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This is only true in the academic setting because the totalizing approaches to Critical Race Theory completely overwhelm the more cautious ones that might exist in the literature, as they would. No version of CRT has any defense against the totalizing ones. That is, bullshit. https://twitter.com/ProofofBurden/status/1391079567717109760
This is very typical of the mistake almost always made by academics who think that their ideas are OK because if the most judicious and careful people use them in the most informed and reasonable way, i.e., how they view themselves, then there's no problem. It's extremely naive.
A great parallel example is the Critical Theory of Gender, which posits that gender (but not sex) is a social construct. You'll notice that the full-blown critical constructivist model in trans ideology has bulldozed that completely, and they have no real defense.
Gender-critical feminism (aka TERFland) thinks it can hodl the line with gender being regarded a social construct but sex being recognized as biological, and they just get ROLLED by more aggressive, less tolerant critical constructivists. Same with this claim about CRTs.
The reason for this is that once you diverge from reality at all, you're in trouble, and once you take on a Critical Theory at all, you're screwed, because Critical Theories have no built-in brakes whatsoever. Their brakes are 100% how responsible the users are.
It might be true that some very judicious academic Critical Race Theorists can use the stuff responsibly (this isn't really proved very well as they're nearly all cynics), but once it gets on the streets, that's all done. Or if just less judicious (hack) academics take it up.
Built into every Critical Theory approach is the ability to claim that anyone who uses it judiciously isn't actually using it judiciously but is retaining some "internalized" bias or false consciousness that leads them to continue upholding the "status quo," at least in part.
To say that there are variants of CRT that aren't totalizing is therefore to leave oneself open to being accused of failing to take the Critique far enough and thus holding conscious or unconscious ignorance/interest in maintaining some aspect of the status quo.
For a Critical Theory, there's only one endpoint: the complete abolishment of whatever it considers the status quo. Anything, like judicious application, that might uphold any shred of that so-called "status quo" in the mind of a total loon is therefore problematic.
As a result, Critical Theories might have variants that aren't totalizing, but the totalizing variants that destroy everything will always beat them. They have no defense against these because their own logic demands they recognize their own limits as problematic.
Academics, in thinking themselves smarter than basically everyone else, almost never understand this and thus tend to unleash the most dangerous and idiotic ideologies onto the world, not least by defending nicer versions even as the full-strength ones put them against the wall.
