Although kindergarteners aren’t literally colorblind, they are quite adept at practicing colorblindness. The typical five-year-old in a kindergarten class is much more interested in making a friend who enjoys the same toys than they are in making assumptions about their peers based on the color of their skin or the religion their family practices.

This isn’t to say that children won’t naturally pick up on society’s biases as they age or encounter questions about American history or inequality. These issues may indeed demand some analysis of race, gender, class, or other identity categories. For students at higher grade levels, it is more than appropriate to introduce complex lessons and discussions about these thorny issues.

But why in the world does the state of Oregon think it’s a good idea to ask children at such an early stage of cognitive development to divide their classmates into sociological categories?

A five-year-old isn’t a social scientist. If you tell them that their skin color places them at a certain level in a social hierarchy, they’re likely to become anxious and afraid—especially towards classmates who check different identity boxes. There is a danger that children will come to identify strongly with racial labels and start segregating themselves based on them.