Id.; Miss. Dep’t of Archives & Hist., supra note 127.
Rolph, supra note 101.
Id. Nixon’s support for “school choice” reforms aligned with the massive resistance movement’s support for publicly funded privatized education. See Kalk, supra note 93. See also Frank Brown, Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and Forces against Brown, 73 J. Negro Educ. 191 (2004), https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129605?seq=2; NAACP Legal Def. Fund, supra note 97; Boushey, supra note 97.
Carter, supra note 99, at 16; Rolph, supra note 101.
Nat’l Endowment for the Humanities, The Miami Times. [Volume] (Miami, Fla.) 1923-Current, October 27, 1956, Image 1 (Oct. 27, 1956), https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83004231/1956-10-27/ed-1/seq-1/.
Carter, supra note 99, at 16; Rolph, supra note 101.
Rolph, supra note 101; Steve Suitts, Separate and Unequal Schools: The Past Is Future, Southern Spaces (May 14, 2024), https://southernspaces.org/2024/separate-and-unequal-schools-past-future/.
Steve Suitts, Segregationists, Libertarians, and the Modern “School Choice” Movement, Southern Spaces (June 4, 2019), https://southernspaces.org/2019/segregationists-libertarians-and-modern-school-choice-movement/.
Id.
B. Drummond Ayres Jr., Academies’ Hold Tightens in South 20, N.Y. Times (Sept. 25, 1975) (reprinted in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis) (on file with author in LDF Archives).
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Joseph, supra note 50; Poor People’s Campaign, Join us as We Build the Third Reconstruction, https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/join-us-as-we-build-the-third-reconstruction/ (last visited Aug. 4, 2025).
See supra fn. 3.
Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, The Obama Coalition in the 2012 Election and Beyond, Ctr. For Am. Prog. (Dec. 2012), https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/12/ObamaCoalition-4-INTRO.pdf.
Joseph, supra note 50, at 13-14, 28-29.
Id.
Larry Buchanan, Quoctrung Bui, & Jugal K. Patel, Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History, N.Y. Times (Jul. 3, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html.
Jamillah Bowman Williams, Naomi Mezey, & Lisa O. Singh, #BlackLivesMatter: From Protest to Policy, 28 William & Mary J. of Race, Gender, & Soc. Just. 103 (2021), https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/2421.
Id.; Elaine Godfrey, The Enormous Scale of This Movement, The Atlantic (June 7, 2020), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/protest-dc-george-floyd-police-reform/612748/.
Gayle Markovitz & Samantha Sault, What companies are doing to fight systemic racism, World Econ. Forum (June 24, 2020), https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/06/companies-fighting-systemic-racism-business-community-black-lives-matter/.
Voting Laws Roundup 2020, Brennan Ctr. For Just. (Dec. 8, 2020), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2020-0; Samuel Absher & Jennifer Kavanagh, The Impact of State Voting Processes in the 2020 Election: Estimating the Effects on Voter Turnout, Voting Method, and the Spread of COVID-19, 11 Rand Health Q. 7 (2023), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10732234/; Sharif Amlani & Samuel Collitt, The Impact of Vote-By-Mail Policy on Turnout and Vote Share in the 2020 Election, 21 Election L. J.: Rules, Pol., & Pol’y 135 (2022), https://www.sharifamlani.com/s/elj-2021-0015.pdf.
Amlani & Collitt, supra note 149.
See supra note 149.
Id.
Eric McGhee, Jennifer Paluch, & Mindy Romero, Equity in Voter Turnout after Pandemic Election Policy Changes, Pub. Pol’y Inst. of Ca. (2022), https://www.ppic.org/publication/equity-in-voter-turnout-after-pandemic-election-policy-changes/.
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Francesca Bolla Tripodi, The Propagandists’ Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy (2022).
Justin Cruickshank & Ross Abbinnett, eds., The Social Production of Knowledge in a Neoliberal Age: Debating the Challenges Facing Higher Education 26 (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2022).
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See id.
See id.
E.g., Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9, at 20, 51, 271.
Tripodi, supra note 155.
Deen Freelon et al., Black Trolls Matter: Racial and Ideological Asymmetries in Social Media Disinformation, Ctr. for Info., Tech., & Pub. Life (CITAP) 40 Soc. Sci. Comput. Rev. 1, 14 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439320914853; Philip N. Howard et al., The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018, Computational Propaganda Rsch Project 39 (Oct. 2019), https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/senatedocs/1.
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William Vaillancourt, Jesse Watters Wades Back Into Birtherism Hours Before Obama’s DNC Speech, Daily Beast (Aug. 20 2024), https://www.thedailybeast.com/jesse-watters-wades-back-into-birtherism-hours-before-obamas-dnc-speech/; Nick Corasaniti, With Roger Ailes Out, Will Fox News’s Influence on Politics Change?, N.Y. Times (Jul. 22, 2016), https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/business/media/with-roger-ailes-out-will-fox-newss-influence-on-politics-change.html.
Zarrugh, supra note 163; Domenico Montanaro, Trump is spreading birtherism falsehoods again—this time about Nikki Haley, NPR (Jan. 23, 2024), https://www.npr.org/2024/01/23/1226406644/trump-is-spreading-birtherism-falsehoods-again-this-time-about-nikki-haley; Jessica Taylor, Donald Trump Goes ‘Birther’ On Ted Cruz, NPR (Jan. 5, 2016), https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462083872/donald-trump-goes-birther-on-ted-cruz; Katie Rogers, Trump Encourages Racist Conspiracy Theory About Kamala Harris, N.Y. Times (Aug. 13, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/trump-kamala-harris.html.
Ryan Quinn, When a U.S. presidential candidate is called a ‘DEI hire’, Inside Higher Ed (Aug. 21, 2024), https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2024/08/21/when-us-presidential-candidate-called-dei-hire; Miles Klee, ‘A Scary Future for Them’: Elon and Pals Turned DEI into Far Right’s New Boogeyman, Rolling Stone (Jan. 11, 2024), https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/dei-diversity-experts-elon-musk-right-wing-opponents-1234944885/.
David E. Sanger, Trump Blames D.E.I. and Biden for Crash Under His Watch, N.Y. Times (Jan. 30, 2025, updated Feb. 1, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/politics/trump-plane-crash-dei-faa-diversity.html; Lisa Hagen & Jude Joffe-Block, California wildfires: Why right-wing influencers are blaming the California wildfires on diversity efforts, NPR (Jan. 10, 2025), https://www.npr.org/2025/01/10/nx-s1-5252757/california-wildfires-dei-diversity-influencers-firefighters; Erin Alberty, Utah lawmaker blames DEI for Baltimore bridge collapse despite cargo ship collision, Axios Salt Lake City (Mar 27, 2024), https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-dei-utah-lawmaker-phil-lyman-misinformation.
Juana Summers, Trump Push To Invalidate Votes In Heavily Black Cities Alarms Civil Rights Groups, NPR (Nov. 24, 2020), http://npr.org/2020/11/24/938187233/trump-push-to-invalidate-votes-in-heavily-black-cities-alarms-civil-rights-group; see Kristine Phillips, ‘Damaging to our democracy’: Trump election lawsuits targeted areas with large Black, Latino populations, USA Today (Dec. 1, 2020), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/01/trump-voter-fraud-claims-target-counties-more-black-latino-votes/6391908002/.
Summers, supra note 170.
Christine Fernando, Election disinformation campaigns targeted voters of color in 2020. Experts expect 2024 to be worse, AP News (Jul. 29, 2023), https://apnews.com/article/elections-voting-misinformation-race-immigration-712a5c5a9b72c1668b8c9b1eb6e0038a.
Onyx Impact, The Black Online Disinformation Landscape 5 (2024), https://onyximpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/onyx_impact_landscape-1.pdf.
Id. at 2.
Jasleen Singh & Sara Carter, States Have Added Nearly 100 Restrictive Laws Since SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act 10 Years Ago, Brennan Ctr. for Just. (June 23, 2023), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/states-have-added-nearly-100-restrictive-laws-scotus-gutted-voting-rights; Fact Sheet: The Impact of Voter Suppression on Communities of Color, Brennan Ctr. for Just. (Jan. 10, 2022), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/impact-voter-suppression-communities-color.
Erin Mansfield & Stephen J. Beard, New ballot-box obstacles: Mapping the states with recent laws that make it harder to vote, USA Today (Aug. 14, 2024), https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/07/28/mail-in-absentee-ballot-voter-id-purges-drop-box-maps/74527270007/.
Id.
Second Am. Compl. at 2, NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund v. Trump, No. :17-cv-05427-ALC (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 20, 2017), ECF No. 66.
Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9, at 240.
Id. at 213, 240.
Id. at 277.
Id.
Gregory Martin et al., Media Consolidation 2 (CESifo, Working Paper No. 11356, 2024), http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4991904.
Zach Metzger, The State of Local News: The 2024 Report, Local News Initiative, https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2024/report/#local-news-landscape.
Id.
Eric Berger, TV giant known for rightwing disinformation doubles down on its national news agenda, Guardian (Jul. 2, 2024), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/02/sinclair-tv-disinformation-conservative-news; Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9, at 276.
Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9, at 240.
See Pew Rsch Ctr., Black Americans’ Experiences With News: Black Americans are critical of news coverage of Black people and say educating journalists would make coverage fairer 45–48 (Sept. 2023), https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep62912.
David Ardia et al., Addressing the decline of local news, rise of platforms, and spread of mis- and disinformation online nn.36 & 38, CITAP (2020), https://citap.unc.edu/news/local-news-platforms-mis-disinformation/; See Howard et al., supra note 162; Freelon et al., supra note 162, at 5; Craig Silverman, An Iranian Disinformation Operation Impersonated Dozens of Media Outlets to Spread Fake Articles, BuzzFeed News (May 14, 2019), https://tinyurl.com/IranFakeNewsBzfd.
Pew Rsch Ctr., supra note 188, at 45.
Kat Tenbarge, Meta’s Moderation Rollback Sparks Celebration and Despair, NBC News (Jan. 7, 2025), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/metas-moderation-rollback-sparks-celebration-despair-rcna186539; see also Liv McMahon, Zoe Kleinman, & Courtney Subramanian, Facebook and Instagram get rid of fact checkers, BBC News (Jan. 7, 2025), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly74mpy8klo; Stuart A. Thompson & Kate Conger, Meet the Next Fact-Checker, Debunker and Moderator: You, N.Y. Times (Jan. 7, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/technology/meta-facebook-content-moderation.html.
But see Sam Levin, Is Facebook a publisher? In public it says no, but in court it says yes, Guardian (Jul. 3, 2018), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-platform-publisher-lawsuit; April Glaser, One in 10 U.S. readers consider Facebook a news outlet, Vox (Feb. 12, 2017), https://www.vox.com/2017/2/12/14592504/facebook-news-outlet-pew-research-one-in-ten-online-media; Michelle Goldberg, Opinion, The Tell-All Book That Meta Doesn’t Want You to Read, N.Y. Times (Mar. 17, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/opinion/facebook-meta-careless-people.html.
Bennett & Livingston, supra note 9, at 80.
Id.
Id.
McMahon, Kleinman, & Subramanian, supra note 191.
Id.; Joel Kaplan, More Speech and Fewer Mistakes, Meta (Jan. 7, 2025), https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/; Kate Conger, Meta Turns to Community Notes, Mirroring X, N.Y. Times (Jan. 7, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/business/meta-community-notes-x.html.
See generally Ulrike Reisach, The responsibility of social media in times of societal and political manipulation, 29 ScienceDirect 906–17 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2020.09.020.
Horne, supra note 15, at 1-4, 6, 8-9.
See, e.g., Kevin Sullivan & Lori Rozsa, DeSantis doubles down on claim that some Blacks benefited from slavery, Wash. Post (Jul. 22, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/22/desantis-slavery-curriculum/; Bella DiMarco, Brooke LePage, & Catherine Dragone, State Legislation Restricting the Teaching of Racial History, FutureEd (Feb. 10, 2021), https://www.future-ed.org/how-states-are-restricting-the-teaching-of-racial-history/; Ileana Najarro, Florida’s New African American History Standards: What’s Behind the Backlash, EdWeek (Jul. 25, 2023), https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-african-american-history-standards-whats-behind-the-backlash/2023/07; Terry Gross, From slavery to socialism, new legislation restricts what teachers can discuss, NPR (Feb. 3, 2022), https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077878538/legislation-restricts-what-teachers-can-discuss.
Interactive Map, CRT Forward Tracking Project, https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/map/ (last visited September 2025).
Press Release, Donald Trump, President, Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling, The White House (Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/; Exec. Order No. 14190, 90 Fed. Reg. 8853 (Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-02-03/pdf/2025-02232.pdf.
See sources cited supra note 198.
Legal Def. Fund, In Defense of Truth, https://www.naacpldf.org/truth/ (last visited Jul. 21, 2025).
Sterling Johnson, Legislating Black History, Petrie-Flom Ctr. (Apr. 10, 2023), https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2023/04/10/legislating-black-history/.
Book Bans, PEN Am., https://pen.org/book-bans/ (last visited Jul. 21, 2025); Mike Cason, Alabama professors, UAB students ask court to block law against DEI, ‘divisive concepts’, AL.com (Jan. 30, 2025), https://www.al.com/news/2025/01/alabama-professors-uab-students-ask-court-to-block-law-against-dei-divisive-concepts.html.
Press Release, Am. Library Ass’n, American Library Association reports record number of unique book titles challenged in 2023 (Mar. 14, 2024), https://www.ala.org/news/2024/03/american-library-association-reports-record-number-unique-book-titles.
See Banned and Challenged Books, Book Ban Data, Am. Library Ass’n, Banned & Challenged Books, https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data.
Critical Race Theory Forward, Interactive Map, UCLA Sch. of L., https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/map/ (last visited Nov. 3, 2025); Press Release, Nat’l Ctr. for Educ. Stat., NCES Data Show Public School Enrollment Held Steady Overall From Fall 2022 to Fall 2023 (Dec. 5, 2024), https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_5_2024.asp.
Solutions: Our Plan, Rebuild Local News, https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/solutions/our-plan/ (last visited Jul. 21, 2025).
S. 2434, 117th Cong. (2021), https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2434.
Solutions: Our Plan, supra note 210; Local Journalism Sustainability Act, 116th Congress, Rebuild Local News, https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/kirkpatricknewhousesummary.pdf.
Solutions: LJSA, Rebuild Local News, https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/ljsa/.
2023 NY Assembly Bill A02958, https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A02958&term=2023&Summary=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y; 35 ILCS 18/40-1 (2024 State Bar Edition), https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=4512&ChapterID=8.
Solutions: Our Plan, supra note 210; Steven Waldman, A Replanting Strategy: Saving Local Newspapers Squeezed by Hedge Funds, Ctr. for Journalism & Liberty, https://www.journalismliberty.org/publications/replanting-strategy-saving-local-newspapers-squeezed-by-hedge-fund.
Sunita Sohrabji, Advocates Say State’s $10 Million Fund for Ethnic Media Is “Great Start”, Special to California Black Media, Observer (Jul. 22, 2021), https://sacobserver.com/2021/07/advocates-say-states-10-million-fund-for-ethnic-media-is-great-start/.
Id.
Id.
The Power of the Press, Nat’l Museum of African Am. History & Culture, https://www.searchablemuseum.com/the-power-of-the-press/ (last visited Jul. 21, 2025); Hayden, supra note 7, 82–88 (2024); see also Kerri K. Greenidge, Holding a Mirror up to Nature: William Monroe Trotter, the Boston Guardian, and the Transnational Black Radical Press, 1901–19, 141 Radical History Review 107–27 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-9170738.
Why Black Media Matters Now, Ctr. for Comm. Media, https://blackmediareport.journalism.cuny.edu/ (last visited Apr. 21, 2025).
Overton, supra note 12; Onyx Impact, supra note 173, at 3–5; Andrea Cerase & Claudia Santoro, From racial hoaxes to media hypes: Fake news’ real consequences, in From Media Hype to Twitter Storm 333–54 (Peter Vasterman, ed., 2018), https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctt21215m0.20.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A47899e54b60f7e89164f8f9dc2c65c6b&ab_segments=&initiator=&acceptTC=1; see generally, Howard et al., supra note 162; Freelon et al., supra note 162, at 5.
Onyx Impact, supra note 173, at 8.
The Power of the Press, supra note 219; A Red Record. Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894, N.Y. Pub. Library, https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/beginnings/item/3548 (last visited Jul. 21, 2025).
Annika Sehl, Public Service Media as Pivotal in Combating Misinformation and Disinformation: Prerequisites and Approaches, 39 European J. Comm. 582–94 (Dec. 1, 2024), https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231241294185; Minna Horowitz & Marius Dragomir, It’s about trust: Public service media and disinformation, Pub. Media All. (Aug. 21, 2024), https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/its-about-trust-public-service-media-and-disinformation/.
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Id. at 216–17 (footnotes omitted).
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David Folkenflik & Deirdre Walsh, Trump asks Congress to wipe out funding for public broadcasting, NPR (June 3, 2025), https://www.npr.org/2025/06/03/nx-s1-5418080/pbs-npr-trump-rescission-public-broadcasting.
See Deirdre Walsh & David Folkenflik, House votes to kill funding for public media, NPR (June 12, 2025), https://www.npr.org/2025/06/12/g-s1-72223/public-media-funding-up-in-the-air-as-house-prepares-to-vote-on-claw-backs.
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Michael Davis & Sacha Molitorisz, Promoting rights and accountability in the regulation of misinformation, 30 Australian J. of Hum. Rts. (2024), https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2025.2466862.
Caroline Atkinson et al., Recommendations to the Biden Administration: On Regulating Disinformation and other Harmful Content on Social Media 9 (Harv. Kennedy Sch., Mossavar-Rahmani Ctr. For Bus. & Gov’t Faculty Working Paper Series No. 2021-02, 2021), https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/publications/fwp/2021-02.
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What it Is, Why it Exists, and How it Harms Multi-Racial Democracy

Jahdziah St. Julien

Published January 2026

Types of Disinformation

iJoseph R. Hayden, PhD, refers to people who spread disinformation as “disinformationists.” Joseph R. Hayden, A History of Disinformation in the U.S. (Routledge 2024).

Constructing a New Conceptual Framework for Racial Disinformation

Reconstruction Eras

Part 1

Racial Disinformation Indirectly Threatens Democracy

The Relationships Between Racial Disinformation, Racial Ideology, and Racial Hierarchy

Racial Disinformation Undermines the Democratic Principle of Equality

Racial Disinformation Erodes the Democratic Practice of Collective Deliberation

In 1778, Thomas Jefferson singled out education as the most effective defense against tyranny, the antithesis of democracy.

Photo: A member of the Black Student Union at the University of California, Berkeley, at a meeting to discuss how to improve life for Black students, staff, and teachers on campus. (Photo By Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Part 2

Racial Disinformation During the First, Second, and Third Reconstruction Erasii

The History of Racial Disinformation in Media: A Story of Change and Continuity

Anti-Black Racial Disinformation

Case Study

The First Reconstruction Eraiii

1865–187758

Illustration depicting free Black men voting in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo via Getty Images)

Southern Redeemers Reported False Accounts of Black Voter Fraud in Newspapers

ivNote that “Democrat” and “Republican” had different meanings during the nineteenth century. These political parties changed over time, and they are not the same as the current political organizations that bear the same names.

The Infiltration of Racial Disinformation Into Education Reinforced Anti-Black Racial Ideology and Racial Hierarchy

Case Study

The Second Reconstruction Era

1954–1968

Students in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, protest segregation while holding a sign reading "We Resolve to Stand Up in the Face of Intimidation." (Photo via Getty Images)

Segregationists Falsely Portrayed Civil Rights Activists as Existential Threats to Political Order and National Security

Segregationists Spread Racial Disinformation Through Print, Radio, and Television

Racial Disinformation’s Influence on Education Undermined Equality and Collective Deliberation

Case Study

The Third Reconstruction Era

2008–Present

Photo: Demonstrators gather to protest the killing of Daunte Wright by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 17, 2021. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Ethno-Racial Nationalists Spread Racial Disinformation

Racial Disinformation Portrays Black Politicians as Unfit to Govern

Racial Disinformation Portrays Black Voters as Fraudulent

More than 150 years after the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed all men the right to vote, and sixty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act strengthened voting protections for all, LDF continues to challenge efforts to mischaracterize Black voters as contributors to voter fraud.

Racial Disinformation Is Spreading as the Information Ecosystem Is Eroding

Figure 1

Figure 2

190Pew Rsch Ctr., supra note 188, at 45.

The Infiltration of Racial Disinformation Into Educational Spaces

Figure 3

Part 3

Recommendations for Disrupting Racial Disinformation

1. Federal and state lawmakers should utilize tax benefits to incentivize both the establishment and support of local news outlets.210

2. Federal, state, and local policymakers should subsidize media outlets that serve Black communities and other racially marginalized communities.

3. Federal lawmakers should reinstate the ability of both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and federal agencies to fund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

“I therefore instruct the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

– Executive Order 14290, issued on May 1, 2025

4. Federal policymakers should levy what media policy and politics scholar Victor Pickard, PhD, calls a “public media tax” on the revenues of social media companies that facilitate and benefit from the spread of disinformation.230

5. State and local lawmakers should preserve the integrity of public education by passing laws that guarantee access to historically accurate curricula and inclusive learning materials.

Conclusion

ⁱJoseph R. Hayden, PhD, refers to people who spread disinformation as “disinformationists.” Joseph R. Hayden, A History of Disinformation in the U.S. (Routledge 2024).

Racial Disinformation During the First, Second, and Third Reconstruction Erasⁱⁱ

The First Reconstruction Eraⁱⁱⁱ

1865–1877⁵⁸

^ivNote that “Democrat” and “Republican” had different meanings during the nineteenth century. These political parties changed over time, and they are not the same as the current political organizations that bear the same names.

¹⁹⁰

1. Federal and state lawmakers should utilize tax benefits to incentivize both the establishment and support of local news outlets.²¹⁰

4. Federal policymakers should levy what media policy and politics scholar Victor Pickard, PhD, calls a “public media tax” on the revenues of social media companies that facilitate and benefit from the spread of disinformation.²³⁰