RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/14/america-has-an-existential-civics-education-crisis-that-more-civics-education-will-only-make-worse/

This entire fight is over whether Americans will live under the original Constitution or its bastardized enemy. The civics curriculum battle is key to who will win that war, and the left has the upper hand.

As leftists push for greater control of what children learn about American history and how Americans define their civic responsibilities, a majority of Americans support more “civics education,” an interesting new Heritage Foundation survey finds.

“[T]wo-thirds of parents and nearly three-quarters of teachers share a strong desire to see greater emphasis on civics education. Indeed, interest in civics education among parents has increased substantially over the past five years. However, only around one-third of each group are satisfied with the type of content included in their schools’ civics education,” says the report, which Gabe Kaminsky exclusively reported here.

This datapoint might be taken by some Republicans and right-branded institutions to support an effort underway branded as a “bipartisan” push to “increase civics education.” Look, something about which most Americans can agree amid a time of bitter cultural divides!

The problem with this takeaway is that it is neither supported by the rest of the report, the context into which it is released, the history of American public education, nor the increasingly clarifying realities of America’s current cold civil war.

Stanley Kurtz and the National Association of Scholars have done yeoman’s work exposing the national “civics education” agitation as a leftist play for increased political power. In short, here’s the problem this report underscores about that political background: Most Americans may want more “civics.” But they do not at all agree what “civics” means.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/supreme-court-shows-interest-in-harvard-anti-asian-affirmative-action-case/

This was another uneventful morning at the Supreme Court, with two uncontroversial decisions (one unanimous, one split between 9–0 and 8–1 decisions in two related cases) involving the First Step Act and the felon-in-possession statute. But the big news came in case number 20-1199, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Court has yet to decide whether it wants to hear the case, but this morning, it asked the Biden administration to file an amicus brief setting forth its views of the case. Cases in which the Court asks the Solicitor General for such a brief are not always taken by the Court, but they are much more likely to end up on its docket.

While there is little doubt that the administration will side with Harvard, its position could be politically sticky, and the case could be explosive. The petition asks the Court to overrule its pro-“diversity” rationale for allowing universities to consider race in admissions:

 (1) Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions; and (2) whether Harvard College is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing Asian-American applicants, engaging in racial balancing, overemphasizing race and rejecting workable race-neutral alternatives.

Roger Clegg has set forth the argument for why the Court should hear this case, and it now has the Court’s attention. The case involves blatant discrimination against a group of non-white, historically discriminated-against group (Asian Americans) who have been the subject of much recent attention over anti-Asian hate crimes. Democrats have been very touchy about being forced to admit that they support Harvard’s discrimination. The Biden administration dropped an investigation into anti-Asian discrimination at Yale. Democrats rejected, by a 49–48 vote in the Senate, a Ted Cruz amendment saying that no college “may receive any Federal funding if the institution has a policy in place or engages in a practice that discriminates against Asian Americans in recruitment, applicant review, or admissions.” Congressman Ted Lieu erupted in anger at a hearing in March when Peter Kirsanow raised the issue. Hardly anything is nearer and dearer to Asian-American parents than educational opportunity. Democrats are understandably hesitant to openly admit that they support discrimination against Asian Americans in that very area. But they do.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/crt-invades-the-law-schools/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

For many years, law schools have been moving away from teaching the nuts and bolts of our legal system and toward what Professor Charles Rounds of Suffolk Law School calls “bad sociology, not law.”  I have spoken with veteran lawyers who wring their hands over the fact that so many graduates have had their heads stuffed with dodgy theories but have difficulty with legal fundamentals.

Things are getting worse, as critical race theory invades the law schools. On her Dissident Prof blog, Mary Grabar has posted an excellent piece by Professor Matthew Andersson on the harm of CRT.

Andersson writes, “CRT, along with BLM, is a pleading tool: a position taken up by an organized — or more accurately by an incited — coalition of individuals and institutions opportunistically advancing a synthetic complaint in the public forum, especially through media, universities, and government organizations. These are needed to create the impression that their argument has an historical basis and  possesses moral weight. The sufficiently articulated demands can be seen as a path to both social and legal relief through remedies of financial damages and restitution, and through policy that codifies its demands and interests — despite any constitutional violations.”

This “pleading tool” is one that will do a great deal more damage to our concepts of equality under the law.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-revolt-against-left-wing-schooling/

The struggle ongoing in public schools reflects a battle between the historic nation and the ideological nation.

I n the past few months, we’ve seen teachers resigning their positions with fiery letters denouncing the “tribalism and sectarianism” that is overtaking traditional liberal education. We’ve seen parents taking the stage at their local board of education meetings to denounce their school for “emotionally abusing our children” and “demoralizing them by teaching them communist values.” The 1619 Project from the New York Times was turned almost immediately into material to be included in school curricula — a really killer play at a new income stream. And several red states have worked up legislation to ban variations of “critical race theory” or the endorsement of “divisive concepts” in history curricula. We have parents denouncing anti-racist parents’ associations as “Chardonnay antifa.”

Let’s just tick off a few things right at the top. The fact that these debates involve children almost guarantees that they will be the subject of moral panic and hysteria. And we should say that, in these curriculum debates, there is a great deal of deception, hiding the ball, talking past each other, often deliberately. A school district might propose an “anti-racist pedagogy” and parent-critics will respond that they don’t want “critical race theory” taught in school. The district’s defender will reply, haughtily, “We’re not teaching graduate seminars on the thought of Professor Derrick Bell.” Parents will complain that teachers are smuggling in trendy concepts about “white fragility” or “whiteness.” And teachers will fire back, “These parents don’t want us to teach that slavery was racist.” Finally, and most unhelpfully, someone will pipe up to say, “Who really remembers what they taught you in tenth grade anyway?”

Besides the fact that it involves children, this conflict is hot for two other reasons. First, precisely like police reform, it involves a public-sector union that certain members of the community feel is staffed and run by fundamentally hostile people who cannot be trusted to safely carry out their mission — even if given new and tough strictures and training.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/critical-race-theory-opponents-win-board-elections-at-nations-top-high-school/

A group of anti-critical race theory candidates this week won seats on the governing body of the nation’s top high school after campaigning against the school’s racially driven admissions practices.

As part of the district’s push for diversity and inclusion, Fairfax County Public Schools scrapped the admissions test for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in October, and two months later, adopted a quota system to boost black and Hispanic enrollment numbers. A slate of four candidates opposed to the school’s recent embrace of “equity” won seats on Thomas Jefferson’s Parent Teacher Student Association.

Activists who wanted to eliminate Thomas Jefferson’s test requirement also pushed for implementing “antiracism” and critical race theory-based initiatives district-wide, according to a series of emails uncovered in December. President-elect Harry Jackson, the first black man to lead the association, told the Washington Free Beacon that if left unchecked, critical race theory will tear communities apart.

“It’s teaching that white people are inherently racist,” Jackson told the Free Beacon, “teaching that other children are there to oppress you. This is not the way to go.”

Parents across the country have organized against schools’ embrace of “woke” standards and practices. Anti-critical race theory candidates have won school board seats in two Dallas suburbs. Parents in Indiana criticized one school district’s promotion of racially divisive resources, including works from “antiracism” scholar Ibram X. Kendi and an article on how white women play a “role in racial (in)justice.”

Coalition for TJ, a nonpartisan group of parents opposed to the district’s leftward sprint, supported Jackson. They also backed Jun Wang, Himanshu Verma, and Hanning Chen, who were elected second vice president, treasurer, and corresponding secretary, respectively. Fairfax County Public Schools did not reply to the Free Beacon’s request for comment in time for publication.

The Fairfax County School Board made headlines in October when they eliminated the STEM-focused high school’s merit-based entrance exam. The board set a cap on the number of students that could attend Thomas Jefferson from each of the district’s middle schools, in an attempt to boost black and Hispanic enrollment.