As if to prove itself a bastion for Marxist ideology, California became the first state in the union to require Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a high school graduation requirement — though the left is going to great lengths to claim the coming compulsory ethnics studies curriculum addition is not CRT.
Assembly Bill 101 added a highly controversial one-semester “Ethnic Studies” course to the mandatory high school curriculum.
“Ethnic studies courses enable students to learn their own stories — and those of their classmates,” Governor Gavin Newsom wrote in a statement about signing the bill on Friday.
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Williamson M. Evers criticized the new curriculum due to it being “permeated” with material that is “racially divisive and burdened by faddish ideology” according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.
The bill’s author, Assemblymember and Chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee Jose Medina cheered the new requirement on in a tweet, calling it a “struggle” to add the ethnic studies coursework.
We did it! I am pleased to announce that #AB101, our Ethnic Studies bill, has been signed by the @CAgovernor. Thank you to my colleagues, students, and numerous advocates who have been apart of the struggle to add #ethnicstudies to our school curriculum. #iamethnicstudies pic.twitter.com/m7JKEBKK7G
— Jose Medina (@AsmJoseMedina) October 8, 2021
Republican legislators were not as enthusiastic about the bill that promotes the flawed idea that the United States is an inherently racist nation and divides people as oppressed and oppressors according to race.
Assemblymember Kevin Kiley (R), a former gubernatorial candidate in the recall race against Gavin Newsom, criticized the bill in a tweet.
Gavin Newsom has signed a bill to make CRT a high school graduation requirement, two years after saying the draft ethnic studies curriculum would “never see the light of day.”
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) October 8, 2021
A similar measure was returned without signature by the leftist governor last year along with a statement calling it “insufficiently balanced” after Assembly Bill 331 was widely condemned by critics for being bigoted and bias, but the governor defended the new bill in his statement.
“I appreciate that the legislation provides a number of guardrails to ensure that courses will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students,” Newsom wrote. “The bill also expresses the Legislature’s intent that courses should not include portions of the initial draft curriculum that had been rejected by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.”
The new bill requires that school boards hold a public hearing on the curriculum before implementation and calls on districts to avoid material that was taken out of the original draft bill.
Proponents of the bill denied it would require CRT to be taught in California high schools.
No he didn’t. The requirement is for one class of ethnic studies. Could lead to CRT, but that’s not CRT.
— Robert Steiner 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@MrSpocksApostle) October 9, 2021
Ethnic Studies isn’t CRT
— Jake Romero (@jake_romero_) October 10, 2021
However, the California Department of Education adopted the teaching guide for the course in March that frequently uses the term “racism” and explains CRT in a footnote that “it acknowledges that racism is embedded within systems and institutions.”
The guidelines outline the “values and principles” of the coursework including a call to “critique empire-building in history and its relationship to white supremacy, racism and other forms of power and oppression,” and calls to “conceptualize, imagine, and build new possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic racism society that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance, critical hope and radical healing.”
Several sample lessons are provided including one on “#BlackLivesMatter and Social Change,” which is themed around “equity” and includes key concepts like “racial profiling, oppression and police brutality.”
Although the bill requires the new course to be required for students graduating as early as 2030, several California school districts have preemptively implemented Ethnic Studies requirements for their students. The current coursework tends to focus on racism and somehow connects racism to the women’s suffrage movement.
Despite AB 101 being touted as free from bias and bigotry, critics found the revised curriculum equally offensive, with one calling it “divisive official brainwashing.”
Divisive official brainwashing.
— Peter Thibault (@Peter_Thibault) October 9, 2021
Public school is dead.
— Piers Bella Vita (@PiersBellaVita) October 9, 2021
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
- Watch: Suspect hits unsuspecting NYC man in back of the head with a baseball bat – in broad daylight - December 4, 2022
- Uber-hawk John Bolton says Trump’s ‘act is old and tired now,’ calls for ‘next generation’ of Republicans - November 27, 2022
- ‘Big yikes!’ SNL cold open mocking Biden and Dems over midterms painfully unfunny - November 6, 2022
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
BPR INSIDER COMMENTS
Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!
