Last month, in a shocking display of mob violence, hundreds of teenagers took to the streets in Chicago, smashing car windows, firing guns, and even assaulting innocent bystanders. It’s a scene that has become all too familiar throughout the country in recent months amid a youth crime wave that has devastated families and communities and revealed a stunning lack of moral foundation in our youngest generation.
While many Americans are rightfully demanding that political leaders do more to end the lawlessness and punish offenders – including ending the war on police – city halls and state legislatures can only put a Band-Aid on a much deeper problem. When it comes to youth crime, if we want to end the violence in our streets, we must start raising the standards in our schools.
There is no denying that the American education system is failing students – especially students in low-income, urban areas. In Chicago, 18 schools had zero students who rated as proficient in either math or reading in 2022. In Baltimore City Public Schools, 90% of students are not proficient in math, and 80% of elementary students are not proficient in English. The graduation rate is just 69%.
Some districts have given up entirely on improving learning outcomes. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, teachers are simply handing out higher grades even as fewer and fewer students meet state testing standards.
Frederick Douglas High School in Baltimore. Nearly half of the high school students in Baltimore City Public Schools earned below a 1.0 GPA during the first three quarters of the 2020-2021 school year. (Baltimore City Public Schools)
Politicians, especially on the left, have been quick to blame pandemic for these alarming figures. But the hard truth is our schools were failing long before COVID-19. In 2019, prior to the lockdowns, just 37% and 32% of students rated as proficient in reading and math, respectively, across all of Illinois. In 2018, 140 New York City schools had at least one grade where more than 90% of students failed state competency tests.
It’s not a question of funding, either. Baltimore City Public Schools ranks fourth nationally in funding on a per-student basis. The New York City education budget was 89% above the national average last year – $37,000 per student. In total, the federal government distributed $190 billion to schools in COVID-19 relief funds.
So why is student achievement continuing to slip, going hand-in-hand with a precipitous rise in violence both in and out of classrooms?
One big reason is that schools have stopped teaching hard skills like reading and math and are instead peddling left-wing grievance politics like critical race theory and radical gender theory. CRT teaches kids – especially Black kids – that racial minorities are marginalized in this country, and that lashing out in acts of violence and looting are ways of “leveling the playing field.”
The so-called “equity” agenda is a particularly sinister aspect of this worldview. In schools, “equity” means lowering the bar for all students in order to manufacture the same outcome for everyone, destroying merit and any incentive for high achievement along the way.
CRT and “equity” training teach kids the lie that concepts like rationality and hard work, rather than forming the bedrock of a happy and prosperous life, are “racist” and don’t matter anyway because success or failure is pre-determined by skin color, gender, and sexual orientation.
This lie is especially harmful for Black and low-income kids, who are the primary targets of the far left’s classroom indoctrination campaign.
Many such students often lack a stable family life, and in particular a father in the home – another major driver of poor academic performance and lawless children. Without the solid moral grounding that strong families provide, kids in the school system are at the complete mercy of evil and twisted ideologies that encourage division and violence along racial and class lines.
One big reason is that schools have stopped teaching hard skills like reading and math and are instead peddling left-wing grievance politics like critical race theory and radical gender theory.
This has predictably led to the complete erosion of any form of discipline in our schools, and by extension our streets. If Black students believe that they are doomed to be victims of an irredeemably racist and corrupt society, is it any surprise that they have no interest in school and are prone to acts of destruction and violence?
Meanwhile, school staff and even law enforcement officials have been effectively neutered by liberal politicians who view punishment for wrongdoing as just another relic of a “systemically racist” society.
The results of this moral corruption of an entire generation of kids are truly tragic – even more so because they were avoidable. Last year, nine kids under 17 were killed between 2 and 5 p.m. on school days in Chicago. In New York City, 124 kids under 18 committed shootings in 2022. Other crimes like carjackings are also on the rise among young people, while violence inside of schools is at an all-time high.
Addressing these problems starts first and foremost in the home. We desperately need to change the culture of fatherlessness in this country, particularly in the Black community, and return faith to a central place in our lives.
We also need to purge our schools of the divisive ideologies that are seeding resentment and self-loathing in our young people. Groups like 1776 Action, which I am proud to work alongside, are doing heroic work to achieve this goal, and their Parent Power Pledge is helping voters know which politicians will fight for change once elected.
As I have seen in my own ministry and outreach, there is hope for the future. With the right approach, we can still save many young people from destroying themselves and their communities. But it’s going to take bold leadership, accountability for failing officials, and a commitment to education, not indoctrination, in our schools.
Pastor John K. Amanchukwu Sr. is an influential preacher, author and activist who spreads God’s truth zealously and without fear. He is a senior fellow at 1776 Action and author. See www.ERACEDBOOK.COM.
Arizona’s largest elementary school district has shifted course, voting to allow students from a Christian university to teach there once again, Alliance Defending Freedom announced Thursday.
“This is a complete vindication of the rights of our students to be able to participate as student-teachers in a public school district without fear of religious discrimination” said Arizona Christian University President Len Munsil in a statement.
The Washington Elementary School District voted 5-0 March 9 to end an arrangement in which ACU students completed their student teaching and practical coursework at WESD, as TheBlaze reported. Board members at the time cited ACU’s stance on lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage as presenting an “unsafe” condition.
After Alliance Defending Freedom sued WESD, the board apparently saw the error of its ways, with four of its five members voting at Wednesday night’s meeting to enter a new agreement with ACU. The district was slapped with $25,000 in attorneys’ fees as part of the settlement.
Wearing cat ears to a February 23 WESD meeting, board member Tamillia Valenzuela expressed her opposition to ACU students helping mitigate the national teaching shortage and recruitment difficulties.
“At some point, we need get real with ourselves and take a look at who we’re making legal contracts with and the message that is sending to our community. Because that makes me feel like I could not be safe in this school district,” Valenzuela said.
Valenzuela was referring to ACU’s promotion of “Biblically-informed values that are foundational to Western civilization, including the centrality of family, traditional sexual morality, and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.”
Another WESD board member, Kyle Clayton, alleged at the February meeting that “proselytizing is embedded into how they teach.”
“There are plenty of Christian denominations that are LGBTQ friendly,” Governing Board President Nikkie Gomez-Whaley said prior to ADF’s lawsuit, adding that for her, “this is not a concern about Christianity.”
Wait, wait, wait. What kind of person feels “not safe” in a school just because Christian university students are teaching children? What worldview these university students have, are NOT being taught in the grade schools. They are just teaching the basics, not the woke indoctrination of the LGBTQ+ agenda.
What does this say about the woke culture today? Is the LGBTQ+ agenda so important, that dumbing down our children is of no concern?
One lawsuit and two months later, WESD is singing a markely different tune.
“We obtained everything we wanted in this new agreement, without any sacrifice or compromise to our beliefs and our university’s religious purpose. We look forward to a continued beneficial partnership that serves ACU student-teachers and the students, faculty, and staff of the WESD,” ACU President Munsil also said.
“By discriminating against Arizona Christian University and denying it an opportunity to participate in the student-teacher program because of its religious status and beliefs, the school district was in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention state law that protects ACU’s religious freedom,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman.
WESD released a statement to KNXV-TV on having “mutually agreed to resolve their dispute.”
“We are pleased that the case against the WESD has been dismissed. We look forward to continuing the work of creating welcoming and accessible education spaces that meet the needs of our students, staff, and community,” Governing Board President Nikkie Gomez-Whaley said in the statement.
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Remember when we all went around saying “it takes a village to raise a child”? I do.
I remember hearing Whitney Houston belt it out—
I believe the children are our are future Teach them well and let them lead the way Show them all the beauty they possess inside Give them a sense of pride to make it easier Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be Everybody searching for a hero People need someone to look up to….
I grew up on that message. And you can bet your bottom dollar I tried to raise my kids as part of a village that loves and supports them. But instead of learning basic human goodness, leftists have decided to use education to destroy our children.
CRT, unicorns, and other works of fiction.
It’s bad enough that CRT infiltrates public schools with its revisionist history and racist undertones. But leftists just had to add unicorns and gender benders. It’s a terrible web that traps the masses.
Critical race theory is an idea that originated in universities and law schools under the name “critical theory”. Its supporters added “race” in the 1970s, clever scoundrels that they were.
The addition of RACE bastardized a 1930s European theory birthed by communist academics. They knew that RACE would SELL this nonsensical concept. Further, they knew that Blacks in America would readily buy the concept.
The communists of the time targeted Blacks due to our LEGITIMATE grievances. Because Blacks during this time were treated as second-class citizens. That treatment led to angst in the Black community. Thus, many Blacks succumbed to the communist ideology. They believed we would all be treated equally; that’s the lie communism proposes.
The objective of Critical Race Theory was to tear down, even erase the history of ideas that created Western culture. Particularly American Western culture.
America was too good for its own good, the communists believed. Too good to be true. So they put her to the test. For decades, America proved that capitalism and free markets work; moreover, Marxism and Communism fail.
Tenets of CRT reject ideas such as a “color-blindness” and even advancement based on meritocracy. Black people aren’t successful in America because they work hard and dismiss the noise of the Left. They succeed by pure luck.
In other words, CRT doesn’t value people by the content of their character, nor does CRT value hard work. Ibram X. Kendi wrote: “The language of color blindness … is a mask to hide racism.”
Unbelievably, CRT openly criticizes the Civil Rights movement; a movement that created millions of successful Blacks in America.
While CRT acknowledges the success of individual Blacks in America, ironically, it criticizes successful Blacks for joining the system. The theory puts Blacks in a no-win situation. CRT supporter Derrick Bell alludes that successful Blacks “are passing” as whites. Because being successful according to Bell, is succumbing to the white man’s orthodoxy.
We could try to ignore the inconsistencies and idiocy of the flawed concepts of CRT. However, we do so at our peril. Because CRT impacts all areas of society. CRT demoralizes K-12 students. And if it hasn’t sunk in by the end of K-12, CRT attacks in college, polarizing higher ed students.
Post-college, CRT guilts working Americans and condones “cancel culture”. In the end, CRT stokes grievances with the purpose of creating victims.
A proponent of Critical Theory, Herbert Marcuse, famously wrote, “All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude”. And like a cult, the CRT revolution enslaves the minds of the people who adopt it. And the concept is blatantly and unapologetically racist.
When racism wasn’t enough to divide America, leftists brought in the unicorn.
Parents are no longer the ultimate authority when teaching their children about race, sexual preference, or even gender. Instead, our kids are taught to ditch their God given pronouns and choose their gender.
If a kid feels saddled with a penis they don’t really like, the school is willing to step-in and help the child obtain hormone therapy in preparation for a sex change. No parental consultation necessary. Yet, you need to sign a permission slip for your kid to go the zoo or a museum. Seriously folks! How are these asinine hypocrisies not glaringly evident to those who put these leftists in charge of our schools? I’m not even going to dive into the boys playing girls’ sports– we’ll just save that for another day. Because today, I stumbled across a headline that literally made me want to throw up.
This morning, the Fox News website had this to say:
West Virginia teacher who raped freshman kept ‘Top 10’ list of most attractive students: lawsuit
Lawyers said Ronald Paul Harris may have sexually abused other victims, and the school district allegedly “turned a blind eye”.
A now-convicted pedophile raped a freshman while he was a teacher in a West Virginia school district. That district and the school’s former principal are now facing a lawsuit for allegedly “turned a blind eye” to the ongoing abuse.
Ronald Paul Harris, who is now 63, admitted in criminal court to molesting a 14-year-old student while he was a history teacher and basketball coach at Oak Glen Middle School in Hancock County, West Virginia.
…
“This case is a parent’s worst nightmare,” said Mary Pat Statler, who’s representing E.H. (the victim) and her parents, along with P. Zachary Stewart.
“To learn that your child was groomed and sexually abused by a teacher is beyond awful. It’s made even more terrible knowing that the administrator at the time of the abuse was in a position to stop the abuse or prevent future instances of abuse and instead turned a blind eye.”
Harris pleaded guilty last September in criminal court to sexual abuse by a person in a position of trust and is serving a 10- to-20-year prison sentence and must register as a sex offender. As part of the deal, five other felony charges were dropped.
The details are so disturbing, I feel the need to warn you.
Parents in a Texas school district are demanding answers from school officials after first-graders allegedly forced their 6-year-old classmate to perform a sex act while they filmed it despite a teacher being in the classroom.
Parents and community members angered by the situation at Plainview South Elementary School in Plainview gathered outside the administrative office of the Plainview Independent School District (ISD) on Monday, according to the Plainview Herald, which noted the protest swelled to as many as 30 people throughout the day.
Family members of the girl involved are planning another protest at 6 p.m. Friday at local Broadway Park, local NBC affiliate KCBD reported.
“A 6-year-old was exposed to things that even adults would have a hard time overcoming,” a protesting parent of another student at the elementary school told the Herald. “This is trauma at its worst, and it is a trickle-down effect because it affects everyone around them.”
Parents and community members angered by the situation at Plainview South Elementary School in in Plainview, Texas, are demanding answers from school officials. (Google Maps)
Parents who were protesting Monday reportedly learned about the alleged April 19 incident after the school district called the parent of the first-grade girl. After receiving the call from the district, the child reportedly told her family that another student had pressured her to perform a sex act.
Heather Gonzales, an older cousin of the 6-year-old girl, told KCBD that the girl’s family noticed a sudden change in her behavior amid indications of distress and complaints of a stomach ache.
The girl reportedly revealed that a boy had exposed himself to her in the school lunch line and that she had also been pulled under a desk and pressured to perform a sex act while another student recorded with a district-issued iPad.
“She said she was hitting him with the poetry book,” said Gonzales, noting that the video showed her cousin did her best to fight back. The girl reportedly claimed the incident did not stop “until they let me go.”
Students play outside Plainview South Elementary School in Plainview, Texas. (Plainview South Elementary School/Facebook)
Gonzales claimed the school district has not provided adequate answers.
“Everything was ‘no comment, I cannot tell you, no comment,’” Gonzales said. “So, you mean to tell me abuse has been happening for a week and a half and these kids are still at the same desk? My cousin is still at a desk with all boys, having to see her abusers every day?”
The students have reportedly since been moved to separate classrooms.
Plainview ISD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez told KCBD that the school made a report and contacted Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) when school officials discovered video of the incident a day after it happened. He said a state investigator came to Plainview the next week and has been working with local law enforcement.
“He had asked that we hold confidentiality because he wanted to be sure that he was able to get the full story from each of the students, the minors, that were involved,” Sanchez said. “All of the steps that we’re required to take, we took.”
The district also released an extensive statement explaining that because minors are involved, “the school system must be very careful in the information it provides,” according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
The statement assured that Sanchez, assistant superintendent Yesinia Pardo and South Elementary principal Jennifer Hughey “have visited with the parents/guardians of families involved in a recent incident at South Elementary that is under Child Protective Services and law enforcement investigation.”
The statement also noted that the alleged incident “occurred away from the full vision of the teacher” while she was working with other students.
When the teacher collected the students’ iPads the next day, she noticed one of them had been locked with a password and took the device to the campus administrator. “Inappropriate content was discovered” on the iPad after a tech from the technology department unlocked it, according to the district.
The teacher involved has since been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, the district said.
“My daughter comes home with bruises and rashes if she doesn’t participate in these little boys’ sick games.”— Plainview South Elementary School parent
Parents who spoke to the Herald during the Monday protest outside the school district’s administrative office claimed the incident with the 6-year-old is not an isolated one.
“There have been multiple moms coming out about stuff that has been happening all year and nothing is being done about it,” one parent said. “It’s hit its peak and that’s why we’re here today, to get answers.”
“My daughter comes home with bruises and rashes if she doesn’t participate in these little boys’ sick games,” another parent at the protest said. “They will punch her, give her Indian burns, they’ll call her names and cuss at her.”
Other parents at Plainview South Elementary claimed the alleged incident with the 6-year-old girl is not an isolated one. (iStock)
“You can’t have your kids in a classroom like that,” one parent said. “You’re worried about the education they are receiving and what they are being exposed to. A lot of parents have parental controls on what their kid is able to watch and see at this age, and we do all of that just for them to go to school and be exposed to stuff they should’ve never seen.”
A spokesperson for Plainview ISD told Fox News Digital that “CPS is continuing its investigation, and we continue to cooperate with CPS and law enforcement, by their request we are not able to comment any further than we have shared.”
Jon Brown is a writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to jon.brown@fox.com.
Image source: Middleborough Educational Television YouTube channel screenshot
A middle school student who says he was sent home for wearing a T-shirt that said “there are only two genders,” bravely, brilliantly, and bluntly addressed the matter at a Middleborough Public Schools Committee meeting.
“I never thought that the shirt I wore to school … would lead me to speak with you today,” 12-year-old Liam Morrison said, having lowered the microphone to deliver his statement.
Young Liam is a seventh-grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, Fox News Digital reported.
Liam explained that he was taken out of gym class in March for what turned out to be a “very uncomfortable talk.” He said two adults told him the shirt he was wearing was making some people feel “unsafe” and that he would have to remove it to return to class.
The preteen said that though he was told he was not in trouble, it felt like he was.
When he said he did not want to remove his shirt, school officials called his father to pick him up, according to Liam’s account.
“Thankfully, my dad supported my decisions,” Liam said.
“What did my shirt say? Five simple words: There are only two genders. Nothing harmful, nothing threatening. Just a statement I believe to be a fact.”
Then Liam got to the heart of the matter, and the young, bespectacled gentleman held nothing back.
“I was told that my shirt was ‘targeting a protected class.’ Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights?”
Liam said he didn’t complain when he saw diversity posters and pride flags in the school “because others have rights to their beliefs just as I do.”
Liam said no students or staff told him they were bothered by what he was wearing. To the contrary, he said. Some students said they supported him and wanted a similar T-shirt.
Despite being told his shirt was a “disruption to learning,” Liam said no one stormed out of class or burst into tears.
“I experience disruptions to my learning every day. Kids acting out in class are a disruption, yet nothing is done,” Liam said. “Why do rules apply to one but not another?”
“I feel like these adults were telling me it wasn’t OK for me to have an opposing view.“
“Their arguments were weak, in my opinion,” Liam said, briefly looking up from his papers, directing his gaze at the adults on stage.
“I have learned a lot in this experience. … I learned that adults don’t always do the right thing or make the right decisions.”
“I know I have the right to wear a shirt with those five words. Even at 12 years old, I have my own political opinions and I have a right to express those opinions, even at school. This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
“I hope you will speak up for the rest of us so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class,” Liam concluded, thanking the committee for its time.
Watch 12-year-old Liam Morrison address the Middleborough Public Schools Committee meeting starting at 09:40 below.
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Conservative commentator Liz Wheeler was met by dozens of protesters Wednesday evening when she arrived to a Virginia college to deliver remarks about “transgenderism” and its impact in America.
The protest kicked off ahead of Wheeler’s arrival on the campus of James Madison University, where she delievered a speech, “The Ideology of Transgenderism,” and was challenged by a number of her detractors in attendance.
Wheeler, a podcast host who often sounds off on topics critical to the conservative agenda, was invited to speak at the event by the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter.
The demonstrators, all of whom appeared to protest peacefully against Wheeler’s appearance on campus, were captured on video gathering outside and inside the venue as they displayed signs and chanted ahead of the event.
Liz Wheeler, a podcast host who often sounds off on topics critical to the conservative agenda, was invited to speak by the JMU Young Americans for Freedom chapter. (Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images, Liz Wheeler)
Wheeler responded to footage of the protesters prior to taking the stage, writing in a tweet: “Queer Theorists are lying to you. They don’t care about you. They’re using you to push their Marxist political agenda, and when they’re done abusing you, they’ll throw you away. You deserve more.”
Queer Theorists are lying to you. They don’t care about you. They’re using you to push their Marxist political agenda, and when they’re done abusing you, they’ll throw you away. You deserve more. https://t.co/S1wSSt3GDu
While several protesters gathered outside the venue, others gathered inside, just outside the room where Wheeler was slated to speak. Those demonstrators also displayed signs that featured messages protesting Wheeler’s appearance on campus and in defense of transgender people.
“Love and kindness are my family values! Moms for Trans rights,” one handcrafted poster stated. “Dukes against bigotry,” another sign said, making reference to the school’s nickname.
Wheeler took aim at “queer theory” during her speech, concluding it allows people to “choose your identity” and forgo your “evil identity” of being a certain race because it’s a “marginalized identity.”
“You can choose a marginalized LGBTQIA identity that will become your primary identity over the color of your skin,” Wheeler said. “The only thing that the queer theorists demand in return is that you surrender to them your identity, your body, your mind, your spirit, your soul, your family, your religion and your country. If this gives you the chills, it should. Because this is what’s happening across our country.”
Wheeler was also challenged by those who had opposing views about transgenderism at the event after she finished speaking. (Young Americans for Freedom)
Inside the event, Wheeler was also challenged by those who had opposing views about transgenderism after she finished speaking.
“Because you said the left is basically trying to fearmonger a lot of people, couldn’t people argue that you’re doing the same by claiming that people are trying to destroy the family and like mutilate people’s genitals and stuff,” one individual in attendance for the event asked.
“Well, is it or is it not true that children’s genitals are being mutilated in the name of transgender ideology,” Wheeler said in response.
“Do you have proof of that,” the individual responded.
“Oh, I’ve Googled plenty, yes,” the attendee said.
Responding to the initial question, Wheeler said “there’s a difference between warning people about the reality of what’s happening” and “pretending that someone’s words” are hurtful.
Wheeler went on to describe to the individual how sex change surgeries are performed on young males in America and how some sex change surgeries have resulted in death because they are “so dangerous.”
A Fox News Poll released this week found that 48% of respondents believe overly accommodating transgender policies are a major problem for public schools.
A letter from a Vermont school district to parents expressed a policy change to use “gender inclusive phrases” in place of words like “boy” and “girl” in a curriculum unit about human reproduction. The letter appeared on social media and went viral.
“It is time for our science/health unit about the human body focused on puberty and the human reproductive systems. This unit will take place during the last few months of school,” read the letter from Founders Memorial School Principal Sara Jablonski.
“In an effort to align our curriculum with our equity policy, teachers will be using gender inclusive language throughout this unit. With any differences, we strive to use ‘person-first’ language as best practice,” she added.
The letter outlined some examples of the new politically correct language.
“Person who produces sperm in place of boy, male, and assigned male at birth,” the letter explained.
“Person who produces eggs in place of girl, female and assigned female at birth,” she added.
The letter said the curriculum was going to “focus on the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty” and also introduce the “basic structure and function of human reproductive systems.”
Many were extremely critical of the new policy and called on parents to pull their kids from schools and homeschool instead.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Stop it. Stop focusing on sex and gender and focus on EDUCATION. No wonder kids are confused. No wonder they lack grammar skills. No wonder they are lost. They go to school to learn. You can’t learn in that word salad environment. Homeschool your kids in VT,” read one response on Twitter.
The letter was widely circulated and garnered almost 60k views in less than one day.
Here’s more about the transgender school agenda:
Megyn Kelly: Why I Took My Son Out of His School www.youtube.com
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AU.S. district court judge ordered University of Wyoming sorority sister plaintiffs to reveal their names in a lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma’s University of Wyoming chapter for allowing a transgender-identifying man to be inducted.
According to local news, “The six sorority sisters sued the Kappa Kappa Gamma’s parent organization, its president and the school’s first transgender sorority member late last month in a closely watched case. They alleged that the sorority did not follow its bylaws and rules, failed to uphold its mission, breached its housing contract with members, and misled them by admitting a transgender student.” The plaintiffs filed the suit anonymously as “Jane Does” and assigned the pseudonym “Terry Smith” to the trans-identifying sorority member.
Patsy Levang, a member of Independent Women’s Network’s North Dakota Chapter and former Kappa Kappa Gamma National Foundation president, told The Federalist that the plaintiffs asked for anonymity twice out of fear of “retribution,” but the judge denied their requests. Concerns for the women’s safety have become extra heightened after college swim athlete Riley Gaines was attacked by transgender radicals at San Francisco State University. According to Levang, one of the original seven plaintiffs left the case after the judge’s decision.
“These are young, young women — between 18 and 21, and we want to do nothing to jeopardize their safety,” said Levang, who added that the girls will have “guaranteed” security at all times during public appearances.
‘An Erection Visible Through His Leggings’
If the lawsuit is unsuccessful, transgender-identifying man Artemis Langford, who was admitted into the sorority in 2022, will move into the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter house in the fall of 2023.
The lawsuit states that Langford is 6’2’’ tall, weighs 260 pounds, has not undergone any apparent chemical or surgical trans medical interventions, and rarely attempts to look like a female. It also reveals that the female plaintiffs feel extremely uncomfortable around Langford, who has allegedly engaged in bizarre and even “threatening” behavior, such as staring at the women without talking for hours, asking inappropriate questions, and at one point having “an erection visible through his leggings.”
During the recruitment process, Langford “avoided answering questions about his hobbies, passions, or involvement in other organizations,” according to the lawsuit. Instead, it says, he inquired about whether he could live in the sorority house and “talked about his desire to be near cadavers and to touch dead bodies.”
“One sorority member walked down the hall to take a shower, wearing only a towel. She felt an unsettling presence, turned, and saw Mr. Smith watching her silently,” the lawsuit reads. The suit also alleges that Langford “repeatedly questioned the women about what vaginas look like, breast cup size, whether women were considering breast reductions and birth control.”
During a yoga class sponsored by the Panhellenic Union for sorority members at the University of Wyoming, Langford allegedly “sat in the back of the room for an hour and watched the assembled women flex their bodies.” The suit also alleges that Langford has repeatedly used his phone to covertly take pictures of the women in the sorority house without their consent.
When one plaintiff raised her concerns about Langford, chapter officials — under the direction of national leadership — gave her materials so she could “educate” herself. And a witness in the case was allegedly “threatened with discipline if she does not agree that [Langford] is a woman.”
‘Intimidated’ into Inducting a Man
The plaintiffs said they were “intimidated” into inducting Langford into the sorority, and according to reports about the lawsuit, officers and employees from the national organization “actively pressured members of the chapter to support [Langford’s] admission to the sorority, ignoring bylaws and standing rules that would have foreclosed his initiation.” The voting process was also allegedly altered for Langford, and he was not admitted via secret ballots, as is standard practice.
The lawsuit contends that instead of following official bylaws, Kappa Kappa Gamma admitted Langford based on a 2018 “Guide for Supporting Our LGBTQIA+ Members,” which says the sorority accepts both “women” and “individuals who identify as women.” After the lawsuit was filed, Kappa Kappa Gamma Executive Director Kari Kittrell Poole reiterated the sentiments within the guide, telling the Associated Press that the sorority does not discriminate based on so-called gender identity.
However, the collegiate plaintiffs disagree with Poole on what it fundamentally means to be a woman. “An adult human male does not become a woman just because he tells others that he has a female ‘gender identity’ and behaves in what he believes to be a stereotypically female manner,” they said.
“[Kappa Kappa Gamma] has been a place that values the good, the true, the beautiful, the leadership growth in women,” Levang told The Federalist. Levang made it clear she doesn’t oppose Langford’s decision to identify as a woman. She does, however, oppose the destruction of female-only organizations, the integrity and politicization of her former sorority, and the safety of the University of Wyoming Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters.
“I look at those young women, and I think they deserve at least what I was afforded,” said Levang. “This whole thing takes single-sex organizations and just throws it out the door. It’ll literally destroy [women’s spaces]. But then I think the overall plan is to destroy the level that women have gained.”
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
Conservatives who ran on culture war issues won dozens of school board elections in battleground and Democrat-controlled states last week, but you wouldn’t know that from Politico’s coverage of the races. The outlet claimed pro-parent candidates who ran against racist curricula in classrooms, lockdowns, and radical gender ideology “flamed out.”
Politico not-so-subtly concluded, based on recent school board election results in Illinois and Wisconsin, that “leaning on school-based wedge issues to court primary voters in a crowded White House campaign” won’t bode well for 2024 front-runner Republicans including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not yet announced his candidacy.
Not long after publication on Monday, the article gained traction with leftist talking heads and organizations such as Rachel Maddow, the Lincoln Project, the nation’s largest teachers union, and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who were thrilled to share about the potential demise of the issues that made them a target of public scrutiny for the last three years.
“Parents, educators, and community members are all looking for candidates who are committed to strengthening public schools, not abandoning them,” the National Education Association’s elections arm tweeted.
The public school activists were specifically thrilled that the publication’s education reporter, Juan Perez Jr., pointed to Democrat wins in recent school board elections as evidence that the right’s culture war issues were a brief and unsustainable phenomenon.
“General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe,” Perez Jr. asserted.
“General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe,” For your information Mr. Perez Jr., in 2023, The Federal Government is funding $45 BILLION for public schools. With approximately 49.7 million students enrolled in public schools in 2023, that’s a whopping $9,375.00 per child. How many PRIVATE SCHOOLS COST LESS, WITH SUPERIOR SCHOLASTIC RESULTS AND SUPERIOR SECURITY?
He evidenced this claim by noting that Democrats and teachers’ unions in both Wisconsin and Illinois celebrated the wins of many of their preferred candidates in the more than 100 races they endorsed. Many of those wins came in districts in or near Democrat stronghold cities such as Chicago and Milwaukee, but that didn’t stop the author from concluding that Republicans “lost big.”
Perez Jr. included data from political action committees that clearly showed candidates on the right claimed several victories but discounted those results by claiming that at least “two conservative national education groups did not dispute that their candidates posted a losing record.”
Just seven paragraphs into the article, Perez Jr. included a half-sentence quote from 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky — “We lost more than we won” — that seemingly backed up his belief that these results “offer lessons to both parties as they eye even more board elections this year.”
“We had an hour-long conversation. [Perez Jr.] left it to one edited half sentence,” Girdusky told The Federalist.
Poorly framing quotes from Girdusky wasn’t Perez Jr.’s only mistake.
Leaning in
Leftist school board wins may have dominated corporate media coverage, but there’s no denying they were rivaled by dozens of triumphs by conservative-backed school board candidates who ran on fighting the radical racial and LGBT indoctrination infecting the nation’s government schools.
Overall, school board candidates endorsed by Girdusky’s 1776 Project PAC won 30 out of their 63 races.
Our endorsed candidates also won 6 races in Illinois last night.
“The seats that we did lose in Illinois were because of a third-party conservative candidate. So it wasn’t that conservatives lost, we split the vote,” Girdusky explained. “It wasn’t a rejection.”
Politico’s article fails to mention this nuance — likely because it would undermine the article’s purpose.
Winning nearly half of the elections it participated in is not “losing big,” especially when readers consider that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Democrats, and their teachers’ union allies in both Wisconsin and Illinois outspent conservative challengers by hundreds of thousands of dollars. They also got a helping hand from corporate media, which gave supporters of left-wing school board members plenty of TV time to help protect eligible seats from pro-parent candidates.
Handpicking the results from one off-year election and selling it as gospel truth about the future of culture war issues in local and national politics isn’t just incredibly ignorant. It’s deliberately deceitful and helps teachers’ unions keep their monopoly on making decisions about children’s lives that should fall under parents’ jurisdiction.
Whether corporate media like it or not, conservative messaging on education resonates with voters and has done so for years now. In 2021, dozens of parents concerned about the rise of racist curricula in government schools curried enough support to secure landslide victories against left-wing incumbents in states such as Texas, Kansas, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and many more. The same momentum was found in 2022 in states like Wisconsin.
Perez Jr. can repeat the prevalent lie that conservatives simply “seized on transgender students to rejuvenate a social agenda,” but the truth is even he couldn’t deny that parents’ frustration with the education bureaucracy is responsible for changing the course of countless elections including Virginia’s gubernatorial race in 2021.
Contrary to what Perez Jr. and his sullen quotes from “GOP activists” would have you believe, the organizations propping up pro-parent candidates aren’t backing down from the culture war. As Girdusky said: “I think that there’s clearly a message there that education is an important issue that Republicans can overperform in substantially.”
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
From high interaction with homeschooled families and graduates in multiple environments, professional and personal, I’ve definitely noticed differences.
Homeschooling rose to 1 in 10 American kids in 2021 due to lockdowns, and the number has remained high even as lockdowns abated. Most families who began homeschooling due to lockdowns say they don’t plan to go back.
Despite the steady increase in homeschooling since its revival in the 1980s, families who choose this way of raising their children often face fearful responses from family and friends. Chief among the concerns is what people often call “socialization.” Sometimes, they mean, “Will your kids have any friends?” Other times, they mean, “Will your kids understand social cues and how to get along with normies?”
Yes, you can find homeschooling kids who dress oddly and don’t know how to carry on a basic conversation. But you can find people like that anywhere. As anyone who attended a public school can confirm, people who can’t make eye contact and are otherwise antisocial persist in that environment, too.
From high interaction with homeschooled families and graduates in multiple environments, professional and personal, I’ve definitely noticed differences. On balance, these differences tend to favor homeschoolers. Here are just seven I’ve observed that are also often obtainable in small schools.
1. Independent Thinking
It’s common for the “good” kids in public school to work hard to learn what the teacher wants and give it to her. They have a tendency to become compliers. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
Now, homeschooled kids often also want to please Mom and Dad, but the ability to negotiate with a parent in ways one can’t with a teacher often encourages mental independence. They have freedom to read widely and extra free time in which to develop and personalize their sense of self. They also tend to get more long conversations with their parents because of homeschooling’s extremely small class sizes.
All these cultivate independent habits of thought. They teach people to develop their interests and personalities, and to follow arguments all the way to their conclusions. These things also teach students to spend time comparing and contrasting ideas for real, in a way that shapes one’s soul for life, not as a human version of ChatGPT.
Homeschoolers are also used to being unusual. They’re used to being asked questions like, “Do you have any friends?” and given the cold shoulder by public-school kids at events like sports and family gatherings.
Sometimes this turns a homeschooled kid desperate and makes him more peer-dependent, especially if he’s a sociable child and doesn’t spend enough time with friends. So he’s desperate for friends and therefore works overly hard to conform to negative peer pressure. I’ve seen this also with conservative kids. They accept peers’ or culture’s shaming and rejection of their social differences and therefore can more easily turn into antagonists against their own group.
Thus we have entities like Homeschoolers Anonymous, which argues that because some homeschooling families are abusive, homeschooling rather than the family is the problem. (You don’t hear that same argument about public schooling, which has a far higher rate of child abuse than homeschooling does. But I digress.)
If parents observe and address these social dynamics, mostly by helping their children find friends who build them up instead of savage their family’s choices, homeschoolers do tend to emerge into adulthood as independent thinkers. They tend to be quite comfortable with nonconformity, bringing new perspectives into their communities. This strengthens our society, especially now, as political correctness is metastasizing into a totalitarian social credit system.
2. More Practice with Multi-Age Relationships
Since they are so strongly family-oriented, homeschoolers break out of our society’s artificial, factory-school model of corralling people with those who happen to be born in the same calendar year. Homeschooled kids are far more comfortable making friends with anyone, not just those their exact same age.
They drop by for tea at the old lady’s down the block (true story). Bigger kids play comfortably with babies and toddlers. They know how because they have little siblings and cousins they are around more often because they’re not in school all day. This makes many homeschoolers even more socially capable than peers who falsely believe that one can only be friends with a person who looks and acts just like them. It expands their horizons and their relationship skills.
Freedom from same-age exclusivity has academic benefits as well as social benefits. Everyone understands that no person is exactly mentally on track with every other person his age. An 8-year-old may be strong in math but weak in spelling, compared to those of his age. Homeschooling allows the flexibility to meet children academically outside of the “average” peer.
Being too far ahead of one’s class makes bright kids bored, and being too far behind his class makes struggling students despair. Teaching right at a person’s actual level instead of his artificially imposed level is the most effective instruction possible.
3. More Prosocial Habits and Expectations
For decades, parents have moved to the suburbs to raise their kids because they didn’t want their children in environments shaped by poverty. As Thomas Sowell and others have chronicled, America’s urban and rural poor share many antisocial behaviors that keep them down and drag others with them. These include higher rates of violence and nonmarital sex and other coarse and life-damaging behavior such as openly disrespecting authority.
Homeschooling takes the protection of moving to the suburbs a step further. That’s an increasingly prudent step as our entire culture seems hell-bent on downward mobility.
Simply the widespread adoption of smartphones for children immediately degrades entire social ecosystems such as schools, because children are too immature to handle attention-destroying notifications and open internet access. Ten-year-old girls don’t need to see pornographic drawings and get propositioned to join a threesome because their badly parented peers watch YouTube videos of lesbian sex (true stories — from the suburbs).
In an environment like this, sometimes the only possible way to ensure your child actually has a childhood is to homeschool. It would be better if our society decided to protect children from living in social cesspools like this, but most of our parents and institutions have so far refused. That leaves it up to sane parents and churches. Homeschooling is one way to allow children an innocent childhood so they encounter this world’s violence and sex when they are ready.
4. Better Ability to Choose Friends
It’s always been prudent to select one’s companions carefully. Friends strongly affect who you are. Families who pay $50,000 a year for so-called “elite” private schools and then send their children to morally bankrupt Ivies know this. Their values are degraded, but the underlying impetus is correct: One’s companions can determine the course of one’s entire life. This is true for adults and even more so for children.
The thing about public school is that anyone can and does go there. We don’t live in the 1950s, when one could more reliably count on both the average parent and most institutions to be sane and responsible.
Today’s average parent is checked out and lets his kids be mentored by creepy strangers on the internet and other kids who are mentored by creepy strangers on the internet. Today’s average institution is run by apathetic box-checkers whose lack of moral fiber tends to let antisocial people and woke inmates turn everything into an asylum.
This means parents today can’t count on most other people to encourage their families toward the good. Sending children to public school (and allowing them unsupervised internet access) not only prevents parents from carefully selecting their children’s major influences but also ensures their impressionable children will repeatedly encounter sick perversions they are too immature to handle.
Homeschooling (and private schooling) families have far greater control over their companions than do those who allow our degraded public square to mess with their kids’ minds, and therefore can more intentionally manage this key determinant of a family’s character.
5. Better Family Relationships
A complaint I often hear about homeschooling that unintentionally reveals its speaker’s lack of character is: “I just couldn’t be with my kids all day long!” Parents shouldn’t avoid helping their kids mature by farming out their parenting to others. Others don’t do as good a job of it as parents will. It’s also an abdication of their responsibility that has bad consequences for them, their children, their community, and all of society.
Yes, children are annoying. Every person is annoying sometimes. Mature adults realize we’re also annoying sometimes and that a currently annoying person will usually get over it. This isn’t a children problem, it’s a people problem.
Yes, children can be more directly annoying than adults because they are more actively driven by their passions. That’s one top characteristic of immaturity. Yet kids’ natural immaturity isn’t worse because it’s more obvious than most adults’.
When an adult seeks arousal, he might use internet porn, blast loud music in public spaces, or zone out on a video game. A child seeking arousal might wander around whistling or run in circles around the kitchen. He might bang the same song on the piano 20 times a day or tease his sister 30 times just to get a reaction (guess how I came up with these examples).
But Jordan Peterson is right that kids are mostly as annoying as their parents allow them to be. Some parents allow their children to maintain habits of complaining, whining, arguing with parents when they say no, teasing siblings, or fighting. Other parents build and enforce appropriate behavior boundaries in their family life.
By putting family members in more constant direct contact with each other, homeschooling gives parents increased opportunities for character building and habit formation. If parents do this work, it definitely pays off. It also tends to pay off both short- and long-term.
Children who are required by active parents to daily practice self-discipline tend to become better adults — better fellow citizens, better parents, better neighbors, mothers, and fathers. Unlike unparented children, they are also mostly a pleasure to be around — just like adults.
6. More Creative Hobbies and Entrepreneurial Instincts
Because they don’t have to waste so much time being controlled as part of a herd in large classes and schools, homeschoolers tend to have a lot more free time that they don’t spend watching TV. This makes homeschoolers extremely creative and active people, on average, which lends itself to entrepreneurial instincts.
With all the free time they gain from not having to move at a pace constrained by 22 other people, homeschoolers tend to develop strong hobbies and skills. The average homeschooler is involved in more than five community activities such as piano lessons, scouts, and karate, and is more likely to volunteer than public-schooled kids, according to studies.
Cultivating personal interests is not only good in itself, but it also leads to other goods, such as a penchant for social and economic entrepreneurship. Homeschooled students are used to being self-directed and managing their own time and interests. That makes them more likely to develop their own creative pursuits and I think explains why there are so many homeschooling families running high-traffic channels on YouTube.
7. A More Individual Personality
Some combination of the high personalization and high control of one’s time in homeschooling, as well as the lack of personality flattening that comes from harsh peer pressure, seems to make homeschoolers often very much more developed individuals. This reality is a bit ineffable, partly because it’s so varied in its expression.
While most people seem to come out of public schools slotted into some mass marketing consumer profile — punk, valedictorian, LGBT, SJW, jock, geek, nerd, or some other role defined and assigned by corporate conglomerates — homeschoolers tend not to fit into these kinds of boxes very easily.
Partly I think it’s because they have less awareness that these boxes even exist, because of their lower exposure to mass media through both screens and peers. Partly I think it arises out of their years of freedom to deeply explore nooks and crannies of human existence that aren’t part of mass culture, like Victorian clothing, historical re-enactment replicas, or Scottish literature.
Sometimes this reality manifests in slight oddities, like wearing nonstandard clothing, taking longer pauses in a conversation (or being more likely to monologue at people), knowing swing and folk dance steps, and not getting pop culture references. But I prefer these kinds of oddities to encountering a bearded man in a dress or to hearing some crappy song blare out of someone’s speakers that sounds essentially like every other crappy song that has blared out of speakers since the 1960s.
This also makes homeschoolers really interesting people to talk to. They have actual interests in their lives and unusual ways of seeing the world because more of their ideas haven’t come to them via the dreary mass marketing that in our society badly substitutes for legitimate culture. So no, often homeschoolers don’t act like zombies who download their brains from the corporate cloud, but that’s a good thing.
A California mom is outraged after her daughter’s school district upheld a “parental secrecy policy” allowing school officials to offer gender counseling without informing parents.
Aurora Regino said her 11-year-old daughter’s elementary school in the Chico Unified School District helped her transition from female to male during the last school year, but a guidance counselor kept her in the dark during the entire process.
“During one of the meetings, my daughter told the counselor she wanted to tell me about her new identity. They ignored her request and did nothing to support her in letting me know what was going on at school,” she told board members at a meeting last Wednesday.
The board weighed a measure that would allow for “more parental inclusion” but ultimately voted to keep the existing so-called “parental secrecy policy” in place with a 3-2 vote.
“It was a really sad decision that they made, but unfortunately I wasn’t extremely surprised,” Regino told “Fox & Friends First” host Todd Piro on Tuesday.
“This policy that they have in place, to keep these situations a secret from the family, is incredibly damaging. It was extremely damaging in my case with my daughter. She was bullied and she didn’t have the support that she needed from her family and, also, she was outed within the school with other people within the office knowing her new gender and pronouns that she didn’t even tell them, and she had to go through those feelings of wondering how they even knew all on her own.”
California mom Aurora Regino speaks to her daughter’s school board ahead of a vote offering more transparency for parents. (Chico Unified School Board of Education)
Regino, who is suing the district for keeping her in the dark about her daughter’s identity and transition, lambasted the policy as “incredibly dangerous” and said the struggle to advance parental rights in the area had been hard-fought.
She told Piro her daughter is doing well, but she is determined to speak out on behalf of her family and others with similar experiences, so everyone knows what is taking place in public schools.
“When this originally happened to our family, nobody could’ve ever told me that this was going on, especially at the young age of elementary school,” she said.
The policy that board members voted to uphold, according to Regino, extends to children as young as pre-kindergarten who are approximately five years old and reaches through the 12th grade.
“It’s incredibly damaging that they’re upholding such a crazy policy for such young children,” she continued after a moment, arguing that such a tumultuous time in children and adolescents’ lives is when they need parental guidance the most.
It is clear that state-sponsored SEL violates the U.S. Constitution in its attempt to infuse the religious science of ‘right human relations’ into education while cloaking it in secular language.
Social-emotional learning will soon become spiritual-ethical learning, and the public school systems will decide whose spiritual and ethical beliefs to teach.
For families that care about raising their children with the moral and religious values of their own faith tradition, questions about which spiritual and ethical teachings should be taught prompt even more speculation about whether so-called social-emotional learning (SEL) should be taught in public education at all.
As the theory adopts spiritual and ethical dimensions, it will amount to state-sanctioned religion.
What Is SEL, and How Has It Changed?
Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a mental-health framework that has woven itself into the very fabric of our education system. Standards, assessments, curricula, and even college and career readiness standards have been altered to teach, measure, and track students’ adoption of SEL’s five core competencies — put forth by its standard-bearer, the Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL).
Since its birth in 1994 at the Fetzer Institute and up until 2020, CASEL’s definition of social-emotional learning and its competencies have relatively stayed the same. It described SEL as “the process through which children acquire the skills to recognize and manage emotions, develop caring and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships, and handle challenging situations effectively.”
In 2020, amid the chaos of the global pandemic and racial riots, CASEL quietly updated that definition and its five core competencies. Its new definition of Transformative SEL and adjusted competencies reflect the view that so-called social and emotional learning needs to be taught through a racial and “equity” lens.
SEL lessons and the subjects addressed through them act as both a springboard and smokescreen for activist teachers to have discussions about race, sex, and class that aim to create a critical consciousness in children. Once they are led to believe the systems of society have been set up to oppress specific groups of people, students can be coached to become social-justice activists who show their empathy and compassion by tearing down the systems of society in order to build ones that are more “equitable.”
In this vision, “equitable” means equal outcomes through the redistribution of resources, not equal opportunity under the law. The whole purpose of social-emotional learning has therefore been changed to explicitly “address issues such as power, privilege, prejudice, discrimination, social justice, empowerment, and self-determination” with the goal of developing “justice-oriented, global citizens.”
Spirituality Through SEL
As if this departure from its original purpose were not destructive enough, social-emotional learning is undergoing another revision — one that will seek to address the spiritual needs of students as a part of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), WSCC claims to create a comprehensive school health approach by fostering collaboration among the public health and education sectors through the integration and alignment of their services, far beyond hearing and vision screenings.
These public-private partnerships will take other medical and mental health services that are generally rendered out of school and facilitated by parents and caregivers and instead allow them to be offered as aid provided by the school so the needs of the “whole child” can be met. Spirituality will soon be seen as one of those needs.
🧵The CDC expands into education via the WSCC model of Community/Healthy Schools. They want children accessing psycho-social-emotional, medical, sexual, reproductive, dental, and eye services at school. They are collecting data, expanding Medicaid, and removing parental consent. pic.twitter.com/mDaXv5Nd4U
Recently, there has been an influx of SEL programs in the market that incorporate spirituality into their lessons. The Fetzer Institute, along with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Dr. Lisa Miller from Columbia’s Teachers College, launched the Collaborative for Spirituality in Education. Fetzer’s support of research on the spiritual aspects of childhood development led to the social-emotional learning program, “What Makes Me: Core Capacities for Living and Learning.”
Released in collaboration with UNICEF and the Learning for Well-being Foundation — a “Whole Child Partner” committed to advancing the WSCC model worldwide — it addresses nine core capacities that are believed to protect and improve the lives of children based on the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
Both children’s ‘evolving capacities’ and ‘children’s spiritual well-being’ are key parts of achieving multiple children’s rights, as outlined in the UNCRC. The evolving capacities of the child are mentioned in both Article 5 and Article 14.1 in regard to children being able to exercise their own rights (Article 5), and their freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 14.1). Moreover, Articles 17, 23.3, 27 and 32 … recognize spiritual well-being as a goal of these rights alongside physical, mental and moral well-being, among others.
“What Makes Me” seeks to teach spirituality through SEL as “a more active and engaged process in which some persons choose to shape and create a way of knowing and living that may or may not draw on religion” and as something that involves the conscious choice to explore life’s “big questions.”
The UNCRC also states that children have sexual rights from birth and should be able to learn about sexual behaviors as young as age 5 through Comprehensive Sexuality Education, including the idea that sex is not binary or immutable. One must wonder if the “spirituality” they intend to impart to children as a fundamental “right” is a wide acceptance of sexual variance and the offering of an alternative belief system that differs from their familial, cultural, and religious beliefs.
“What Makes Me” is not the only SEL program incorporating spirituality that Fetzer invests in. It recently pledged $1 million to the QUESTion Project, started by mentalist and owner of The Open Future Institute, Gerard Senehi. It asks students questions such as: “Who am I?” “What is my purpose?” “What does a good life look like?” If administered in a public school using taxpayer money, these questions violate the separation of church and state and cross the line into the government using education to institute an unconstitutional state-sanctioned religion. SEL programs such as these meet the federal government’s definition of a religion, which is a “comprehensive belief system that addresses the fundamental questions of human existence, such as the meaning of life and death, man’s role in the universe, and the nature of good and evil, and that gives rise to duties of conscience.”
The First Amendment commands that the government can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Considering the esoteric and mystical religious roots of social-emotional learning and CASEL through the Fetzer Institute, and its broadening into explicitly teaching “spirituality,” it is clear that state-sponsored SEL violates the U.S. Constitution in its attempt to infuse the religious science of “right human relations” into education while cloaking it in secular language.
The role and responsibility of molding and shaping a child’s moral character does not belong in public classrooms backed by organizations with political or societal agendas.
It should remain in the loving arms of the family, where it has been since the dawn of time.
Lisa Logan is the host of the YouTube Channel Parents of Patriots and author of the Substack Education Manifesto. As a wife, mother and patriot, she has made it her mission to expose the sinister agenda behind social-emotional learning programs to save our children and the future of our country.
Protesters at The State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany) worked to shut down conservative pundit Ian Haworth at an event Tuesday in defiance of the Turning Point USA speaker’s discussion on free speech on college campuses.
The conservative pundit labeled a snippet of the campus catastrophe “the most socialist thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Trans rights are human rights!” the group shouted at one point.
Protesters at SUNY at Albany voiced their dissent against TPUSA guest speaker Ian Haworth on April 4, 2023. (Twitter @ighaworth/TPUSA Upstate)
The Turning Point USA-sponsored talk titled “Free Speech on Campus” was sent into a tailspin as students hit Haworth with insults and expressions of “queer rage” filled the room.
“F— Ian!” protesters shouted in one video he posted to Twitter. “F— you, fascists!” rang out in another. Haworth laughed it off as “irony.”
“Last night, I was at the University of Albany to speak with @TPUSA. My argument: free speech is being destroyed on college campuses. And like clockwork, some deranged protesters showed up and used the heckler’s veto to try and shut down the even,” he tweeted Wednesday.
“When the chapter tried to settle the protesters down so we could start the event, they responded with ‘f— you @TPUSA’ The tolerant left, ladies and gentlemen,” he continued in the thread.
Haworth made several posts in the thread, pointing out the protesters who stormed the room who were eating the free pizza provided by the organization they were protesting.
A view of the Delaware & Hudson Building and administrative center of the State University of New York (SUNY) on April 22, 2020, in Albany, New York. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
“The most socialist thing I’ve ever seen is a bunch of deranged students screaming ‘no cops, no KKK, no @TPUSA’ at a Jewish immigrant while also happily shoveling free pizza down their throats paid for by…@TPUSA!,” he wrote.
Jokingly, he added, “Sure, they’re Nazis, but who doesn’t love a free slice?”
One demonstrator, according to another tweet in the thread, even went as far as destroying an event attendee’s Bible for “no reason whatsoever.”
And, as Haworth noted, things got even weirder when protesters decided to form a conga line in the room, flipping off the camera as they passed by.
“Not one person seemed concerned that this is a traditional Cuban carnival dance, and is therefore an act of cultural appropriation,” Haworth wrote on a video tweet.
Other students kicked off their Crocs and danced and screamed, before eventually taking over the room.
Haworth’s event was eventually moved to another location, complete with a police escort and police presence surrounding the new venue.
“College is now where free speech goes to die, and we need to push back against this bulls— with everything we have. Don’t let the angry minority bully people into silence,” Haworth said.
Fox News Digital reached out to both Haworth and SUNY at Albany for comment, with SUNY at Albany providing the following statement:
“Consistent with the mission of an institution of higher learning, we expect members of our community to be able to voice their views in a manner that promotes constructive dialogue and honors UAlbany’s commitment to freedom of expression,” the school said. “This is especially important when it involves speech that members of our community find offensive or objectionable.”
“Our constitutional obligation to protect speech, even when that speech fundamentally conflicts with our core values, is a pillar of our democratic system. We are equally committed to fostering an environment in which all students feel safe and included – and that the right to protest is also protected,” it added.
SUNY at Albany pledged to help its community members understand their “rights and responsibilities under the First Amendment” and said all student organizations are entitled to reserve space and invite guest speakers “without interference.”
The institution further detailed that university staff and the university police department worked with the hosting organization to relocate the event to ensure it could continue but to also provide protesters a space to voice their concerns, adding that two students were ticketed for trying to gain access to a restricted area reserved for the event.
Haworth responded with the following statement:
“The protesters who stormed the Turning Point USA event on free speech at University at Albany proved my point: college campuses are where free speech goes to die. The protesters disrupted the event, abusing and insulting the TPUSA chapter, college staff, law enforcement and their fellow students, with one goal: to shut down speech. While I fully support their right to protest (even if their accusations of me being an infamous Jewish immigrant transphobic misogynistic KKK member are laughably inaccurate), the heckler’s veto is not free speech…and neither is destroying the property of TPUSA members!…
“Ultimately, this isn’t about me. I doubt these protesters even knew who I was prior to this event. In reality, it’s about any ideas that threaten the fascist ideology of leftism on campus. This unfortunate event proves the threat conservatives face every day on campus, and reinforces the truth that colleges have a duty to allow free speech and debate to flourish on campus,” he concluded.
Haworth also thanked TPUSA, university faculty and law enforcement for making sure the event could proceed at the new venue.
Taylor Penley is a production assistant with Fox News.
The increasing prominence and leadership of Republicans on education has been a great development for American students and parents. This trend has really picked up speed. Take for example, Glenn Youngkin – running for governor at the time in previously blue Virginia – who recognized this unrest. He was elected in November 2021 when he earned the support of frustrated suburban parents whose children had floundered in prolonged COVID classroom lockouts.
Now comes Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former governor’s daughter and a president’s spokesperson. Elected as Arkansas’ first female governor and with her own young children at home, it was natural for Gov. Sanders to run on an education platform. She fulfilled that promise within her first months after taking office, describing her new education reform law as “the largest overhaul of the state’s education system in Arkansas history.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders attends an America First Policy Institute event in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 2022. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
First, the bill is a huge win for teachers. Yes, you read that right. This new Republican governor scored a major win for teachers.
Arkansas teachers presently have a $36,000 minimum salary with the national average a bit less than $42,000. Gov. Sanders destroyed that low bar; raising the minimum nearly 40% to $50,000. That is huge. As a late night TV advertisement might say, “But there’s more.” It’s not only new teachers or those under $50,000 who will see an increase; any teacher above that amount will see a $2,000 raise and could earn a $10,000 bonus. Ask any teacher and they will tell you: This is real money.
Still more benefits include 12 weeks of paid maternity leave and a scholarship for prospective teachers valued at up to $6,000. At the same time, the new law also empowers local school districts by ending an antiquated rule that made it harder to fire bad teachers and base pay on experience alone. I expect broad swaths of new applicants will be attracted to scholarship funds, a significant raise, time off for maternity, and eliminating the union rules that protected bad teachers.
Second, the law codifies Gov. Sanders’ earlier executive order banning classroom indoctrination. Progressive critics are forever up in arms about protecting rights, but this new governor’s law ensures that all educators “are in compliance with Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
If you refuse to believe a Republican governor affirms the 1964 Civil Rights Act, then Section 16(c) removes all doubt, noting the law “does not prohibit the discussion of: (1) Ideas and the history of the concepts described in subsection (b) of this section; or (2) Public policy issues of the day and related ideas that individuals may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.” Put more simply, go ahead educators and teach REAL history.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders unveils her education bill at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock on Feb. 8, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Third, the law provides funding for parents to send their children to private schools under a tiered system that begins with students enrolled in an F- or D-rated public schools. Who wants to argue that kids forced to attend terrible schools have a fair chance? Or that parents who want to see their children thrive shouldn’t have an opportunity to send them elsewhere? Eventually, the law allows for all kids to have the same opportunity.
Fourth and finally, the new law doubles down on literacy and the proven science of reading approach, with funding for more reading coaches and grants for parents to hire tutors. It also ensures that kids don’t move through the system unprepared for their future. Now children unable to demonstrate second-grade reading skills will be retained so they get the foundation they desperately need.
Arkansas is one of the smallest states in the country, but with Gov. Huckabee Sanders upending the status quo, it’s about to become a national model. Politicians and education policy wonks, take note.
After a shooter killed three children and three staff members at a private Christian grade school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday, some journalists, columnists, entertainers and activists turned their ire onto Christians and conservatives for banning drag shows for kids.
Left-wing sports writer Mike Wise seemed to agree with a tweet that sympathized with the transgender shooter, Audrey Hale, 28, whom police say attended the school as a child, for being a victim of “intolerant … brainwashing” through “religious indoctrination.”
Hale was gunned down by police during the shooting rampage at the Covenant School.
“I don’t condone Audrey Hale’s actions, though I understand their outrage against an intolerant state that brainwashes children through religious indoctrination. The reality is this human still identified as that child attending that school and carried that pain into adulthood,” a Twitter user named Kat Amarco wrote.
“This is as deep and real as it gets. Thank you,” Wise wrote in response.
Sports columnist Mike Wise tweet on Nashville shooting (Twitter / Screenshot)
A police officer walks by an entrance to the Covenant School after a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo / John Amis)
Others attacked Covenant School and those praying for victims of the tragedy.
Progressive talk show host David Pakman mocked the Christian school for not “praying enough.”
“Very surprising that there would be a mass shooting at a Christian school, given that lack of prayer is often blamed for these horrible events. Is it possible they weren’t praying enough, or correctly, despite being a Christian school?” he asked in a since-deleted tweet.
Progressive talk show host David Pakman tweeted about the Nashville shooting.
Gun control activist Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action also seemed to blame the victims as well in her tweet.
“If prayers alone worked there wouldn’t have been a mass shooting at a school where they pray. DO YOUR F—ING JOB,” she tweeted.
Television show writer Lee Aronsohn scoffed at prayer while ridiculing the state’s move against drag shows.
“Dead, Maimed Children = Thoughts & Prayers™ Drag Queen Story Hour = Impassioned Condemnation and Priority Legislation The thing is, if we gave an assault rifle to every drag queen the GOP would make Story Hour a national holiday,” he tweeted.
ABC News journalist Terry Moran was accused of blaming Christians and Republicans after he highlighted how Tennessee “banned transgender medical care for minors as well as a law that prohibited adult entertainment including male and female impersonators after a series of drag show controversies in that state” during his report on the school shooting.
With a rhetorical wink and nudge, ABC senior national correspondent Terry Moran blames Tennessee Republicans and Christians for six of their own being murdered today by a transgender former student pic.twitter.com/od1qEP7gAj
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake identified the two officers who fatally shot Audrey Hale at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023. (Metro Nashville Police Department)
A rifle allegedly used by Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale. (Nashville Police Department)
Civil rights attorney and Harvard law clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo mocked, “Thank god Tennessee protected the children from the so-called horrors of drag and gender affirming care so they can be shot up at school by an AR-15 instead.”
YouTube talk show host Brian Tyler Cohen agreed, writing, “In light of three children getting killed in a school shooting in Nashville, remember that Tennessee Republicans have squandered their time in office banning drag shows under the pretense of keeping kids safe.”
Thank god Tennessee protected the children from the so-called horrors of drag and gender affirming care so they can be shot up at school by an AR-15 instead. https://t.co/AH0Zh8ghgQ
— Alejandra Caraballo is on Threads/Bluesky (@Esqueer_) March 27, 2023
Kristine Parks is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Read more.
Three students and three adults were killed in the attack, according to Vanderbilt Medical Center. Police say officers engaged with and killed the shooter, identified as a 28-year-old female carrying two “assault-type rifles” and a handgun. The female, who has yet to be identified, killed three students and three adults before being killed by police just before 10:30 a.m. local time.
Police say the shooter entered the building through a side door before climbing stairs to the second floor, where she then opened fire.
Officials at the medical center say three young students were transported to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt with gunshot wounds. All three were pronounced dead after arrival. Three more adults were also pronounced dead following the attack. All three were staff at the school.
Law enforcement is working to contact the families of victims, none of whom have been publicly identified. Police have yet to establish any connection the shooter may have had with the school.
We are responding to an active aggressor at 33 Burton Hills Blvd Covenant School. We can confirm we have multiple patients. Parents coming to the school should go to 20 Burton Hills at this time. this is an active scene.
Nashville police respond to a shooting at Covenant School in Tennessee. (Metro Nashville Police Department)
Law enforcement officers lead children away from the scene of a shooting at The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., on Monday March 27, 2023. (Jozen Reodica via AP)
Police cordon off an area after reports of a shooting at The Covenant School, Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, March 27, 2023. (Emily Zanotti/Fox News Digital)
Covenant School is a private Christian institution for students up to 6th grade, according to its website.
“We are responding to an active aggressor at 33 Burton Hills Blvd Covenant School. We can confirm we have multiple patients,” the Nashville Fire Department said Monday. “Parents coming to the school should go to 20 Burton Hills at this time, this is an active scene,” the statement continued.
The Metro Nashville PD confirmed the shooter’s death in a statement, adding that the school was already working on reunifying parents and children a safe distance away from the Burton Hills Blvd the school is on.
“An active shooter event has taken place at Covenant School, Covenant Presbyterian Church, on Burton Hills Dr. The shooter was engaged by MNPD and is dead. Student reunification with parents is at Woodmont Baptist Church, 2100 Woodmont Blvd.,” the department wrote in a statement.
The only reported injury following the attack was an officer who suffered a glass wound to his hand.
The entrance to Covenant Presbyterian Church, which hosts the Covenant School, where police responded to a mass shooting. (Emily Zanotti/Fox News Digital)
Police cordon off an area after reports of a shooting at The Covenant School, Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, March 27, 2023. (Emily Zanotti/Fox News Digital)
An active shooter event has taken place at Covenant School, Covenant Presbyterian Church, on Burton Hills Dr. The shooter was engaged by MNPD and is dead. Student reunification with parents is at Woodmont Baptist Church, 2100 Woodmont Blvd. pic.twitter.com/vO8p9cj3vx
Police cordon off an area after reports of a shooting at The Covenant School, Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, March 27, 2023. (Emily Zanotti/Fox News Digital )
The Nashville branch of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has also deployed agents to assist the MNPD in responding to the attack.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper released a statement regarding the attack on Monday.
“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” he wrote. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you. As facts continue to emerge, I thank our first responders and medical professionals.”
Other Tennessee lawmakers were quick to offer their condolences and support following Monday’s attack. The state’s senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, both released statements mourning the tragedy and praising law enforcement.
“Devastated and heartbroken about the tragic news at Covenant School,” Hagerty tweeted Monday. “I’m grateful to law enforcement and first responders for their heroic actions. I am monitoring the situation closely, and my office is in contact with local officials & available to anyone needing assistance.”
Police cordoned off the entrance to Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday following a mass shooting. (Emily Zanotti/Fox News Digital)
I am closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant, & the @TNDeptofSafety & @TNHighwayPatrol are assisting local law enforcement & first responders at the scene.
As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.
“Chuck & I are heartbroken to hear about the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville. My office is in contact with federal, state, & local officials, & we stand ready to assist,” Blackburn wrote in a statement. “Thank you to the first responders working on site. Please join us in prayer for those affected.”
First Lady Jill Biden also responded to the attack later Monday, saying we “stand with Nashville in prayer.”
“I am truly without words and our children deserve better,” she added.
This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.
Anders Hagstrom is a reporter with Fox News Digital covering national politics and major breaking news events. Send tips to Anders.Hagstrom@Fox.com, or on Twitter: @Hagstrom_Anders.
The facts of life haven’t changed, but sex education is entirely different now from what you likely learned in school. Sex ed in middle school now includes graphic lessons on anal sex, oral sex, and masturbation, with stick figures to illustrate body positions. Supplemental reading in middle school libraries includes “Sex, Puberty, and All That Stuff,” a book explaining foreplay and how to rub the clitoris to produce pleasure. Massachusetts’ curriculum tells seventh graders how to use cling wrap as a dental dam around their teeth for safe oral sex.
A majority of states now require sex education be labeled as “comprehensive,” thanks to aggressive lobbying by activists. Planned Parenthood, the largest producer of sex ed curriculum for public schools, argues that children are entitled to know how to “experience different forms of sexual pleasure.”
Does it bother anyone else the Planned Parenthood is so wrapped up in sex ed, and transgenderism? Remember, they are the disciples of Margaret Sanger, who was the leader of the sect that warned about “world overpopulation”. She was the mother (founder) of Planned Parenthood with the determination to wipe out societies’ “undesirables”. That could be a reason they are behind transgenderism and the destruction of children’s bodies, neutering them.
Eugene, Oregon, high schoolers were recently assigned to write a sexual fantasy featuring massage oil, flavored syrup, a candle, music, feathers or a boa. How about teaching them math and English instead?
Nationwide, these racy lessons are outraging parents. Last week, protests forced the Gwinnett County, Georgia, school board to shelve voting on a proposed sex ed curriculum. Holly Terei, a parent, explained that it’s one thing to monitor social media and the movies kids watch, and it’s another to have to worry about “our children being exposed to curriculum that teaches them how to perform sexual acts.”
Sex ed is the most controversial issue in many school board elections. Contests are nominally nonpartisan, but generally, Republicans are demanding parental controls. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is becoming the poster child for adolescent promiscuity.
Expect this to be a defining issue in next year’s national elections. In Iowa last week, former President Donald Trump warned the crowd that schools “are focused on sexualizing our children.”
Most sex ed lessons are not published by textbook companies. Instead, sex ed has been hijacked by left-wing, well-funded groups with their own agendas. These include Sex Ed for Social Change, Advocates for Youth (an LGBTQ group) and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that children have sexual rights. They all press for Comprehensive Sexuality Education. The word “comprehensive” is misleading. What the curriculum stresses is pleasure.
Many Massachusetts districts use Planned Parenthood’s “Get Real” curriculum. The eighth grade teacher’s manual suggests discussing a hypothetical scenario about two middle school boys who “enjoy the sexual part of their relationship.”
In Florida, the Leon County School Board tabled voting on a sex ed curriculum early this month when parents like Brandi Andrews objected. She says a cartoon video of a laughing clitoris, part of the curriculum, would encourage young girls to be promiscuous.
Michigan parents protest school board over explicit books in school library. (Fox News)
Michigan parents protest school board over explicit books in school library. (Fox News)
Advocates for CSE argue that “how-to” information about sex keeps children safer. Don’t believe it. A review of 60 studies of sex education in U.S. schools, published in the scholarly journal Issues in Law and Medicine, found that comprehensive sex education more often resulted in more harm, including more unplanned pregnancies and STDs.
Those are physical harms. Kids can also suffer emotional and spiritual harm. Educators in Fairfax County, Virginia, want to teach middle school sex ed in coed classes. Parents know better — a staggering 84 percent oppose this. What about modesty? What about embarrassment for the kids who are developing the fastest?
The backlash against extreme sex ed is exploding. Proponents insist they just want to provide information. Nonsense. When lessons include more than biology, someone’s values are being imposed.
Comprehensive sex education is an ideology or religion, stressing gender fluidity, sexual experimentation and pleasure seeking, while repudiating parents’ roles and traditional values. Some families share those views, and many don’t.
Recently, hundreds of Muslim Americans protested a Dearborn, Michigan, school board meeting, holding signs with messages such as “Keep your porno to yourself.” Christians, Jews and Muslims have all been told they must keep their religious teachings out of public schools.
Allowing CSE in school is no different from entrusting sex education to a priest or a rabbi, to the exclusion of all other views.
Parents, it’s time to take control of what our kids are being taught.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
The House voted to pass the Parents Bill of Rights Act on Friday over objections from Democrats who argued the bill is aimed at promoting “fascism” and “extreme” views of Republicans by making it easier for parents to ban books and out LBGTQ+ students.
The GOP bill is a response to growing anger across the country about access to information on everything from school curricula to safety and mask policies to the prevalence of gender ideology and critical race theory in the classroom. Parents’ anger over these issues at school board meetings led to an effort by the Biden administration’s Justice Department to examine the “disturbing trend” of violent threats against school officials.
House Republicans reacted by approving the Parents Bill of Rights Act, which would require school districts to give parents access to curriculum and reading lists and would require schools to inform parents if school staff begin encouraging or promoting their child’s gender transition.
The bill passed narrowly in a 213-208 vote that saw just a handful of Republicans vote against it, along with every Democrat.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., talk on the floor after Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., earlier this year. Democrats unanimously voted against a GOP bill aimed at giving parents access to information about their children’s schools. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Democrats blasted the bill during debate this week by accusing Republicans of attacking LGBTQ+ students.
“This Republican bill is asking the government to force the outing of LGBT people before they are ready,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., argued on the House floor. “When we talk about progressive values, I can say what my progressive value is, and that is freedom over fascism.”
Republicans rejected this argument by saying parents have a right to know what is happening to their children in school, especially if schools are promoting gender transition without their knowledge.
“The bill does not address a student’s identity or statements, but is solely focused on notifying parents about actions taken by school personnel to act on a gender transition, such as changing pronouns or switching locker rooms,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs the Committee on Education & the Workforce.
The bill says parents have “the right to know if a school employee or contractor acts to… change a minor child’s gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name; or… allow a child to change the child’s sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called the GOP bill “fascism” during a House floor debate. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Democrats also accused Republicans of trying to make it easier to ban books at school, and several Democrats said Republicans are looking to ban books across the country on a range of topics.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans don’t want the children of America to learn about the Holocaust,” accused House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. “They want to ban a book called ‘Melissa,’ a book describing, in very personal terms, the experience of a trans girl beginning to understand her identity.”
“They want to ban books, they want to bully the LGBTQ+ community, they want to bring guns into classrooms, kindergarten and above. That’s their educational agenda,” he added.
Republicans dismissed those arguments by saying the bill does nothing to ban books but does give parents the right to see a list of books in school libraries and access to those books.
“Nowhere in this bill is it banning any books,” asserted Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who said the goal of the language is to make sure parents are aware of sexually explicit books in school libraries.
House Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., rejected Democrat arguments that the bill requires schools to out LGBTQ+ students, and others dismissed the idea that it bans books. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Norman and others also argued that the books under attack in some states and communities are those that include explicit sexual content that they say is not appropriate for certain ages and is not a core educational requirement. Norman cited books that talk about kids who are “sexually active from the time I was 6,” or that include “explicit images of oral sex.”
“Parents, is this something you want your children to read?” Norman asked. “Parents, is this something that encourages academics and allows that child to compete in the 21st century?”
The bill passed by the House on Friday would also give parents notice if there are plans to eliminate gifted-and-talented programs for kids, alert them to any violent activity taking place at school and give them the right to speak at school board meetings.
It also provides that school districts “should welcome and encourage that engagement and consider that feedback when making decisions.”
Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital.
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In a message to students, faculty, and staff, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler said that drag performances denigrate women and declared that the school will not host a drag performance on campus. In an Instagram post earlier this month, the WTAMU “Spectrum” student organization advertised the drag event, noting, “Spectrum is working with F1RSTGEN and other orgs on campus to produce A Fool’s Drag Race, coming soon!”
While Wendler condemned drag in his message, he suggested that people send money to the Trevor Project, an organization the drag show had been slated to benefit.
“West Texas A&M University will not host a drag show on campus,” Wendler wrote. “It was advertised for March 31, 2023, as an effort to raise money for The Trevor Project. The nonprofit organization focuses on suicide prevention—a noble cause—in the LGBTQ community.”
“As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood. Any event which diminishes an individual or group through such representation is wrong,” Wendler wrote.
“Drag shows are derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny, no matter the stated intent. Such conduct runs counter to the purpose of WT. A person or group should not attempt to elevate itself or a cause by mocking another person or group. As a university president, I would not support ‘blackface’ performances on our campus, even if told the performance is a form of free speech or intended as humor. It is wrong. I do not support any show, performance or artistic expression which denigrates others—in this case, women—for any reason,” he declared.
“A harmless drag show? Not possible. I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it. Supporting The Trevor Project is a good idea. My recommendation is to skip the show and send the dough,” Wendler wrote.
Spectrum pushed back in a statement, arguing that “Drag is not a mockery,” but “a celebration of … queerness, gender, acceptance, love and especially femininity.”
The group requested that Wendler reinstate the drag performance, apologize, and step down from his role as university president.
A petition page posted on Change.org declares, “We, the students of WTAMU … urge him to reinstate the drag show on-campus. We are holding this drag show whether we have his support or not, but his extreme lack of compassion for the LGBT+ and activist student population on campus shows with this latest e-mail.”
Back in 2020, Wendler recognized the 30-year milestone of the school being a part of the Texas A&M University System:
A Canadian pastor was arrested for the second time in weeks after protesting drag queen storytime for children at public libraries. Pastor Derek Reimer, 36, was arrested and charged Wednesday with one count of breaching a release order that prohibited him from being within 200 meters of events involving the LGBTQ community, a spokesperson for Calgary Police Service told Fox News Digital.
Reimer had been previously arrested on March 2 following a Feb. 25 incident during which three men physically tossed him out of Seton Library for protesting a Reading with Royalty event that was put on by the Calgary Public Library and featured local drag performers reading to children.
Reimer was charged with one count of causing a disturbance and one count of mischief, and also faces six counts of harassment under the city’s bylaw governing public behavior. Each charge carries a penalty of up to $10,000 and up to six months imprisonment if payment cannot be made, according to Livewire Calgary.
Pastor Derek Reimer, 36, was arrested and charged Wednesday with one count of breaching a release order that prohibited him from being within 200 meters of events involving the LGBTQ community. (Courtesy Nathaniel Pawlowski)
Footage of Reimer’s most recent arrest in a parking lot outside the Signal Hill Library in Calgary shows police cuffing him and dragging him across the asphalt before hauling him away in a police vehicle. Bystanders protested his treatment and questioned whether he had gotten within 200 meters of the event. He remains in prison and awaits a court appearance Friday.
The Calgary City Council on Tuesday revised a bylaw and introduced a new one in response to increased protests at drag events, according to the CBC.
The Calgary City Council passed a bylaw Tuesday prohibiting protests within 100 meters of a recreation facility or library entrance. (miroslav_1 via Getty Images)
The modifications included adding the term “intimidation” to the current public behavior bylaw, and the new Safe and Inclusive Access Bylaw prohibits protests within 100 meters of a recreation facility or library entrance. Some councilors reportedly raised concerns about the speed with which the new bylaw was passed.
Earlier this week, Reimer was also issued a 30-day trespass notice following a silent prayer session in the Municipal Building in protest of the new bylaw.
“Mr. Reimer was warned on a previous occasion that he could not hold a religious event inside the Municipal Building unless he has a permit,” a city spokesperson told the CBC.
BREAKING: Pastor Derek Reimer has been issued a trespass notice for holding a silent prayer inside of Calgary's city hall.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who knows Reimer and made international headlines himself when he was repeatedly arrested for keeping his Calgary church open during the pandemic, told Fox News Digital that Reimer’s arrests indicate the government’s “open hatred toward Christianity.”
“Everyone who is visible, everyone in Canada who is boldly proclaiming Christianity, has become an open target,” he said.
“Calgary was immune for a little bit from the drag queen perversion — because that’s what it is: it’s a sick, twisted perversion, and you can quote me on that,” he said. “An adult man who dresses as a woman in a sexual manner and has the urge to do that in front of little children is a pervert, end of story.”
Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who is friends with Pastor Derek Reimer, faced multiple dramatic arrests for keeping his church open during the pandemic. (Artur Pawlowski)
Since drag events involving children have begun proliferating in Calgary, Pawlowski said that Reimer “decided he felt that God is calling him to expose that, to stand against that.” He noted that Reimer has communicated with him from prison, and that he is calling on Christians to rise up and vocally oppose what he described as perversion while they still can.
“I’ve warned Canadians for a very long time — and I’m warning Americans, as well — that you will be ruled by what you tolerate,” Pawlowski said, noting how the way authorities enforced COVID-19 protocols in Canada is now being used to enforce ideology.
Every time Brandon Showalter checks his inbox or listens to his voicemails, he’s dismayed by what he sees and hears. Since he began covering the battle over transgender ideology in 2016, he’s received countless messages from parents grieving over the mutilation of their daughters and the castration of their sons, photos from detransitioners regretting their irreversible surgeries, and firsthand accounts from families shattered by the medical scandal of transgenderism.
Get tickets to CP’s event ‘Unmasking Gender Ideology: Protecting Children, Confronting Transgenderism’ here. Download ‘Exposing the Gender Lie’ here.
“Over the years, I’ve lost count of how many moms and dads have called me absolutely devastated, at the end of their rope, because … within 30 minutes of a telehealth consultation, their daughters and sons are given drugs that could render them sterile” or they’re encouraged to have surgeries that will leave their bodies disfigured. “They’re living in a world of confusion,” said Showalter, a writer and social commentator for The Christian Post.
“They sent them off to a university and they became indoctrinated. I’ve had some of them in my home for dinner to try and console them as they’re just grieving. This has just devoured and shattered their families, and that’s not being hyperbolic.”
As a journalist and Bible-believing Christian, Showalter knew he couldn’t just look away when faced with the horrors of the transgender movement. Over the years, he’s written countless articles and even launched a podcast raising awareness about the topic, and this month, releasedExposing the Gender Lie: How to Protect Children and Teens from the Transgender Industry. Showalter penned the free e-book with Jeff Myers, president of Summit Ministries.
“We wanted to be able to equip pastors and lay leaders, youth and youth ministers to be able to have the philosophical tools to understand this ideology. And most importantly, protect children and teenagers and young adults from its destruction,” Showalter shared.
“The book will show you the various ways in which this ideology has molded our understanding of what sex and gender is, how language is warped, and it’ll clue you in as to how pervasive this is.”
According to Showalter, most people are unaware of just how insidious the transgender movement truly is — or how much it is fueled by the greed of pharmaceutical companies. Terms like “gender-affirming” care and politically-correct euphemisms popularized by many in the media, he said, are both dangerous and misleading. He slammed the idea that children experiencing gender dysphoria frequently die by suicide as “manipulative,” adding: “Suicide is a very complicated phenomenon. You cannot reduce it down to just one cause.”
Showalter detailed how, after a prepubescent child is diagnosed with gender dysphoria, they are prescribed puberty blockers such as Lupron, a drug that has been used to treat prostate cancer in men and endometriosis and women and has been used to chemically castrate sex offenders.
“There’s never been an FDA stamp of approval for that use,” he said. “Even the FDA just last year slapped a warning label that this drug causes vision loss and brain swelling. There are disastrous side effects. It impedes brain development. It basically freezes your endocrine system from allowing the pubertal signaling in the brain to happen.”
Children are given cross-sex hormones, such as testosterone for girls and estrogen for boys, and then undergo surgery to change their bodies to appear as the opposite sex. Showalter described this process as “grotesque,” involving the removal of healthy breasts and creating flaccid penises out of skin from another part of the body, such as the forearm or leg.
“These are highly complex, body-disfiguring surgeries with extremely high complication rates, and it’s in service to a material falsehood. You can’t change sex. Your sex is stamped in the nucleus of every single cell. All you’re doing is altering the body in a way that it was not designed to function,” he said. “Biomedical ethics seems to have just completely died with the incursion of this movement.”
Since speaking out about the horrors of the transgender movement, Showalter has experienced a good amount of pushback. He’s been called a “bigot” and a “hater” — but the insults and attacks seem insignificant when he grapples with what he sees as a “demonic” attack on God’s creation of male and female and, thus, on children.
“I don’t know exactly what might cause this ideology to end,” he said. “But I do hope and pray that God, in His infinite mercy, will bring it down. There are days when I just think the solution has to be supernatural because it’s just so wicked. It’s evil. And you don’t have to be a Christian to perceive that.”
Trans ideology has seen increasing visibility in the media, even in children’s programming. For example, an animated pride parade from the Nick Jr. show “Blue’s Clues and You!” featured a cartoon beaver wearing a pink and blue transgender armband and bearing chest scars from a mastectomy. The target demographic for “Blue’s Clues” is preschoolers, children ages 3 to 5.
“PRESCHOOLERS. CHILDREN 3 TO 5 YEARS OLD”
“They are marketing this by way of all media: TikTok, media programming, social media, YouTube, Tumblr, you name it, to get children to believe that somehow their bodies are not fine the way they are,” he said, challenging parents to pray tirelessly over their children and monitor their media consumption.
But despite the narrative pushed by many media outlets, it’s not just conservatives or people of faith opposed to the trans movement, he said. Working at CP, Showalter has heard from countless atheists, those who identify as gay and lesbian and even political leftists who share his and other Christians’ concerns for the next generation.
“The media continues to frame this as a right versus left kind of dynamic, when in fact, the polling indicates that many people across the political spectrum, left and right alike, do not want this done to children,” he said.
“The vast majority of doctors, I’m convinced, do not [support this], but far too few of them are actually being brave and speaking up about it. Many of them are keeping their head down because of this culture of fear we live in,” he added.
Showalter challenged other believers to stand up and declare a biblical worldview regarding sex and gender and urged churches to reach out to families hurt by the transgender movement and de-transitioners in need of recovery care.
“We need to understand the wickedness, the depravity that this is. And we need to be bold,” he stressed. “Now’s the time to show great courage and to be relentlessly honest about what’s happening. We can’t cover our eyes or cover our ears anymore. We have to ask God to give us His heart for hurting families and for children, and to stand up and be counted.”
He added, “I hope and pray that the day is coming soon when this great evil that has overtaken so much of our society will be brought to an end. But until then, and not one moment sooner, we have to keep pushing and keep declaring the truth with as much enthusiasm and boldness as we can possibly muster.”
Get tickets to CP’s event ‘Unmasking Gender Ideology: Protecting Children, Confronting Transgenderism’ here. Download ‘Exposing the Gender Lie’ here.
Reports of book banning have proliferated throughout the media. Understandably, such claims should raise concern among free speech advocates. The ability to freely disseminate knowledge and challenge the status quo is a fundamental pillar of a free society. An illiberal act such as a book ban should be met with scorn by those who truly care about advancing society. However, behind claims of rampantly spreading censorship, a key question has been left unanswered. What’s a book ban?
The word ban is generally understood to mean a prohibition of a certain behavior, substance, or object. However, due to First Amendment constitutional protections and corresponding case law, it’s illegal for any government entity to outlaw the possession of a book. With very rare exceptions, there are no penalties for owning, buying, and selling books in America.
Yet media reports claim book bans are spreading like wildfires in states such as Florida and Texas. So how can that be?
Which Books Are Banned?
The issue is primarily a cultural tug-of-war taking place in public school libraries. The discovery of sexually explicit books on school bookshelves nationwide has sparked controversy.
Pen America is easily the most cited organization when it comes to book bans. The self-proclaimed “free speech” advocacy group is mentioned in almost every media report on the subject. Yet few Americans understand the very expansive definition of a “book ban” utilized by the organization. Pen America considers books “challenged for review,” but still available for student use, as “banned” even if the books haven’t been removed from the library. Pen America considers any book that’s available but age-restricted as “banned.” Moreover, several school districts have refuted the popular book ban list produced by Pen America, claiming the list contained books that were never removed from circulation in their respective libraries.
An expansive view of “book bans” creates a few problems. There’s an assumption that the government has a responsibility to produce and distribute every book in existence to school children free of charge. This may sound great until you consider that books often contain inaccurate, poorly sourced, or controversial information. I doubt anyone of reason would consider the exclusion of books such as Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” (a Nazi manifesto), “The Anarchist Cookbook” (a bomb-building guide), and “The Turner Diaries” (a white supremacy recruitment novel) from our public K-12 libraries to be an illiberal attempt to suppress free speech.
Does Ideology Influence Book Selection?
Nonetheless, there’s reason to believe some librarians have injected their own bias into the procurement process. Writer Kirk Cameron has had his Christian children’s books rejected by publicly funded libraries that openly embrace drag queen story hours featuring pro-transgender book titles. At the time of writing, Pen America’s website produced nothing on the aforementioned controversies surrounding the rejection of conservative-themed books.
Additionally, the American Association of School Librarians grants an annual “Social Justice” award of $2,000 to librarians and $5,000 for new books to school librarians for devising a “program, unit, or event in support of social justice using resources of the school library.” Although one may agree with the decisions of a publicly funded library to promote or demote a certain viewpoint, it requires a substantial degree of denialism to pretend viewpoint discrimination isn’t happening.
Who Should Pick the Books?
A 5-4 Supreme Court Decision in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) restricts school boards from removing books on the basis of subject matter, recognizing school libraries as special free speech zones. However, the dissenting justices argued that, because books can be obtained outside the school library and school board officials are democratically elected to handle affairs related to the management of the school, there are no First Amendment implications concerning the exclusion of certain materials. Furthermore, the view of school libraries as being crucial free speech zones seems antiquated in the age of social media and smartphones.
Maybe it’s time to question the idea that a government agency refusing to disseminate a book constitutes a ban of any sort. Public school libraries are taxpayer-funded entities. In our democratic society, we vote for policies that reflect our values and preferences. These voter preferences should manifest as we set priorities in public school education.
Just as many jurisdictions may refuse to provide bomb-building instruction, gunsmithing guides, and white supremacy manifestos to their students, school boards everywhere should be allowed to make reasonable value judgments concerning objectionable content.
Educators and librarians are humans with biases and policy preferences just like the rest of us. Deferring to them with no community oversight doesn’t prevent viewpoint discrimination; it just ensures it goes unchallenged.
Raheem Williams is a policy analyst at the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE). He has worked for several liberty-based academic research centers and think tanks. He received his B.A. in economics from Florida International University and his M.A. in financial economics from the University of Detroit Mercy.
Parents — not the government — are responsible for teaching morals and fundamental values to their children. School administrators seem to have forgotten this. Throughout our commonwealth and country, local school districts are attempting to supplant parents with government officials, who they believe know what is best for our children.
The reality is these officials are interested in indoctrinating our children with their own version of what morality and values should be; it is destructive to children’s upbringing and to the American family unit at large.
Parents are responsible for instilling moral, religious, personal, cultural and other values that they deem appropriate in order to prepare their children for success and happiness in life. Some parents, like us, believe this should be rooted in our Christian faith. No matter the source, we believe that parents are foremost responsible for establishing a moral foundation in their children.
With a strong moral foundation being built at home, parents then entrust their local school districts with educating their child in reading, writing and arithmetic. Parents do not, however, expect government bureaucrats to infiltrate their child’s classroom and teach them their own concept of morality.
In our own community, the West Shore School district has engaged with “CharacterStrong” to teach “Social and Emotional Learning” (SEL) to our children. This curriculum is aligned with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) whose chief priority is to implement SEL with “equity and excellence” in mind. This may sound relatively harmless to the untrained listener, until you find out more about these organizations and their disturbing goals.
CharacterStrong states that their goal is to “partner” with parents in teaching moral and fundamental values to their children. The organization’s overt goal is to co-parent children by helping them to identify their own “values and virtues” and to reflect on those values to “help guide their decisions.”
We, like the majority of parents across the country, are not interested in coparenting with a government contractor. The government is not the parent of my child. We raise our children consistent with the values of our Christian faith and expect those values not to be meddled with.
The West Shore School District should be focused on teaching rigorous academics and training our children to think critically. It should be focused on preparing our children for the academic rigors of high school, college, and the real world. Instead, it is focused on promoting the CharacterStrong curriculum which, through CASEL, has made “equity” essential to the SEL curriculum.
The reality is these officials are interested in indoctrinating our children with their own version of what morality and values should be; it is destructive to children’s upbringing and to the American family unit at large.
My child’s school should not be focused on gender ideology, race, or undermining the core values I teach my children. Unfortunately, the school district has decided to continue to push this dangerous ideology and indoctrination scheme.
Thankfully, parents have strong parental rights here in Pennsylvania. Chapter four of the Pennsylvania School Code authorizes parents or guardians to “have their children excused from specific instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs.”
My fellow district parents recently exercised their rights under this provision but were met with denials. Worse, West Shore School District repeatedly demanded that our friends justify their religious objections to the chosen religion of the West Shore School District.
The school district has no discretion. It must grant the parents’ request and properly accommodate their children. Notably, the district did in fact permit some exemptions to the curriculum but denied others.
Parents who have decided to exercise their rights under both our state and federal constitutions should not be vilified. These parents should be praised for paying close attention to their children’s curriculum and ensuring that no one — especially the government — gets between parents and their children, before it’s too late.
Allison Shipp is the leader of the Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Chapter of Moms for Liberty.
Rebecca F. Rothstein, a teacher at North Bethesda Middle School in the Montgomery County School District, posted multiple controversial videos to her TikTok account – which has since been deactivated.
Rothstein, who stated that she is “proud as f*** to be liberal,” insisted that educators should not prioritize teaching students math and science but instead provide lessons on anti-racism and “how to be kind.”
“As a teacher, I wish we could do more with our students, like teach anti-racism and how to be kind people. Does anyone else feel like … we can skip the math, skip the science, like we’ll do that next year. Maybe this year we focus on teaching our youth how to be anti-racist,” she said in one TikTok video.
In another social media post, Rothstein said, “F*** capitalism” and bragged about providing her students with “Marxist literature.”
“Tired after a long day of indoctrinating students,” she stated.
Rothstein told her more than 13,000 TikTok followers that she had to “un-brainwash” herself to “fall in love” with socialism and communism.
“If everyone had the same amount of money, then money wouldn’t be worth anything,” she said.
Rothstein insisted that “capitalism must go” and said that “revolutions involve violence.”
The teacher also defended the summer 2020 riots that destroyed cities and small businesses.
“There are so many a******* in my comments saying, ‘What about all the burning of the buildings, and the looting and the rioting?’ Why do you care more about buildings than human lives? It’s like you’re stomping around, being like, ‘All buildings matter.’ No, no, they don’t. And the fact that you don’t understand where the rage is coming from, why there is so much rage of burning buildings, that’s the exact problem,” Rothstein said.
She continued by stating that she is “f***ing angry” about “the patriarchy,” “racism,” and “police brutality.”
Rothstein shared that she believes “boys should get vasectomies at birth, or when it is safe to do so” and then asked, “Why is preventing pregnancy just on the woman?”
In another TikTok video, she claimed that “all white people experience white privilege” and noted that being “silent on Palestine” is “rooted in white supremacy.”
“I’m proud of my ability to recognize white privilege,” Rothstein said. “White privilege is not about work ethic. White privilege is about the color of your skin.”
Neither Rothstein nor Montgomery County School District replied to a request for comment, Fox News Digital reported.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
A massive student brutalized a teacher’s aide Tuesday in an unprovoked attack at Matanzas High School in Palm Coast, Florida, leaving the woman unconscious and severely injured. His apparent reason for jeopardizing the woman’s life: She had prevented him from playing video games in class.
The student told deputies that he was upset that the victim had taken his Nintendo Switch away from him during class. WTLV-TV reported that the student also told officials that he would “beat her up” any time she tried to take his game.
The paraprofessional’s attempt to spare the 17-year-old from the mindless distraction and to help facilitate his education evidently proved unbearable for the student, who can be seen in surveillance footage barreling toward the victim and knocking her from her feet.
Motionless and unconscious after the initial unprovoked attack, the defenseless victim can be seen in the video suffering stomps, kicks, and a flurry of punches to the back of her head from the heavyset suspect.
The 270-pound student can be seen straddling the victim during the attack, delivering blows to her sides and back before others finally intervened:
Video shows Flagler County school employee attacked by student over Nintendo Switchyoutu.be
The FCSO indicated that the victim, hit at least 15 times, was taken to AdventHealth Palm Coast for treatment of her wounds, but not before her aggressor reportedly managed to spit on her body and threaten to come back and kill her.
Restrained by multiple school staff members, the student was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility. While deputies processed him after the grievous attack, the student reportedly kicked the deputy’s desk and computer. He was later handed off to the Department of Juvenile Justice.
He has been charged with felony aggravated battery with bodily harm.
“The actions of this student are absolutely horrendous and completely uncalled for,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in a statement. “We hope the victim will be able to recover, both mentally and physically, from this incident. Thankfully, students and staff members came to the victim’s aid before the SRDs could arrive. Our schools should be a safe place – for both employees and students.”
Flagler Schools Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt said, “Creating a safe learning and working environment on our campuses is critical. Violence is never an appropriate reaction.”
Jessica Tapia (Image Source: Fox News Digital video screenshot)
A California school recently fired a Christian teacher after she refused to comply with the district’s policies that required her to conceal students’ gender transitions from parents, Fox News Digital reported.
Jessica Tapia, a former physical education teacher who worked at the Jurupa Unified School District in Jurupa Valley, California, informed the district that because of her religious beliefs, she would not be able to lie or withhold information regarding the wellbeing of children from their parents.
“Am I going to obey the district in the directive that are not lining up with … my own beliefs, convictions and faith? Or am I going to stay true …, choose my faith, choose to be obedient to … the way the Lord has called me to live. And so it was crazy to be in the position where I realized that I couldn’t be a Christian and a teacher,” Tapia told Fox News Digital.
The teacher explained that the school required her to refer to students by their preferred pronouns and withhold that information from their parents. She was also told to allow transgender students into the locker room that coincides with their chosen gender identity.
Tapia said the district told her that it would be discriminatory against transgender students not to allow biological boys into the female locker room.
“I was very clear with them. If the student has male genitals, I’m not letting them in the female locker room,” she said.
Tapia stated that, according to the school district, students have a right to privacy, even from their parents.
“If a student shares information regarding a pronoun preference or thinking they’re maybe the opposite gender of what they biologically are, if they share that information with a teacher, we are supposed to keep that info from parents in case the parent doesn’t know,” she explained.
Tapia noted that there were several issues with the gender policy.
“We’re talking [about] 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds,” Tapai added. “I don’t believe [kids] should have this ‘privacy’ to where their parents are being left in the dark about very pertinent information about their wellbeing.”
Tapia received a letter signed by the assistant superintendent of human resources, Daniel Brooks, informing her that the district would be unable to accommodate her religious exception request and that she would be dismissed from her position on January 31.
“Based on your religious beliefs, you cannot be dishonest with parents … If asked about a student’s gender identity by a parent, you cannot refer the parent to a counselor, defer the inquiry and suggest they speak with a student …, or otherwise deflect the parent’s inquiry,” the letter stated.
“The district cannot accommodate your religious beliefs that … prohibit you from maintaining a student’s gender identity and refraining from disclosing a student’s gender identity from his/her/their parent(s)/guardians,” the letter continued.
Tapia stated that she got into teaching to “make an impact” and to be “a light to [kids] possibly coming from very rough homes like I did when I was a child.”
“I don’t believe … that that’s how God’s calling us to love, by affirming those lies and confusion,” Tapia said. “I believe firmly that God created man and woman, and you are who he made you to be. And when someone has confusion about that, I believe that’s lies and confusion from the devil.”
The district denied Tapia’s claim that it discriminated against her based on religious beliefs.
Jurupa Unified School District told Fox News Digital, “The District denies the allegations raised by Ms. Tapia. The District takes seriously its obligation to accommodate its employee’s religious beliefs. Simultaneously, the District is obligated to comply with all local, state, and federal laws, including anti-discrimination laws and laws that protect students’ rights to privacy, which are in place to protect the nearly 2,500 employees and 18,000 students we serve. We cannot comment further on personnel matters.”
FIRED BECAUSE SHE REFUSED TO LIE!
Tapia told the news outlet that she plans to take legal action against the district.
Last fall, a high school senior in Iowa was suspended for wearing a pro-Second Amendment shirt to her government class, and now her mother is suing the teacher, the principal, and the district. On Monday, Janet Bristow of Johnston, Iowa, a northwest suburb of Des Moines, filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court alleging that the suspension violated her daughter’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
In late August 2022, Tom Griffin taught his government students at Johnston High School that their rights were “extremely limited” once they entered the classroom, despite the 1969 landmark SCOTUS ruling, Tinker, which affirmed that students and teachers do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Griffin insisted that he would forbid students from wearing any clothing which depicts “guns, alcohol, or any other ‘inappropriate material,'” the lawsuit states.
Bristow’s daughter, identified in the lawsuit only as “A.B.,” was in that class and determined that Griffin had erred in his assessment. Two days later, on September 1, she went to school wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a rifle and the phrase “What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do you not understand?” emblazoned on the front. Bristow alleged in the lawsuit that A.B. had worn that shirt before without incident and that the girl’s older brother, who graduated from Johnston High School in 2019, also wore the shirt without a problem during his time at the school.
A.B.’s shirtScreenshot of the lawsuit
But Griffin had a problem with the shirt, and he dismissed her from class and sent her to the administration. Bristow soon afterward arrived and discussed the issue with Nate Zittergruen and Randy Klein, both associate principals, and Ryan Woods, the school’s principal. Zittergruen told Bristow that the shirt could be perceived as threatening or offensive, and the administrative team gave A.B. the choice either to change her shirt or face suspension.
Chris Billings, the district’s executive director of school leadership, supported the administration and claimed that the shirt violated school dress code. So, after A.B. refused to change her shirt, she was issued an out-of-school suspension.
Later that evening, Bristow said she received an apology from Superintendent Laura Kacer as well as Billings, who said he had come to realize that the shirt is, in fact, “political speech.”
While Bristow was grateful for the apologies, she does not believe that the issue has been resolved. For one thing, Griffin has neither apologized nor clarified the issue with his class, leaving the impression that “A.B. was wrong and that her opinions were not welcome in the classroom,” the document stated. A.B. also still has the suspension listed on her school record.
In the suit, Bristow is seeking the following forms of relief:
affirmation that clothing featuring firearms “in a non-threatening, non-violent manner” is protected under the First Amendment;
a permanent injunction which will prevent the defendants listed in the lawsuit from ever restricting such clothing again in the future; and
compensation for damages, the costs associated with the legal process, and any other “relief” the court deems “appropriate.”
A student has reportedly been suspended by a Catholic high school for the remainder of the school year for believing that God created two genders and protesting against transgender students using girls’ bathrooms.
Since November, Josh Alexander has allegedly been suspended from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario. Alexander was allegedly punished by the school for organizing a protest against transgender students using girls’ bathrooms. Alexander said he launched the demonstration after two girls at his school confided in him that they were uncomfortable sharing bathrooms with biological males. Alexander, an 11th-grade student, was reportedly barred from attending St. Joseph’s Catholic High School for the remainder of the school year.
Alexander informed The Epoch Times that St. Joseph’s Catholic High School told him that his attendance at the school would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students. Alexander said the school labeled his beliefs as “offensive” and “bullying” because there was a transgender student in his class. Alexander insists that he has no plans to be violent in defending his ideology, and doesn’t feel as though he is bullying anyone.
“Offense is obviously defined by the offended. I expressed my religious beliefs in class and it spiraled out of control,” Alexander explained. “Not everybody’s going to like that. That doesn’t make me a bully. It doesn’t mean I’m harassing anybody. They express their beliefs and I express mine. Mine obviously don’t fit the narrative.”
He said, “This whole issue isn’t about identity. It’s about biology and morality.”
Alexander told The Post Millennial, “They’re using it as a technicality to say that they’re not disciplining me, and it’s just a form of exclusion to protect the other students.”
However, Alexander is already enrolled at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School, which reportedly bars him from enrolling at any other education programs.
Alexander said, “I am unable to do any other form of education because as long as I’m enrolled in the Catholic board, I’m not allowed to take an alternative route of education. So I’m enrolled, but I’m not allowed to attend school. So right now I actually have no form of education.”
Alexander stated that he plans to file a human rights complaint on the grounds of religious discrimination.
Alexander is appealing his suspension. However, his appeal is reportedly being held up because Alexander previously asked for parental independence so as not to drag his parents into this quandary.
Alexander’s lawyer James Kitchen said, “He does live with his parents and they have an excellent relationship. He seeks guidance from them and they gladly give it to him. But he runs his own life. And that’s actually by design, because that’s how his parents raised him to be.”
St. Joseph’s Catholic High School principal Derek Lennox and Mark Searson, the director of education for the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board, both said they could not comment on the situation.
An Ohio school district’s board abruptly canceled a high school musical production that contained non family-friendly lyrics, an appearance of Jesus, and gay characters, several outlets reported this week.
“When we found out it was canceled, everybody was just heartbroken. Honestly, it was terrible. Everyone was just crying,” Riley Matchinga, a senior playing a lead role in the school’s production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” told Fox 8.
“The Cardinal Local School District has decided that its spring musical production will not be ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.’ Its dialogue and song lyrics contain vulgarity and are therefore not suitable for our pre-teen and teenage students in an educational setting,” Cardinal High School Superintendent Jack Cunningham said in a statement acquired by the same outlet.
Though two of the characters in the musical are gay male parents, the district denies the decision was based on discrimination, the outlet also said.
Middlefield Ohio’s Cardinal High School drama department had been working on the spring production for weeks when the Cardinal Schools Board of Education pulled the curtain on it, Geauga County Maple Leaf reported Tuesday.
“Cast members have invested hours of their time in rehearsals, characterization lessons, and group and individual voice lessons. The crew has spent equal time creating and building set pieces, scenery and props. The decision to shut this production down is heartbreaking,” Mandi Matchinga told the school board in a letter, as reported by Maple Leaf.
Matchinga is a volunteer assistant director for the musical, a former teacher in the district, and the mother of two participants.
The musical’s cancellation caught the attention of award-winning actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, best known for his roles in “Modern Family” and “Ice Age: Collision Course.” Ferguson was an original member of the “Putnam County Spelling Bee” Broadway company.
“The message that this sends to them, that that is not ‘family appropriate’ or ‘family friendly,’ rather, is toxic and harmful and kind of abusive,” Jesse Tyler Ferguson said in an Instagram video shared by Playbill Thursday.
Feguson also told the outlet he and other in the original Broadway cast members are “working on connecting with the [Cardinal High School] cast via Zoom.”
The musical’s director, Vanessa Allen, told Maple Leaf she was scheduled to meet with Superintendent Cunningham to select a different production for performance in late April or early May.
Photo by Mike Ruane/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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The Colorado State University Health Network plans to host multiple vocal workshops this week to teach transgender and non-binary students to alter their voices to sound feminine, masculine, or neutral, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
According to the CSU website, the university will host three sessions teaching transgender and non-binary students how to change their voices to better align with their chosen gender identity. All three courses are free and offered to students regardless of whether they are on hormonal therapy.
“teaching transgender and non-binary students how to change their voices to better align with their chosen gender identity.”
“Voice Feminization Workshop,” the first course, will be held on January 31, and it welcomes “transfeminine and nonbinary individuals” to attend. The class promises to introduce attendees to “vocal exercises utilized for voice feminization.”
A “Voice Neutralization Workshop” will be held on February 1 to teach non-binary individuals how to make their voices sound neutral and neither feminine nor masculine.
“The class provides an overview of vocal features related to perceptually masculine, feminine, and androgynous voices,” the website states.
CSU will host the final session, a “Voice Masculinization Workshop,” on February 2, which seeks to train “transmasculine and nonbinary individuals” how to alter their voices to sound more masculine.
Maggie Hendrickson, the director of the Pride Resource Center, told the university’s news publication, the Rocky Mountain Collegian, “We really don’t want people to think that they have to be like on hormones, or so far along in their transition, or out, or any other precursors to coming to the workshop.”
“It’s just another way for people to feel more comfortable in their bodies,” Hendrickson continued. “A lot of people just think about transitioning as like, hormones and surgery, but there’s lots of other ways to socially or culturally or not medically transition. It’s really [for] people [who] are interested in voice training or experience any type of dysphoria that they think this could help with. That’s who the intended audience is for, and so this is just another tool for folks to kind of explore gender and the way that they’re received by others.“
The courses will be facilitated by Annie Schubert, a certified speech-language pathologist and clinical vocologist at the Speech and Language Stimulation Center in Fort Collins.
The center offers multiple voice programs, including “Transgender Voice Services,” which aim to train clients to modify their voices to sound like the opposite gender. The training works on altering pitch, resonance, and intonation patterns.
“Driven by each client’s goals and gender identity, we provide voice training services for transgender or gender-diverse clients seeking to modify their voice,” the Speech and Language Stimulation Center website states. “At SLSC, we prioritize using both objective feedback from voice analysis software as well as each client’s self-analysis of their speech samples across the duration of training. Above all, it is our goal to provide a supportive environment for each client on their path toward confidently presenting their gender identity.“
Schubert told the Rocky Mountain Collegian that the introductory courses also teach “vocal hygiene” and “healthy voice principles” to ensure individuals do not cause strain or injury when attempting to modify their voices.
“We talk about the different vocal features that lead to a listener to perceive a voice to be more feminine or masculine, or in that kind of gender-neutral range, and then we break it down into its parts,” Schubert stated. “So [that means] learning about the difference between average pitch and pitch variation and the different prosody and intonation patterns that lead a voice to be perceived more masculine or more feminine.“
Schubert, CSU, and the Health Network did not respond to a request for comment, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
My daughter ‘was terribly bullied, but no one told me. … Please don’t let ideology harm another child,’ pleaded the mother of a 14-year-old girl who was isolated from her parents by school and court authorities and sex-trafficked twice.
A subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill on Monday that mandates public educators notify parents if their child “self-identifies” as something other than his or her natural sex. Introduced by Republican Dels. Dave LaRock, Tara Durant, and John McGuire, the measure (HB 2432) would provide parents with greater oversight into their children’s lives at school and increase transparency in public education. According to a summary of the legislation, if a school official “has reason to believe” that a student “is self-identifying as a gender different from the student’s biological sex,” said official is required “to contact as soon as practicable at least one of such student’s parents to ask whether such parent is aware of the student’s mental state and whether the parent wishes to obtain or has already obtained counseling for such student.”
Under the bill, school officials, such as counselors and clinical social workers, are barred from “encouraging or coercing a minor to withhold from the minor’s parent the fact that the minor’s perception of his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with the minor’s biological sex” or “withholding from a minor’s parent information relating to the minor’s perception that his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with the minor’s biological sex.”
Monday’s subcommittee vote came along party lines, with five Republicans voting in favor and three Democrats opposing.
Known as Sage’s Law, HB 2432 was introduced after it was revealed that a then-14-year-old Virginia girl ended up in the hands of sexual predators after her school failed to disclose her gender dysphoria to her mother. As The Federalist previously reported, the chain of events began in August 2021 when Sage began identifying as a boy and suffered intense bullying and harassment at school. Eventually, Sage ran away and was “found nine days later in Maryland, a victim of sexual assault.”
Appomattox County High School, which affirmed Sage’s new “identity” without notifying her mother, was following model guidelines issued by then-Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration on so-called gender affirmation. Such guidance has since been terminated by current GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Throughout Monday’s hearing on Sage’s Law, witnesses supporting the bill discussed its importance in keeping parents involved in their children’s livelihoods, especially in the school classroom. During her testimony, Sage’s mother Michele called on the subcommittee to put commonsense before ideology.
“If I had known [what was going on], this would be a much different story. [Sage] was terribly bullied, but no one told me,” Michele said. “Please don’t let ideology harm another child. Let parents do our jobs. We know our children best and we love them a million times more.”
Also called to testify at the hearing was Dr. Erin Brewer, a former “trans kid” who spoke about the importance of schools helping children through their gender dysphoria without affirming such confusion or concealing it from parents.
“I was insistent that I was a boy when I started first grade after a brutal sexual assault. If I had been affirmed by my teachers, it would have allowed me to completely dissociate from myself as a girl and create a new persona who could pretend that the horrible trauma that triggered my gender dysphoria hadn’t happened to me,” she said. “Instead of encouraging my confusion and hiding it from my mother, the school contacted my mother, got permission for me to be assessed by the school psychologist, and they came up with a comprehensive program to help me resolve my gender dysphoria. … I [one] hundred percent support this legislation.”
Erin Friday, a lifelong Democrat and co-founder of Our Duty, a national and international parent and child advocacy group, also spoke in support of Sage’s Law. Throughout her remarks, Friday noted her personal experiences with a gender-dysphoric daughter and stated that “schools should never keep secrets from parents.”
Opponents to Sage’s Law also spoke at the hearing, with one man claiming to be a “trans woman” arguing that such legislation is “ridiculous” and that schools should be able to conceal a child’s gender dysphoria from that child’s parents.
“It should be that child’s own choice,” he said. “If we wanna tell who we wanna tell, like, that’s on us.”
Despite leftists’ support for deceptively-termed “gender affirmation” and the “transitioning” of children, research has shown that “upwards of 80 percent of gender dysphoric childrenembrace their sex as they emerge from puberty” and that “children who are ‘affirmed’ as the opposite sex … particularly if puberty blockers are used, consistently go on to further medicalization.” Children who undergo such protocols are subjected to lifelong damage to their bodies. The practices are so horrific that nations around the world, such as England, have ended the disfiguring practices that are falsely labeled as “gender-affirming care” for minors.
“Parents should never be the last to know [about what’s going on in their children’s lives],” said Durant during the subcommittee meeting. “It’s a very strange, strange place to me that we’re in now where parents are being told to step aside, to sit down, that ‘we as educators, as counselors know better [for] your own child’ — and that’s just simply not true.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
On Tuesday, Iowa became the second state in the country to pass universal school choice, directly providing families with funds to support their children’s education. Arizona was the trendsetter for this new wave of educational freedom after Gov. Doug Ducey signed universal school choice into law on July 7, 2022.
Now the race is on to advance educational freedom, with several red states looking to follow suit. The significance of these developments can hardly be overstated. What was once a pipe dream for many education reformers — the enabling of school choice at scale during their lifetimes — is now becoming a reality.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, true to her word, wasted no time in the 2023 legislative session by introducing the Students First Act in her Condition of the State address on Jan. 10. Within two weeks, the bill was signed into law. It took less than 24 hours for debate in the House and Senate, followed by Reynolds’ signing. The education savings account (ESA) program will provide parents with approximately $7,600 annually to allocate toward approved educational avenues. Most families are eligible in years one and two, and the benefit will be extended to all families statewide in year three.
Of course, powers beholden to leftist teachers unions should not be expected to go down without a fight. Even in pioneering state Arizona, new Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs seeks to undo its universal school voucher expansion law in her 2023 budget proposal. With Republicans controlling both state legislative bodies, her proposal will likely go down with the same fate as her massively failed veto referendum that sought to stop the law from taking effect while she was secretary of state last fall. For a politician, Hobbs is remarkably insensitive to the views of Arizona voters, 67 percent of whom support the state’s ESA program (the number jumps to 77 percent of Arizona parents of school-aged children).
States with a Republican governor and GOP majorities in both their House and Senate, on the other hand, are leading the charge across the United States to empower parents with options. The goal is universal school choice — through ESAs — to provide flexibility for families to select their desired educational avenue. Funds can be spent on school tuition, homeschool expenses, online learning, tutoring, special needs therapy, learning materials, and other education-related expenses.
ESA programs not only afford parents options outside of government-run, union-controlled public schools, but they save the state money because typically only a portion of the student state funding is provided. For example, in Arizona, instead of upwards of $12,000 spent per student within the public system, the ESA provided to families is only $7,000.
As the race to pass universal school choice picks up speed, several states could be heading to the home stretch in the coming weeks and months.
Utah is positioned extremely well to join the universal school choice ranks as the House and Senate have both passed the “Utah Fits All Act” as of January 26. If signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox, families would have access to roughly $8,000 each year for educational expenses.
Florida is historically a national leader in school choice, with almost half its students learning in an option outside of their assigned traditional public school. Current legislation is calling for universal school choice. With Republican lawmakers holding supermajorities in both the House and Senate, and Gov. Ron DeSantis at the helm, it’s only a matter of time.
Oklahoma is a contender in the educational freedom race. The Education Freedom Act is currently in the Senate, which has a 40-8 Republican supermajority. The House has an 81-20 supermajority. Once the bill hits educational freedom champion Gov. Kevin Stitt’s desk, it will be signed into law. It will grant all families statewide access to an ESA based on the state’s per-pupil education expense. State Superintendent Ryan Walters is a fierce supporter of empowering Oklahoma families with educational freedom to select the schools that will best serve their children.
Texas, traditionally lagging behind other red states on school choice, is not to be counted out this session in advancing ESAs. In May 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott urged lawmakers to empower parents through state funding following students. As the months passed, the groundwork was laid, including debunking the notion that school choice does not benefit rural areas or that it hurts rural school districts.
West Virginia was the national leader prior to Arizona passing universal school choice in 2022. In West Virginia, roughly 93 percent of students have access to the Hope Scholarship to date. There is the possibility to expand it to 100 percent of the state’s children within the next three years. Despite the state’s families having negligible educational freedom options until 2019, West Virginia is now among the leaders.
Indiana has efforts underway to expand the state’s existing ESA program to all students statewide while also increasing the grant amount from 90 percent of the per-student state funding to 100 percent. That would translate to an average of $7,500 allocated per student for educational expenses of the parents’ choosing.
Arkansas shouldn’t be overlooked this session. Newly elected Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has stated her support for plans to “empower parents with more choices … so no child is ever trapped in a failing school.”
The tide is turning, and the implications are tremendous. No longer will families be at the mercy of government-run, union-controlled traditional public schools. Parents in an increasing number of states will be empowered as decision-makers in their children’s education.
The question is: Which state will be next to achieve universal educational freedom?
Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Visiting Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
It’s been a good year for classical Christian education. New school starts are up threefold, a book on classical education became No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, and on Jan. 26, Fox Nation will release season two of a popular series on classical Christian education, “The Miseducation of America.” Of course, with growth comes attention. What is unusual this time is that someone with ties to our movement — one of our own — draws focus to a growing divide.
On Jan. 12, in the online journal Current, Jessica Hooten Wilson asked, “Is White Supremacy a Bug or a Feature of Classical Christian Education?” It should come as no surprise that, within her mainstream academic ecosphere as a scholar at Pepperdine University, she gets pressure. “I experience regular pushback from those who perceive [classical Christian education] as white, Western-only, and male-dominated.” She proceeds to cast aspersions on a few people and organizations — including, indirectly, mine. Her accusations become a pretext for her thesis: “If the classical Christian school movement is to survive — let alone flourish — we must oppose all forms of racism and misogyny and stand with the beauty, goodness, and truth that we hold up for our students.” I’ll take her up on that charge.
Hooten Wilson is a staccato note at the end of a new tune within our circles. Her article praises those groups she believes are taking the right steps. So far, I’ve heard no one publicly state the thesis so clearly as she does: “We should peruse the authors of the works and, if applicable, the editors or introductory writers to ensure an assortment of voices … as well as an equality of both sexes. If we look at the table of contents of a textbook or a reading list for a semester and find not a single woman or person of color in that list, then that curriculum is misrepresenting the classical Christian tradition.”
Choosing the Classical Canon
For the better part of three millennia, philosophical, theological, and literary authors labored to create the classical canon, representing countless cultural influences. Over much of this same time period, learned scholars have made lists of those that deserve “canon” status. It is unclear if there are minorities or women in Cassiodorus’ list of authors (400 A.D.), or Leonardo Bruni or Battista Guarino’s lists (humanists from the 1400s) — they don’t use those categories. Mortimer Adler and his team of about 40 renowned scholars chose the most widely recognized list of books in our time based upon their contribution to “the great conversation.” Adler’s merit-based criteria required a work to have changed the course of history and to have developed the collective Western mind. What Adler’s team did not do is look to race or sex as criteria.
The Western classical tradition has long included people of every race and sex in a particular way: The tradition deals with a body of texts that address the universal truths about the human condition, rising above our culture’s current quest to silo everyone into an intersection of identity.
Whatever your identity may be, the long journey toward Aeneus’ destiny amplifies the tension between duty and desire. The hilarity of twins unknown to each other, living in the same city, begets “A Comedy of Errors,” no matter your race or sex. Would Hooten Wilson tell the young women and minorities in our schools that they cannot fully converse with these texts because their voices are not represented in them? Shall our schools sacrifice universal human dignity on the altar of token inclusion? Hooten Wilson limits her criteria to women and minorities. Some, like Kimberle Crenshaw, will not be satisfied with this attempt to diversify our reading lists — there will always be one more disaffected group.
Duped into Old-Fashioned Racism and Sexism
By Hooten Wilson’s standard, we must scrape and scrape until we find a “fair” representation of “diverse” contributors. “I am especially excited about the number of women that we added to the Middle Ages list. … Classical schools should look through their reading lists to make sure women and persons of color are not excluded from their curriculum.” Classical Christian education should not be duped by the spirit of our age into old-fashioned racism or sexism. This spirit was cultivated not by our tradition, as Hooten Wilson claims, but rather by the Frankfurt School.
During the 1930s, a group of cultural Marxist scholars set up shop at Columbia University. The Frankfurt School set out on a mission to end the influence of Christianity in our culture. Their thickly veiled product called critical theory deliberately divides us by whispering one small lie, presented in two axioms: For a person to relate to anything, or gain from anything — in this case an intellectual tradition — it must have elements that “look like them” and match their “identity.” And, a second axiom follows: Thus, if something does not contain “diverse and inclusive” elements, it is racist or misogynist. These fruits of critical theory travel down a circuitous path from the Frankfurt School, to Hooten Wilson’s proposal, to a few classical educators who take incremental steps toward critical theory — all of this under the trendy label of “inclusiveness.”
True Liberation Through Classical Christian Education
Classical education was created to, and has, liberated the minds of countless people groups in history, and it is capable of doing the same in America today — and beyond. It has been at the forefront of the march for freedom and education; for individual rights apart from race or class or sex. If we let the very toxin that infects progressive education get into our classrooms, we’re doomed. This toxin was created and propagated by those who hate our tradition. Should we voluntarily drink it?
My daughter recently graduated from New Saint Andrews College. This is one of the institutions that those in Hooten Wilson’s camp label “misogynist.” The college seeks to uphold and respect traditional Christian femininity, which displeases feminists who seem to hate femininity. Misogyny? When my daughter brought her friends to our home over Thanksgiving, I remember listening to the conversation and thinking, “Where do these women come from? They’re strong, bright, extremely well-read, fluent in ancient languages, and honoring of Christian truth — including their God-given womanhood.” None were weak women. All seemed faithful, happy, and confident. I don’t think any of them would want Hooten Wilson’s prescription for their reading list.
Is Racism a Bug or a Feature in Classical Christian Education?
The Frankfurt School’s purpose was to deconstruct. To do so, they inserted a “bug” in our educational system: critical theory, and all of its descendent forms. Some in our movement now offer a batch of code that has this bug embedded deeply within it — in the form of reading lists. By Hooten Wilson’s reckoning, these groups are heading in the right direction. The rest of us are not. Will our institutions continue to follow her lead by adopting coded terms like “Kingdom Diversity”? Or will we recognize the code as a virus and say, “No thank you. The classical Christian tradition is above all that nonsense — and the nonsense of white nationalists, by the way. May a plague be on all your racist houses.”
If classical Christian education is to survive, it has to reject the foolishness of our age and embrace Christ’s way alone. Christ’s church favors neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free.
The humanities are great because they unite. They are universal. Women and non-Europeans are now, in our present time, contributing to classical Christian education in spades. I work so that all children can rise up and join the great conversation without barriers.
“Identity,” however, won’t fit here. Check it at the door. We are Christ’s. We are classical. Those who want to be loved by the spirit of our age will become intoxicated by it, and slowly die of its poison.
David Goodwin is the editor of The Classical Difference magazine, the president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, and the co-author of The New York Times no. 1 best seller “Battle for the American Mind.” You can find him at Substack.
After the 14-year-old was found being sexually assaulted in another state, a judge kept her from loving parents because they questioned her transgender identity. Then she was trafficked again.
In August 2021, by concealing a teen’s newly asserted transgender identity from her parents, Virginia’s Appomattox County High School participated in a chain of events that led to that girl falling into the hands of sexual predators not once, but twice.
When the FBI found Sage (last name of the family withheld for privacy) in Maryland, where she was victimized by a sexual predator, a judge refused to return her to her parents on the grounds they were abusing her in not affirming her as male. Housed in the boys’ quarters of a children’s home away from her parents, she told her mother, she was assaulted again. The girl soon fled, then was brutally sex-trafficked again until her rescue in Texas by law enforcement.
Sage’s Law, or the Child Protection Act, is being introduced this week in the Virginia House of Delegates by Delegate Dave LaRock in honor of this young teen from Appomattox County, Virginia. Sage hopes sharing her story will help protect others from the abuse she suffered at the hands of predators, precipitated in part by the very institutions that should have protected her.
School policies and state laws that encourage concealing information from parents’ purport to protect vulnerable minors. In practice, as tragically demonstrated by Sage’s case, such policies open the door to predators by removing children’s greatest protection from their lives.
Sage’s Law aims to shut that door in three ways. It would require schools to notify parents if their child asserts a gender different from his or her sex; it prevents school counselors from withholding or encouraging minors to withhold information about a child’s gender identity; and it clarifies that raising a child according to his or her biological sex, including decisions about a child’s mental and physical health, may not be construed as abuse.
Sage’s story, compiled from months of interviews, reports, and records, has been lived by countless other families torn apart in the name of gender ideology by activist schools, judges, anddoctors. This is a story of the unbearable cost of parent-exclusion policies, but also of a mother’s love and relentless determination to save her child.
Institutions that Should Protect Endanger Instead
Sage is a slight, pretty, 15-year-old girl with elfin features and an edgy style. Recently, reflecting back on her transgender identification, she told her mom: “I don’t know who I was. I’m a totally different person now. I never was a boy. Everybody was doing it, I just wanted to have friends.”
That self-reflection is consistent with the research showing that upwards of 80 percent of gender dysphoric childrenembrace their sex as they emerge from puberty. Children who are “affirmed” as the opposite sex, however, particularly if puberty blockers are used, consistently go on to further medicalization. Sage’s comment also reflects the reality of social contagion, fueled by social media and increasingly recognized internationally as a factor in the exponential rise in the number of children identifying as transgender.
Yet states such as California allow children as young as 12 to make their own health-care decisions, without their parents but under the authority of the state. In January, Virginia delegates Candi Mundon King, Nadarius Clark, Michelle Maldonado, Sam Rasoul, and Marcus Simon filed a similar bill authorizing courts, social workers, and medical professionals to withhold information from parents and consent to medical procedures for “mature” minors.
The consequences for children and families in states such as California that construe not “affirming” as abuse are particularly dire. In October, progressive Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman announced she would reintroduce her 2020 bill to criminalize parents who do not affirm their child’s transgender identity as guilty of abuse, potentially resulting in the loss of custody.
School Policies Endangering Students
Michele adopted Sage, her biological granddaughter, after the death of her son. Like many gender-dysphoric children, Sage has a history of trauma from that early childhood loss. Related health problems became severe at times, requiring therapy and medical treatment. Her daughter’s previous schools notified Michele when concerns arose, she said, enabling her to have Sage’s treatment adjusted. But when her daughter entered Appomattox County High School in early August 2021, Michele says she was cut out of the loop.
Unbeknownst to Michele, her then-14-year-old’s taste at the time for boys’ clothing, which she described to her mother as simply “dressing emo,” was accompanied by her assertion at school that she was a transgender boy. School records, shared by the family, indicate school staff were calling Sage by her chosen male name and pronouns and at her request concealing this from her parents. Sage recalls her school counselor telling her during the first week of school that since she identified as male she could use the boys’ bathroom.
School records also indicate bullying, although they do not capture the severity of what Sage eventually told her mom: boys were following behind her in a group, touching her, threatening her with knife violence and rape, and even shoving her up against the hallway wall. On Aug. 23, according to school notes, reports were received from students and teachers that Sage had used a boys’ bathroom and encountered hostile boys there. The school counselor met with Sage the next day to direct her to use the nurses’ bathroom for safety reasons.
Sage’s statement that “all the boys at this school are rapists” prompted the school to review hallway footage outside the bathroom, showing that several boys had entered while she was inside. On Wednesday, Aug. 25, the counselor and school resource officer called Sage into a meeting, where she became so emotional that the counselor recorded concern Sage might be “a risk to herself due to being so upset when leaving school.”
Only at this point — after meeting alone with her daughter, after two days had passed and knowledge of the incident had reached all the way to the superintendent, according to the school records — did the school finally contact Michele, she said, still without revealing the male identity her daughter was asserting.
Michele recalls finding a school hall pass labeled with a new name that August evening and Sage telling her for the first time that she was identifying as a boy at school. As Michele sat with her on the floor, Sage tried to stop the tears as she told her mother a group of male students had “jacked” her up against the wall of the boys’ bathroom and threatened her with violence, and that she was terrified of what they would do. Michele tried to comfort her, assuring her she could stay home while they figured out how to handle the bullying.
That night, Sage disappeared. She was found nine days later in Maryland, a victim of sexual assault. That was just the beginning of her family’s ordeal.
Excluding Parents Invites Predators
As Michele’s case illustrates, school policies that exclude parents from critical knowledge of their child’s mental health remove a child’s greatest safeguard from his or her life. While this author could find no such policy posted on the Appomattox High School or school board websites, the school’s actions to “affirm” Sage’s stated gender, name, and pronouns and to permit access to bathrooms of the opposite sex are all consistent with the directives of former Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2021 model policies. So is the choice to deceive parents.
In fact, the Northam policies direct that an entire gender transition team and plan be set up for such a child, all in secret from the parents if the child so wishes. This guidance was revoked in 2022 by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, but Virginia Democrats and LGBT groups are fiercely contesting the transparency and parental consent required by the new proposed guidance.
Yet school counselors, unlike parents, have at best an extremely limited knowledge of a child’s mental, emotional, and physical needs. They also have neither the constitutional authority nor the expertise to determine a child’s best interests.
Children who identify as transgender have well-documented mental health co-morbidities and rates of adverse psychiatric events. Even Dr. Erica Anderson, former head of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), has raised alarm at the “pitched battle” engendered by professionals who “triangulate” or set children in opposition to their parents.
In Sage’s case, by withholding information about her daughter’s gender identity and related issues, including the severe bullying related to Sage’s transgender exploration, the school destroyed vital opportunities for Michele to discern warning signs in time to assess and respond before tragedy struck.
Predators know transgender kids are vulnerable prey. Sage told Michele months later that some of the transgender websites to which a school counselor referred her linked to “creepy” older men and pornography.
One mother told this author that as soon as her daughter identified online as “female to male,” multiple suspicious “sugar daddy” accounts reached out to her on social media. Roblox, the wildly popular children’s gaming site, has transgender chat rooms with a panic button to “hide your screen from your parents.” Sage, her mother says, was lured to meet sex traffickers by online predators posing as friends.
A Court-Enabled Tragedy
The first call from the FBI came late at night on Sept. 2, her mother recounts: Sage had been found. Michele says investigators told her Sage had been trafficked into Washington, D.C. and then Maryland for nine days of horrific, brutal sexual abuse.
Driving through the night, their backseat full of stuffed animals and cozy blankets, Michele and her husband Roger arrived early the next morning at the Baltimore Courthouse. They were stunned to hear that their child, who had just survived unspeakable trauma, was being held in a juvenile detention cell and that they were being summoned to a hearing late that afternoon before Judge Robert Kershaw. When they entered the courtroom, Sage appeared from the penitentiary remotely, on screen, with only court-appointed attorney Aneesa Khan, an assistant public defender, present in person. “I love you, baby!” Michele cried to her daughter, who responded “I love you too, Nana.” To their shock, Khan spoke up and alleged on Sage’s behalf that she did not wish to return home and had been “both emotionally and physically abused by his parents in connection with [his] expressed male gender identity and desire to live as a trans male.”
Michele had only found out about this claimed male identity the night her daughter disappeared. Yet Michele was willing to use any name or pronoun to bring her home. Sage later told her, Michele says, that Khan “told me to tell the judge my parents hit me, starved me.” Sage also told Michele that Khan “didn’t care how much [Sage] had to lie…but they were going to win this case” to remove Sage from her parents’ custody and place her in a Maryland foster home that would affirm her as male.
Michele is a Virginia Court-Appointed Child Advocate (CASA) with years of experience supporting troubled teens, and she and Roger were quickly cleared of abuse charges. But the allegations were used to take custody of their daughter and bar them from seeing her.
The Cruelty of Ideology
Rather than treat Sage as a victim of horrific sex trafficking and return her to her family, the court dealt with her as a runaway, providing grounds for temporary custody in Maryland. Significantly, under the Interstate Juvenile Compact, even if allegations of abuse are made, juveniles are to be returned to their home state, which is presumed to better be able to assess the child’s needs. Judge Kershaw delayed this return for two months, which led to Sage’s next trafficking episode.
Instead of receiving treatment for her profound physical and emotional trauma, Sage was kept for days in solitary detention as a runaway, then transferred to the Catonsville Children’s Home. Per Judge Kershaw’s order, she was housed according to her “expressed male gender.” Michele says she eventually learned from Sage that she was the only girl in male quarters and that she had been repeatedly assaulted there.
Kershaw held multiple hearings focusing on Sage’s claimed male identity and Khan’s efforts to demonstrate gender identity abuse, including calling two Appomattox school counselors to testify against Sage’s parents. While his final ruling on Nov. 10, 2021, reluctantly conceded lawful custody to the parents, Kershaw opined at length that “more likely than not” Sage had “endured emotional abuse and neglect by his parents,” including “misgendering” and “misnaming.” Astonishingly, Kershaw cited as evidence of parental abuse “running away from Virginia to Maryland,” when in fact Sage was abducted, raped, and trafficked across state lines.
While Sage was in The Children’s Home, Michele says she sent letters and cards multiple times a week and tried countless times to reach her by phone, especially on Sage’s 15th birthday. Months later, Sage commented: “I missed you so much, but I tried not to because you didn’t want me back.” Horrified, her mother asked what she meant. She learned from Sage that Khan had told her that, because she was transgender, Michele didn’t want her anymore — and that not one of her cards or messages had ever reached her daughter.
Sage also eventually told her mother that, while living at the foster home, she skipped classes every day and would “smoke weed and do drugs” with kids she had met. Sage also relayed later that Khan had told her “I don’t give a sh-t if you do drugs, I just want to win this case.” Sage also said Khan had visited the home of one of Sage’s Maryland school friends to enlist her support in contacting Sage, claiming Khan had won the case and resulting in knowledge of Sage’s case spreading around the school.
In a text to a friend at the time, Sage referenced Khan’s intent: “going to the court of appeals, and the supreme court.” It is difficult to avoid Michele’s conclusion that “[t]he only best interest [Sage’s] attorney had was for herself. To put my traumatized child on center stage to push her political or gender agenda!”
Michele begged the court to provide treatment for the trauma Sage had endured and had found placement for her by mid-October, approved by Virginia social services, in Youth for Tomorrow’s program for young victims of sexual exploitation. The judge rejected it because they would treat Sage as a girl.
Not until Nov. 10 did Judge Kershaw approve placement in North Spring, a residential treatment facility that would affirm her claimed male identity. Frightened of being locked in the facility and believing her mother no longer wanted her, Sage texted a friend, “im gonna dip” (leave). On Nov. 12, 2021, Sage says, she cut off her court-required GPS monitor and ran away to meet an online “friend” in Texas she thought was 16.
Once more, the unspeakable happened. Sage fell into the hands of a predator who, police told Michele, raped, starved, drugged, and brutalized her. This time she disappeared for months. For the second time in less than four months, Michele had no way of knowing if her daughter was even alive. But Michele never stopped searching. Finally, a tip she discovered on social media led Texas marshals to her daughter’s rescue in Dallas on Jan. 24, 2022.
For the first time since that conversation on the floor of Sage’s bedroom on Aug. 25 the year before, mother and daughter were able to talk. On the plane ride home, Michele listened as Sage began to unburden her heart, grieving over what she learned but overcome with gratitude that her daughter was alive and restored to her.
Affirmation by Intimidation
Upon her return to Virginia, Sage entered North Spring, the lock-down facility negotiated by the court, with Michele driving four hours each way for her weekly allotted visit. Sage was heavily medicated, suffering from constant nightmares, and fearful of both residents and doctors. Sage told her mother that her counselor also pressured Sage to tell Michele she wanted a “gender-affirming” mastectomy.
Yet, during one of Michele’s visits, Sage asked if her mother could secretly take her to buy girls’ clothes, stating she didn’t want to be a boy anymore, but she was scared to tell the doctors. Pressured by North Spring to let them treat her daughter, Michele reached out to Josh Hetzler, an attorney with Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center, who secured her daughter’s return. After nearly a year of horror, she was finally home safely.
The road ahead is a long one of healing both physically and emotionally. There are confusing lapses in concentration and persistent, terrifying nightmares. In a safe, loving home, surrounded by her pets and easing into at-home learning and therapy sessions, the painful recollections emerge unpredictably, as do the panic attacks. Michele doesn’t press, letting Sage open up at her pace, whether to her or to her beloved uncle Cory, who has moved home to support her.
As she begins to process her ordeal, Sage now desires to protect others from the horrors she experienced. Michele’s heroic, unrelenting determination to save her daughter has turned not only to helping her heal but to preserving other families from what hers endured. Advocates have rallied to help fund legal action through The Gavel Project, and to craft policies that will help protect others.
Sage’s Law
Many children never escape the clutches of sex traffickers. Had it not been for her mother’s relentless love and determination, Sage might never have been found. Michele calls it a miracle. In the starkest of contrasts, the actions of ideologues played a part — twice — in her daughter falling into the traffickers’ hands.
Sage’s public school could have been transparent to Michele about her daughter’s struggles. The court could have returned her to Virginia without furthering a quest to make legal history. The children’s home could have protected her from assault and access to drugs. And doctors could have treated trauma, not pressed living as the opposite sex and mutilative surgery on a victim of sexual abuse. All along, it was her mother who truly had Sage’s best interest at heart.
Sage was failed by adults who thought they were helping but were blinded to their own cruelty by their ideology. Michele tells of countless parents who have reached out to her with their own stories of families and bodies destroyed by school counselors, courts, and doctors who may spend minutes with a child, but assert they have the expertise and authority to usurp decisions from parents who have poured a lifetime into their care.
Sage has shown great courage in sharing her story, and it is time for lawmakers to take a stand for her and many other children by passing Sage’s Law. There is only one acceptable response to her story: never again.
Laura Bryant Hanford is a mother of five and is actively involved in school policy and religious freedom issues in Virginia, where she lives with her family. She served from 2015 to 2018 on Fairfax County Public Schools’ Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee. She was the lead congressional staff drafter of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. She also served at the U.S. Embassy in Romania as the officer in charge of human rights, focusing on ethnic minorities, women, and refugees. She is a graduate of Princeton University.
Four Republican Texas state representatives asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday to review new transgender student policies for public schools. State Representatives Bryan Slaton, Brian Harrison, Tony Tinderholt, and Mark Dorazio signed a letter calling on Paxton to examine the Texas Association of School Boards’ (TASB) 2023 “radically pro-transgender” guidance, according to a copy of the letter tweeted by Slaton.
The representatives accuse TASB of disseminating legal advice that seems to discourage schools from reporting child abuse, denies parental rights, and claims female students don’t have legal protection to a private restroom or locker room, the letter stated.
“This radically pro-transgender legal advisory appears to encourage school districts to refrain from reporting child abuse and obscure information regarding children exhibiting gender dysphoria from their parents,” the four congressmen stated. “This document also makes a bold declaration that says young girls would have no law protecting them from having a school district permit a biological male to enter their restroom or locker room.
The TASB legal advice is “highly concerning” as it “may be effectively creating state policy,” they said.
The school board association said that having a transgender child use separate gender-neutral facilities could make some students “feel that such an arrangement negatively singles them out and isolates them from their peers,” according to the document.
“Consequently, the transgender student may request to use communal sex-specific facilities that match the student’s gender identity. There is no law that prohibits a district from granting the transgender student’s request to use these facilities,” TASB advised. “If other students or their parents object to the use of a sex-specific facility by a transgender student, a school district may be able to amicably address the competing interests by making individual-user facilities and private areas available for all students.”
The decision on whether students should play on sex-specific sports teams is in murky waters, according to the TASB letter. Despite Texas law requiring students to play on teams separated by their biological birth, TASB advises school districts to “assess each request individually and determine the best course of action based on a thorough evaluation of all of the issues and potential risks, and in consultation with the district’s attorney.”
TASB also counseled schools on the legality behind preventing unsupportive parents from knowing about their child’s gender dysphoria and choosing a different name or pronoun.
“Texas educators typically work with parents to decide on appropriate accommodations for transgender students. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that transgender students are at particular risk of harm, including self-harm, when a parent disagrees with the student’s gender identity,” the document stated.
“As such, a student may request that a district employee not tell his or her parent about the student’s gender identity. School officials should proceed with caution in this case, in accordance with district policy regarding student counseling, crisis intervention, and child abuse,” TASB added.
Established in 1636, Harvard, located in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. | Courtesy of Harvard University
One of the nation’s most historically prestigious universities is offering a course that instructs students how to provide healthcare services to “infants” who “identify” as LGBT.
The Harvard Medical School course, dubbed “Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development,” includes a course description that outlines how students will learn to provide “high-quality, culturally responsive care” for “patients [who] identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or asexual.”
“Clinical exposure and education will focus on serving gender and sexual minority people across the lifespan, from infants to older adults,” according to the description on the Harvard.edu site.
Screenshot: Harvard.edu
The four-week elective course is designed to reflect Harvard Medical School’s Sexual and Gender Minority Health Equity Initiative, which aims to “foster excellence caring for patients with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and sex development.” The initiative’s stated goal is to provide “high-quality, holistic health care for sexual and gender minority patients of all ages.”
It’s unclear what criteria Harvard uses to determine whether an infant is considered a “gender or sexual minority.“
The university did not immediately respond to a request for clarification Friday from The Christian Post.
As part of its Physician Competency Reference Set (PCRS), the Harvard course also offers learning goals for students to “acquire the knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to provide sensitive and affirming care” to patients from all backgrounds.
The course description lists Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as the main meeting location for the 2022-23 academic year. Both course directors, Alex Keuroghlian and Alberto Puig, also work for the hospital.
Massachusetts General is among several in the nation to offer transgender surgical services. In 2020, doctors at the hospital sought approval to perform a first-of-its-kind surgery to attach the penis of a dead man onto a woman who identifies as transgender.
The operation, which has yet to be approved, would involve attaching an organ donor’s penis to the groin of a biological female.
Another partner in the course, Boston Children’s Hospital, came under fire last year after an activist shared videos of the hospital purportedly offering “gender-affirming hysterectomies” and other services to minors. A March 2022 paper revealed 65 double mastectomies were performed on minor girls at the Center for Gender Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital between 2017 and 2020.
Despite nearly two centuries of a strong Christian heritage, Harvard has, in recent years, strayed further away from its theological roots and even hired an atheist as its chief chaplain in August 2021. Harvard Medical School made waves in a 2020 tweet promoting one of its panel discussions when the school referred to women as “birthing people.” As part of a discussion on “maternal justice,” Harvard Medical School’s Postgraduate and Continuing Education proclaimed, “Globally, ethnic minority pregnant and birthing people suffer worse outcomes and experiences during and after pregnancy and childbirth.”
An Ontario high school teacher who wears giant prosthetic breasts, which some have deemed to be “obscene,” may be causing a new dress code policy change for more professional attire.
On Jan. 3, the Board of Trustees passed a motion requesting the director of education develop a professionalism policy “to maintain appropriate and professional standards of dress and decorum in the classroom,” according to the Halton District School Board.
When Fox News Digital reached out for comment about the teacher’s giant breasts potentially bringing about a policy change, the education director reaffirmed the importance of human rights for “underserved and underrepresented” groups.
“The HDSB’s commitment to human rights remains rooted in our core values and commitment to each and every student and staff who identifies as a member of an underserved and underrepresented group, and our approach is informed by opinions from leading employment law firms with human rights and equity advisors. This commitment and approach will continue to be applied as the HDSB looks to fulfill this motion,” the director stated.
The teacher, whom the district has refused to identify, went viral in September after videos of the giant prosthetic breasts and nipple. The Canadian teacher works at Oakville Trafalgar High School. Some have argued that the district was required by Canadian law to allow the transgender teachers to dress as they please, while others have said the attire is sexual, and therefore extremely inappropriate to be worn around minor children.
AP Photo/Alik Keplicz (The Associated Press)
The trustees have requested the policy be presented in a report by March 1, 2023, with an interim report in February 2023.
Minnesota’s teaching licensure board will soon require all teachers to be card-carrying Marxists. The card will literally say “licensed teacher,” but recently approved revisions redefine state licensure in expressly Marxist terms: Academic knowledge is out, and power struggle among the classes is in. To be licensed in Minnesota starting in 2025, every teacher must not merely teach about, but personally advocate, the core tenets of critical race theory and transgender ideology.
The state’s insistence that every teacher positively affirm homosexual behaviors and transgendered identities understandably aggravates consciences among moral traditionalists, but the issues run deeper than the “culture war.” What is at stake is the nature of knowledge, the future of liberty, and the prospects for a sustainable social order. In a word: civilization.
A perfunctory hearing on Aug. 24, 2022, and the resulting order for implementation with slight revisions by a solitary administrative judge in December cemented the new regime. The revised Standards of Effective Practice require radical changes to teachers’ curriculum selection, classroom management style, and self-understanding of the teaching vocation. The education departments at colleges and universities also must document their fulfillment of the new standards or else have their program certifications rescinded by Minnesota’s Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB).
The new requirements require teachers to positively affirm extremist leftist positions about human nature and sexual practices in order to be allowed to teach in government schools.
Teachers will be required to choose “anti-racist” — i.e. critical race theory — instructional strategies for students. An administrative judge told the state to amend No. 4 here requiring teachers to expose children to sexual identities. It will likely still go into effect, with slightly different language.The new license requires teachers to affirm transgenderism.
The revisions represent only the latest attack against American heritage in Minnesota’s public schools. In 2013, the state education department successfully removed the four presidents featured on Mount Rushmore from social studies standards.
Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan also got the ax that year, as did the Magna Carta. References to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were relativized, as students were to be instructed that those documents do not contain universal principles of ordered liberty, but merely the opinion of one powerful group of 18th-century men.
A decade later, the vanguard has advanced again. The revised teacher licensing rules strike the following from the mathematics standards: “addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percentages.” They insert this for teachers of all subjects: “The teacher fosters an environment that ensures student identities such as race/ethnicity, national origin, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical/developmental/emotional ability, socioeconomic class, and religious beliefs are historically and socially contextualized, affirmed, and incorporated into a learning environment where students are empowered to learn and contribute as their whole selves.”
It no longer suffices simply to discuss the controversies of radical reform; teachers and students must also become advocates for change: “The teacher creates opportunities for students to learn about power, privilege, intersectionality, and systemic oppression in the context of various communities and empowers learners to be agents of social change to promote equity.” Minnesota’s Scandinavian ancestors must be turning over in their graves at this new smorgasbord of Marxist truffles.
The PELSB’s “Statement of Necessity and Reasonableness” for the licensure changes draws support from two states just as blue as Minnesota. From New York, PELSB gleans: “Inclusive curriculum and assessment … works toward dismantling systems of biases and inequities, and decentering dominant ideologies in education.” In Illinois, each teacher must internalize a Marxist mentalité: “The culturally responsive teacher and leader will explore their own intersecting identities, how they were developed, and how they impact daily experience of the world.”
Illinois has expressly abandoned what Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, called “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” In place of objective truth, “what is seen as ‘correct’ is most often based on our lived experiences.” As in New York, so also in Illinois — and soon in Minnesota — all teachers must practice what cultural Marxists preach: “Assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.).”
But to whom? Neither the people nor their elected officials decided the matter. A solitary administrative judge, appointed by the governor, ordered the implementation of the radical licensure changes after merely recommending a few tweaks.
The labyrinth of administrative procedure affords limited opportunity for appeal, but one can hope that a teacher, a parent, or a teacher-preparation college will petition for declaratory relief. If nothing else, PELSB’s radical rewriting of human nature smacks of a state-imposed religion, in violation of the First Amendment’s no establishment clause, not to mention the dereliction of duty when schools jettison mainstream academic content in favor of extremist ideology.
If recourse to the courts should fail, another remedy remains, modeled for the free world in Norway in 1942. When the National Socialists ordered parents to enroll their children in indoctrination camps with just three weeks’ notice and required all school teachers to implement a Nazi curriculum, the people simply would not have it. Five out of every six teachers resigned.
A similar proportion of parents flooded the Norwegian education bureau with letters — literally, laundry baskets full of letters — registering their protests. Adolf Hitler’s henchmen were grossly outnumbered, and the Nazis’ outward control of state agencies never penetrated to the hearts and minds of the people. The fusion of Viking blood with Lutheran “here I stand” courage made otherwise docile Norwegians invincible. Whether the Minnesotans can muster similar resolve soon will become evident to all.
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Schools across America are affirming the gender dysphoria of children without parental consent. While some educators have been exposed for intentionally confusing children on matters of sex and identity, entire school boards are doubling down, with some battling in court to keep facilitating students’ so-called transitions without telling parents.
When Jennifer — who omitted her surname for the sake of her child’s privacy — caught her school covertly transitioning her 10-year-old daughter; she rescued her little girl and began homeschooling.
In many similar cases, the cards appear stacked against parents, particularly those unable to homeschool but wary of strangers confusing their kids and putting them on paths to sterile, drug-dependent, and disenchanted lives.
Jennifer recognized that while her little girl was spared, she wouldn’t be the last targeted; that educators, school administrators, pharmaceutical companies, psychologists, and other power- and profit-incentivized parties were just getting started. Recognizing that other parents may need help and that this is a battle worth winning, Jennifer and other parents are now going on the offensive.
TheBlaze recently spoke to Jennifer about the fight her volunteer organization, Partners for Ethical Care, is taking to the loose coalition of bad actors apparently eager to transmogrify children, usurp parental rights, and turn a profit at the expense of innocence.
What are the details?
In November, Jennifer told Wesley Yang, who runs the Substack “Year Zero,” about how her school first socially transitioned her 10-year-old daughter without informing her.
“The school was using a name that she made up, so not her name that was given to her, and different pronouns,” said Jennifer.
Jennifer’s daughter no longer used the girl’s bathroom. Had she been 13 or older, she would have been able to use boy’s facilities without Jennifer knowing, but as she was still only 10 at the time, she instead used the office washroom.
A school therapist would regularly meet with Jennifer’s daughter, ultimately in excess of five hours.
In these meetings, the therapist would reportedly employ biologically inaccurate pronouns in reference to the little girl and egg on the child’s temporary identity crisis.
One teacher went so far as to suggest that Jennifer’s little girl be assigned to a boys’ cabin at camp.
For the most part, the school elected not to keep Jennifer’s family in the loop.
“It just felt so much like an injustice,” she told TheBlaze. “I knew I was gonna try to do whatever I could to push back against it.”
Despite fearing that Child Protective Services might break up her family, citing her refusal to accommodate the so-called transition, Jennifer ultimately pulled her daughter out. CPS fortunately never came, and Jennifer now homeschools her child.
Her daughter’s previous confusion, exacerbated by her LGBT friend group and by social media, dissipated over time.
While her battle for her daughter’s well-being was over, Jennifer’s war against the “medicalization of children” was just beginning.
Partners for Ethical Care
While Jennifer and her family enjoyed the requisite stability to homeschool, she recognized that not all parents have that as an option. She also suspected that soon, CPS and other state agencies would be weaponized against families antipathetic to the medicalization of their children.
“I do remember at some point, my mother’s saying to me, ‘This is so huge. … What are you going to be able to do?’ I said I don’t know, but if I don’t, who will do something?” said Jennifer. “Everything has to start somewhere, right?”
Jennifer noted that at the time, she wasn’t aware of some of the other groups committed to protecting children from the transsexual agenda but is now well acquainted with the work of Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend and others in the U.S. extra to the “vast underground network of parents” committed to the fight.
Keen to do undertake an initiative of their own, Jennifer, Alix Aharon of the Gender Mapping Project, Jeannette Cooper, and several others banded together in fall 2020.
Jennifer recalled the sentiment early on: “We’re like, let’s start this organization. Let’s fight. Let’s fight the medicalization. … We were looking to create awareness because there didn’t seem to be much outside of our tiny bubble. And to gather stories to potentially help [in legal efforts].”
The group they founded is called Partners for Ethical Care.
“No child is born in the wrong body” is the understanding underpinning the work undertaken by the volunteers behind PEC, all committed to stopping the “medicalization of children.”
As part of its campaign to raise awareness, PEC shares testimonials on both its website and podcast from families adversely affected by transsexual ideology as well as from those who have “desisted” (i.e., ended social and or medical transmogrifications.)
PEC also provides parents with resources detailing methods by which they can opt their kids out of gender education programs and find “gender-critical” therapists as well as what to look out for in the way of deceptive practices widely employed by school administrators and educators.
The awareness and resource campaign is critically important, suggested Jennifer, since the fight against the medicalization agenda targeting minors and the true nature of the underlying problem is “under a media blackout, especially in left-wing media, mainstream media.”
Best practices
Jennifer highlighted three major ways parents can confront this threat posed to their children.
First, she suggested that parents should regulate and monitor their kids’ interactions online.
“The biggest thing is for parents to keep their kids off the internet for as long as possible,” she said. “My daughter did learn some of these things in an online forum — a drawing forum.”
Whether it’s on Discord or in online games, “The internet is a predator’s playground right now.”
According to Jennifer, both predators and the ideologically-motivated seek out the vulnerable online.
Narrowing kids’ exposure to content that inspires and promotes gender dysphoria online is important but only a partial measure.
Second, Jennifer suggested that parents need to stand up for their kids in their school districts.
Any ground conceded by parents regarding how their children are to be raised is ground that will ultimately be taken by bad actors. Thus, parents need to keep “standing up for their kids and trying to change the harmful policies” in schools.
“I will say it’s scary for a lot of people to go up [against school boards and educators],” she said, noting how parents critical of transsexual bathroom policies and the crimes they enabled in Loudon County, Virginia, “got framed as terrorists.”
Jennifer suggested that the PEC, like the parental rights movements combatting transsexual propaganda and policies in Virginia and the coalition of Muslim and Christian parents who recently sued a school board in Ohio, are not, contrary to the suggestion of some LGBT activists, “powered by hate.”
“We are not getting paid. We’re doing this out of love. We’re doing this because we care that much,” she said.
This can be hard, she said, because oftentimes schools keep their real intents and policies hidden.
The foundation for these three tactics is awareness.
We’re proud to announce our first event—and it’s a big one. Join us in Austin, TX on April 20, 2023 to learn from a panel of experts from around the world going step-by-step through the process of how Gender Inc Manufactures Trans Kids. Tickets: https://t.co/9WjVuO3RGG
— Partners for Ethical Care (PEC) (@ethical_care) December 5, 2022
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A so-called literacy coach near Chicago is testing the bounds of her free speech rights by creating several videos in which she rails against concerned parents and other “right-wing conspiracy theorist nut jobs” and then posting the condescending videos to TikTok.
Heather Marie Godbout, whose job title claims she is a “literacy coach” at Crete-Monee High School, has posted a series of education-related videos on TikTok under the handle @thatliberaleducator. In various videos, she excoriates conservatives as “people who could know better if they could get out of their own little bubbles” and accuses them of “trying to bring down our democracy and create a Christian nationalist theocracy.”
In one particular video, which has the phrase “Indoctrination? Yes please!” emblazoned at the top and is replete with furrowed brows and audible lip smacks, she claims that it’s “[t]ime to own up to” indoctrinating students.
“All you right-wing conspiracy theory nut jobs who seem to think the teachers are out here just indoctrinating children into some sort of woke agenda that you can’t actually define, I’m just going to come clean,” Godbout begins.
“I am, in fact, indoctrinating your children,” she admits.
She then spends another minute or so clarifying what her version of indoctrination entails.
“I’m indoctrinating children into understanding their own agency and learning how to think critically about the issues that impact their lives,” she says after claiming to foster a love of “reading and books.”
She then appears to have a clarifying moment of self-awareness when she claims to teach students to “not just accept whatever some crazy person on the internet says at face value” but to “do their own research.”
She concludes the video by claiming that her work teaches students “to be loving, kind, compassionate human beings” who will make the world “a better place.” She implies that she presents herself to students as a living model of such behavior.
When viewers criticized Godbout’s condescending approach, she created a follow-up video in which she said she will always refuse to be respectful to people who disagree with her politically — whom she derisively refers to as “those people” — because “they’re talking about legislation that will literally unlive people.” She also accused one of her critics of “tone-policing” and of shutting “down conversation, especially from people in marginalized groups.“
Godbout elsewhere stated that she does not fear reprisal from her employer for the videos, claiming, “[M]y administrators fully support my First Amendment rights to free speech on my own social media platforms.“
“Look in my eyes, what do you see? The cult of personality. I know your anger- I know your dreams, I’ve been everything you want to be- Oh, I’m the cult of personality Like Mussolini and Kennedy, I’m the cult of personality, The cult of personality, the cult of personality.”
In 1988, those lyrics by American rock band Living Colour were the opening of their biggest selling single to date, “Cult of Personality”. Its cryptic title came from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 anti-Stalin report, “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences.”
Forty years after the song’s release, guitarist and writer Vernon Reid explained its meaning this way: “The whole idea was to move past the duality of: That’s a good person and that’s a bad person. What do the good and the bad have in common? Is there something that unites Gandhi and Mussolini? Why are they who they are? And part of it is charisma.” For many, our Achilles’ heel is that we are drawn to the charismatic qualities of persons or things but are blinded to their detrimental aspects. Based on these principles, cults have and will always exist.
For Pharmaceutical company heiress Melinda Rockwell, her ‘cult’ experience hit home after her daughter Annabella began attending Mount Holyoke College in 2011; a $60,000-a-year all-women’s institution of higher learning. Most of her fellow-first-year attendees assimilated easily to Holyoke’s gender-fluid programs and practices- but not Annabella.
She focused on her studies and buried herself in her courses. It wasn’t long however, when she herself noticed subtle changes in her own behavior. In an interview with the New York Post, Annabelle, now 29, explained how she slowly lost control: “This professor tells me about the patriarchy,” Rockwell said.
“I barely knew what the word meant. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I wasn’t someone that into feminism. I just knew that I felt I had always been free to do what I wanted. I never experienced sexism. But I was told there’s the patriarchy, and you don’t even understand it’s been working against you your whole life. You’ve been oppressed, and you didn’t even know it. Now you have to fight it. And I just went down this deep rabbit hole.”
Deep Seeded Changes
After graduating from the college, Annabella was clearly no longer the same: “I left school very anxious, very nervous, very depressed and sad. I saw everything through the lens of oppression and bias and victimhood. I came to the school as someone who saw everyone equally. I left looking for injustice wherever I could and automatically assuming that all White men were sexist. My thoughts were no longer my own.”
According to the Post, Melinda believed her daughter had been brainwashed. She also felt that if she pushed Annabella too hard, she might lose her forever. Not knowing what else to do, she took drastic measures to free her daughter from this prison of indoctrination. She decided to use a $300-a-day deprogrammer, and Scott Williams, Rockwell’s former tennis coach, to fight the Svengali-type hold that, “was no different than cults like the “Moonies” and the” Children of God.”
Annabella had no idea how apropos her mom’s comparison of Holyoke was. As a result of the “deprogrammers” methods she is now free and credits her mom’s relentlessness. Melinda learned a lesson just in time that far too many parents learn too late: the desire to control the minds of students is much more sinister, prevalent, and rampant than you think.
A Young Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste
The online site, mindingthecampus.org unveils a much more nefarious, surreptitious plot to snare the minds of our children. In addition, it also reveals the broad scope of their ideological attack. “The alliance between the public education establishment and the march of “progressivism” is as natural as anything could be,” states George Leef in his article “A Racially “Woke” Agenda Is Now Hardwired in Public Schools.”
“Public education depends on the power of government: to tax, to build schools and hire teachers and administrators, to compel student attendance, to minimize or even prohibit competition. As the poor quality of many public schools has become increasingly evident over the last several decades, the education establishment has become an utterly slavish ally of the political left. It depends on the coercive fist of government.”
At the same time, the political left has become ever more reliant on the education system (K-12 through college and beyond) to inculcate statist ideas in people. If voters were inclined and able to think through the harmful consequences of “progressive” policies such as minimum wage laws, welfare payments, the Green New Deal, government-run health care, wealth taxes, and so on, they would toss the leftists out of office.
It’s far better for those politicians if as many voters as possible are conditioned to support candidates who mouth clichés about the evils of capitalism, the need for compassionate government, the imperative of transforming America, so it will be a just society, and many others.”
These are the new cults. Contrary to how they appear, there is little daylight in comparison to the ones you’ve heard of from the not-so-distant-past. Today’s cults are just as mesmerizing, and just as deadly. In the examples to come, you will see how the cults of the past hold the keys to avoiding or even escaping those of the present-and the future.
Come back Thursday for Part 2 of this exploration of the modern day cult.
Loudoun County School Board Superintendent Scott Ziegler (Image Source: WUSA video screenshot)
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The Loudoun County School Board fired Superintendent Scott Ziegler following a grand jury report regarding the district’s handling of two sexual assaults committed by a biological boy who claimed to be transgender, Fox News Digital reported.
In May 2021, the skirt-wearing biological male student was accused of raping a 15-year-old female student in the girls’ bathroom. The story received national attention when the victim’s father, Scott Smith, accused Loudoun County School District of covering up the sexual assault to protect to its transgender policy. Following the horrifying attack, the biological boy was removed from the school and quietly sent to another school in the same district, where the student was accused of sexually assaulting another girl in October 2021.
The attacker faced charges and was found guilty of both sexual assaults.
Monday’s grand jury report stated that the district showed a “stunning lack of openness, transparency and accountability, both to the public and to the special grand jury.”
The report noted that the district “failed at every juncture.” According to the report, the school board attempted to “thwart, discredit and push back” against the grand jury’s investigation.
The grand jury slammed Ziegler for claiming at a school board meeting in June of last year that he did not have any knowledge of the first sexual assault and that there was no “record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” In that meeting, Ziegler also stated that “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist.”
The investigation into the district’s handling of the assault revealed that the superintendent was, in fact, aware of the initial assault. In a May 28 email, the superintendent alerted school board members about the reported attack.
Senior district officials subsequently met in private to discuss the sexual assault that occurred in the school bathroom, internal emails revealed. The report noted that LCSD “bears the brunt of the blame” for the second sexual assault and that it “could have and should have been prevented.” However, the grand jury did not find that there was a “coordinated cover-up” between school officials and the board.
“A remarkable lack of curiosity and adherence to operating in silos by LCPS administrators is ultimately to blame for the October 6 incident,” the report stated.
LCPS was provided with eight recommendations to increase school safety and avoid a similar incident in the future. The grand jury’s investigation did not result in any indictments.
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Parents Defending Education, a grassroots parental rights group, obtained and released a North Carolina school board presentation that detailed the district’s transgender policy, which explained how faculty should hide a student’s gender identity from the student’s parents.
On August 17, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District Board of Education met to view an 84-slide presentation that covered a wide range of topics, including student discipline, teacher salaries, and the district’s transgender policy. The presentation used CDC statistics to estimate that of the district’s 2,146 students, approximately 43, or 2%, likely identify as transgender. The school board also estimated that of those 43 transgender students, 15 had likely attempted suicide. According to district policy, children can request to change their names and pronouns without parental approval. Teachers are not permitted to share a child’s gender identity with the child’s parents or peers without express permission from the student.
“Preferred name can be changed at student’s request – parent/guardian consent not needed,” the presentation stated.
The policy asked educators to consider that a student’s parents may disapprove of the student’s gender identity, which could lead to abuse, neglect, dependency, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, self-harm, and suicide.
“There is never a justification for a policy that calls for the deliberate withholding and concealment of information from parents about their own child,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This policy is based on an ideology; it has no place in schools.”
Educators must refer to students by their preferred names and pronouns, although the policy noted that “inadvertent slips or mistakes” are excusable. However, when speaking to parents, teachers are instructed to use the student’s legal name unless the child has stated otherwise.
Students are permitted to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities, the policy noted.
When going on field trips, educators are asked to “consider the transgender student’s privacy and comfort” and whether sex segregation is necessary. Teachers are also asked, “What will you do if you go to a place that enforces sex stereotyping?”
According to district policy, school staff must follow the students’ lead on the confidentiality of their gender identities.
“In deciding whether to involve a student’s parents or guardian in developing a plan, school staff should work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent or guardian will be involved in the process and must consider the health, wellbeing and safety of the student,” the policy stated. “Currently no duty for school to report transgender status to parents.”
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District Board of Education did not respond to a request for comment, the DCNF reported.
A woman sits with her sign during a Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) board meeting in Ashburn, Virginia, on October 12, 2021. | ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Virginia school district administrators were “looking out for their own interests” and likely lied to parents as efforts to quell controversy ahead of the enacting of a transgender bathroom policy led to a preventable sexual assault, a special grand jury concluded in a report.
The grand jury entered the report in the Circuit Court of Loudoun County on Friday. The nine members of the special grand jury compiled the report at Attorney General Jason Miyares’ request for the grand jury to “investigate and report on any condition that involves or tends to promote criminal activity.”
Spokespersons for the Loudoun County School District wrote in a Tuesday statement to The Christian Post that the report’s criticisms against LCPS employees are “quite serious.” The next Loudoun County School Board meeting will involve a reflection on the report’s recommendations and “take action as determined by the full Board.”
Despite the criticism, the district is “pleased” the report found “no evidence of criminal conduct on the part of anyone within LCPS.”
“In a news release on January 15, 2022, Attorney General Miyares alleged that LCPS’ covered up a sexual assault on school grounds for political gain,’ the spokespersons wrote.
“To the best of our knowledge, this allegation was not true, and, after conducting an eight-month investigative process, during which it had the ability to interview any LCPS employee, Board member, and any other individuals beyond the LCPS community it deemed relevant, and during which it had access to virtually any LCPS record that was not otherwise legally privileged, the Special Grand Jury neither cited any evidence to support this serious allegation nor made any such conclusion in its Report.”
In its report, the grand jury described the May 28, 2021, sexual assault of a ninth-grade girl at Stone Bridge High School. The assailant, who reportedly wore a skirt, pinned the girl to the floor and assaulted her inside a women’s restroom stall.
A special education teacher later testified that she saw two pairs of feet inside the stall but did not interfere. She assumed someone needed help with a tampon or was being comforted after a breakup.
The assailant was still at-large three hours after the assault, according to the report. During this time, Principal Tim Flynn attempted to get a “no trespass letter” against the girl’s father after he arrived at the school and caused a commotion in the front office due to his daughter’s assault.
That evening, Flynn sent a note to families, offering counseling services to students who may have been disturbed by the commotion in the front office. The letter did not mention the sexual assault.
Loudoun Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler, his deputy superintendent, and his chief of staff were made aware the boy had sexually assaulted a student.
An arrest warrant was issued against the assailant two months later for two counts of forcible sodomy. The student was released within a few weeks and transferred to Broad Run High School.
Despite earlier reports that the student allegedly behaved inappropriately toward girls in his class, he received only a verbal warning.
On Oct. 6, 2021, the student grabbed a female student who walked him to class, placed her in a chokehold until she couldn’t breathe, and then sexually assaulted her.
“We believe that throughout this ordeal, LCPS administrators were looking out for their own interests instead of the best interests of LCPS,” the grand jury report reads. “This led to a stunning lack of openness and transparency, and accountability both to the public and the special grand jury.”
While the report concluded there was no coordinated cover-up between LCPS and LCSB, with the exception of a May 2021 event, LCSB staff were “deliberately deprived of information” about the sexual assaults.
The special grand jury notes that LCSB learned from public reporting that the assailant in the October assault was the same as the one from May through public reporting and not the superintendent’s office.
According to the grand jury, the incident on Oct. 6, 2021, could have been prevented, but LCPS’s “lack of curiosity and adherence to operating in silos” allowed the assault to occur.
“While we strongly believe LCPS bears the brunt of the blame for the October 6 incident and the transfer of the student from SBHS to BRHS, a breakdown of communications between and amongst multiple parties — including the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, the Court Services Unit, and the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office — led to the tragic events that ocurred,” the report concluded.
The report made eight recommendations, including a reassessment of the student transfer process, improved communication across state agencies, and increased transparency.
As The Christian Post reported, the sexual assaults reportedly took place in Loudoun County while the school board considered the now-enacted policy 8040 to allow trans-identifying students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
The assailant allegedly wore a skirt when he assaulted his fellow student in the women’s restroom in May, as the student identified as “gender fluid.”
During a school board meeting last June, Ziegler assured parents concerned about the policy that “we don’t have any records of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”
In a Nov. 10 letter to Ziegler, Loudoun County Sheriff Michael Chapman asserted that the superintendent knew about the assault in contrast to his public proclamations.
“[D]espite a public statement at a School Board meeting on June 22, 2021, denying any knowledge of sexual assaults in any LCPS bathrooms, you sent an email on May 28, 2021, to members of the School Board advising them of the incident — thus invalidating your public statement,” Chapman wrote.
In the report, the grand jury agreed with the claim that Ziegler’s statement during the June school board meeting was a “bald-faced lie.”
“The superintendent later claimed he ‘was viewing the question in light of … policy 8040,'” the report reads. “Per the aforementioned Teams meeting, we know the superintendent learned shortly after the incident that the Stone Bridge assault was stated to be related to policy 8040.”
The grand jury’s report also called out the school board and district’s “lack of cooperation” throughout the investigation.
“We expected these public servants to provide clarity, transparency, and a willingness to report truthfully to their constituents. Instead, we were met with obfuscation, deflection, and obvious legal strategies designed to frustrate the special grand jury’s work,” the report states.
“From the outset the LCSB put up roadblocks to obstruct our investigation.”
A lawyer for the board chairman and superintendent submitted a motion to quash the grand jury’s subpoenas on grounds the state had exceeded its authority. But the motions were rejected in court. One teacher claimed that the lawyer tried to pressure her not to say anything to investigators.
“LCSB’s counsel consistently and repeatedly interrupted answers of his own witnesses when he felt certain information was about to be revealed,” the report added. “LCSB’s counsel consistently and repeatedly objected to questions that would elicit information about a meeting or conversation that occurred when LCSB division counsel was present — regardless of whether that meeting or conversation had anything to do with soliciting legal advice, or if division counsel was even a party to the meeting or conversation. Division counsel’s mere silent presence in a crowded room was enough for LCSB’s lawyer to claim the attorney-client privilege and instruct the witnesses not to answer the question.”
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On November 14, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched a federal investigation into an Atlanta elementary school following allegations made by a parent that the principal was segregating students into certain classrooms based on race, CNN reported. The Office for Civil Rights wrote in a letter obtained by the news outlet that it would investigate the accusations that Atlanta Public Schools subjected students “to different treatment based on race” and whether the district retaliated against the parent’s complaint. The investigation into the district was launched over a year after Kila Posey, a mother of two, filed a civil rights complaint against Mary Lin Elementary School.
Posey, a black woman, told CNN in a September 2021 interview that Principal Sharyn Briscoe, also a black woman, was segregating black children into certain classrooms. At the time, Posey explained that she discovered Briscoe had designated two of the six second-grade classes for black students when she requested that her daughter be moved to a particular teacher’s classroom.
In an interview with WSB-TV last year, Posey alleged that Briscoe responded by telling her that the class she wanted her daughter in was “not one of the black classes.” According to Posey, Briscoe said that her child would be isolated.
“First, it was just disbelief that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me — a black woman,” Posey said. “It’s segregating classrooms. You cannot segregate classrooms. You can’t do it.”
According to the original complaint filed by Posey, the school’s assistant principal admitted in a recorded phone call that she was aware Briscoe had separated the students. In the recorded call, the assistant principal can be heard stating that “class lists are always tough” and that she wished more black children were attending the school.
Following the allegations, the head of the Atlanta Public Schools’ Office of Communications and Public Engagement, Ian Smith, told CNN that corrective measures were taken and that the matter was closed.
“Atlanta Public Schools does not condone the assigning of students to classrooms based on race,” said Smith.
Since then, Posey filed a second complaint against the district on August 29, 2022. Posey stated that she was fired from her position as an after-school care provider for the district. According to Posey, the termination was a “retaliation for raising the issue of segregation.”
Posey noted that she does not believe that the school has continued to separate students based on race.
“My understanding is that they had changed to some degree, but there were rooms that were not diverse,” she noted.
The district told CNN, “Atlanta Public Schools has received notice from OCR that a complaint was filed, and the district is following OCR’s process. Given that this matter is pending before a federal administrative agency for consideration, APS has no further comment.”
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A Texas teacher and two aides have been arrested for allegedly abusing a 5-year-old special needs boy in 2021.
Three instructors employed at the Liberty Independent School District (ISD) were taken into custody in mid-November for alleged crimes committed during an alleged shocking incident on April 15, 2021. Teacher Melody Michel LaPointe, 47, and teaching assistants Tarah Michelle Tinney, 33, and Augusta Danielle Costlow, 27, were charged with four counts each of abandoning or endangering a child in imminent danger of bodily injury, a second-degree felony.
All three women were booked into the Liberty County Jail, and their bond was set at $60,000 each. All three are reportedly out on bond.
The teacher and instructional assistants are accused of isolating a special needs student in a room at a Liberty Independent School District facility. The 5-year-old boy was deprived of food and began eating his own feces and drinking his own urine, according to court documents.
The three instructors were reportedly responsible for the care of the young victim.
The indictment identified the victim as “R.W.,” and stated the instructors “intentionally abandoned [R.W.] in a place under circumstances that exposed [R.W.] to an unreasonable risk of harm, and under circumstances that a reasonable person would believe would place the child in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment.”
Law & Crime reported, “The document explains that the alleged conduct involved confining R.W. ‘to an isolation room where he fell causing bodily injury’ and then failing to ‘voluntarily deliver the child to a designated emergency infant care provider’ as required by law.”
A spokesperson for Liberty ISD issued a statement on the disturbing accusations.
We immediately reported the matter to law enforcement and CPS, removed the educators who continued to work for us from the classroom, and conducted a comprehensive investigation. Based upon our investigation, we reported the educators to the State Board for Educator Certification and shared our results with law enforcement officials.
KTRK-TV reported, “According to a spokesperson for Liberty ISD, the two assistants were put on administrative leave during the investigation last year and then resigned once the investigation was completed. LaPointe, the main teacher in the classroom, was able to find work at another school district. She was recently working as a teacher for Bonnie P. Hopper Primary School in Goose Creek CISD.”
On Nov. 17, officials at the Hopper Primary School informed parents of the teacher’s arrest.
“In an effort of full transparency, we want to inform our families of an incident that occurred yesterday during dismissal. A teacher at Bonnie P. Hopper Primary School was arrested yesterday by Liberty County constables. The cause for arrest occurred in Liberty County and is not affiliated with Goose Creek CISD in any way. The teacher is currently placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of an investigation, after which the District will take appropriate disciplinary action. As this is a pending legal matter, Goose Creek CISD will allow the legal process to proceed and refrain from further comment. We want to ensure our families that the safety and security of your children is our #1 concern. We thank you for your continuous support of our campus and our district.
A court has ruled against the Biden administration’s requirement that healthcare providers perform sex-change procedures, concluding that federal Title IX’s definition of sex discrimination does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. The case centered on two Texas physicians who filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Notification of Interpretation and Enforcement of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which interpreted Title IX’s definition of sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The physicians sued, arguing that the Notification forced them to provide services such as body-mutilating surgeries on people suffering from gender dysphoria, such as castration and double mastectomies, and that it violated federal administrative procedures.
In a decision released Friday, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, ruled that “Title IX operates in binary terms — male and female — when it references ‘on the basis of sex.’”
“If ‘on the basis of sex’ included ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity,’ as Defendants envision, Title IX and its regulations would be nonsensical,” Kacsmaryk ruled. “Title IX expressly allows sex distinctions and sometimes even requires them to promote equal opportunity.”
“Defendants’ reinterpretation of Title IX through the Notification imperils the very opportunities for women Title IX was designed to promote and protect — categorically forcing biological women to compete against biological men.”
Kacsmaryk also rejected the claim by the defendants that their reinterpretation of Title IX was justified in light of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court v. Clayton County, in which the high court concluded that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects against employment discrimination, applies to sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Title IX is not Title VII,” Kacsmaryk continued. “The Court will not reflexively apply new Title VII precedent in the Title IX context.”
In May 2021, the HHS announced that it was going to interpret Title IX’s explicit prohibition on sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Under the new interpretation, the HHS Office for Civil Rights would enforce Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act to protect “the civil rights of individuals who access or seek to access covered health programs or activities” and stop discrimination “against consumers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The proposed reinterpretation of Title IX was met with multiple lawsuits, with a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit unanimously deciding to block the implementation of the rule back in August.
Students sitting at their desks in a classroom raise their hands. | Getty Images
States are taking different approaches to how their schools teach sensitive subjects in history classes, with Colorado and Virginia taking the spotlight last week.
Colorado’s State Board of Education voted last Thursday in a 4-3 party-line vote to update the state’s social studies curriculum for all grade levels, restoring references to the LGBT community and marginalized racial minorities that had been cut earlier this year after some parents expressed concerns over a lack of diversity.
CPR News reported that the state board of education would require schools’ social studies curriculum to reference minority groups throughout all grade levels in compliance with Colorado law. Board member Lisa Escárcega said that she included references to certain races and LGBT individuals at the top of the recommendations due to the importance of such groups.
The changes come as the state conducts its annual revision of academic standards, something Colorado does every six years. The Colorado State Board of Education did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
The board made recommendations for the curriculum standards last November that caused controversy.
The recommendations updated social studies standards to include references to minority groups highlighted in a law passed by the legislature in 2019 calling for the inclusion of more diverse views in children’s history lessons. The law requires schools to include perspectives of LGBT people, African Americans, Latinos, American Indians and Asian Americans.
After concerns were raised about “age-appropriateness,” the committee eliminated references to LGBT people for students below fourth grade in April.
Republican Board member Steve Durham objected to exposing preschoolers to LGBT topics, arguing that the “impact and discussion of sexual issues is the same for kindergartens as it is for high school students.”
Democratic board members and Escárcega argued that LGBT issues are not sexual topics, claiming the topic may come up during discussions about families, even in lower grades, according to CPR.
In a Monday statement to The Christian Post, a spokesperson for the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, which supported references to LGBT people, said the standards were based “on research and best practice.”
“The cuts that were made to eliminate certain references to the LGBTQ community and the realities of racism in our history perpetuate xenophobia, homophobia and false understandings of our collective histories,” the spokesperson wrote.
Before the vote, the board allowed for public comments. Except for two speakers, all who spoke called for restoring references to LGBT individuals. One parent who opposed restoring references to the LGBT community, Mary Goodley, stated that parents reserve the right to teach their children about complex social issues.
“Teaching children about particular sexual or gender notions is a clear violation of parental rights and not only serves to further discredit, but also decreases trust in the public education model,” she said, as quoted by CPR.
The standards will go into effect next year.
Last month, the Colorado school board voted 4 to 3 to reject American Birthright social studies standards, a model promoted by the conservative National Association of Scholars. Those standards aim to teach children where their freedoms come from and “why their country deserves to be loved.”
Thursday’s vote in Colorado came the day before the Virginia Department of Education under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed new revisions that would alter former Gov. Ralph Northam’s proposed history and social science guidelines in the state’s schools.
“The standards will recognize the world impact of America’s quest for a ‘more perfect Union’ and the optimism, ideals and imagery captured by Ronald Reagan’s ‘shining city upon a hill’ speech,” the proposal reads. “Students will know our nation’s exceptional strengths, including individual innovation, moral character, ingenuity and adventure, while learning from terrible periods and actions in direct conflict with these ideals.”
The 53-page proposal includes teaching kindergarteners about patriotism and how certain symbols are used to honor the country. Fourth-grade students would learn about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, and 11th-grade students would study Christopher Columbus and the enslavement of African-Americans.
If the Virginia Board of Education adopts the draft proposal, the new standards will go into effect for seven years, according to a factsheet sent to Virginia legislators on Friday. The new standards would be taught during the 2024-2025 school year, and professional development will start in the summer of 2023. The administration claims these changes are necessary to provide clarity for educators and expand parental involvement.
“The August 2022 draft standards were unnecessarily difficult for educators to understand and implement; they were also inaccessible for parents and families,” the factsheet reads. “The November 2022 revised standards are easily understood and implemented through a logical progression with a recommended grade level sequence.”
The proposed history curriculum under Northam would have included lessons on LGBT issues and social justice, in addition to halting requirements to teach lessons on Christopher Columbus and Benjamin Franklin. The Northam standards also would not have included lessons on why James Madison is called the “Father of the Constitution” and George Washington is called the “Father of our Country.” Under the new draft, fourth-grade students would once again learn why Madison and Washington have these titles.
Critics, such as the Virginia Education Association, a union representing more than 40,000 education workers, contend the proposed standards will impede academic instruction. VEA President James J. Fedderman said in a Saturday statement to The Washington Post that he believes the new standards contain “political bias” and refer to enslaved people with “outdated language.”
Former Trump administration official and founder of the education advocacy group Fight For Schools, Ian Prior, supports the changes. Prior told The Post that if applied “correctly,” the changes could unlock key critical thinking skills that students can use to make their own analysis and decision as they mature into young leaders.”
The Virginia Education Association did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Education appeared to be a relevant issue last November when Youngkin defeated Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Amid national attention surrounding parental involvement in education, McAuliffe argued in a debate against parents being able to tell schools what to teach. Youngkin responded to these concerns by promoting himself as an advocate for parental involvement in education.
In September, the state’s Department of Education reversed another one of Northam’s directives involving trans-identifying students. The new directive prohibits students from identifying as the opposite gender without documentation and requires schools to keep parents informed about their child’s “psychological development.”
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A Bible verse painted on a teacher’s parking space at a Florida public high school has angered a fellow staff member — so much so that instructional assistant Marina Gentilesco told WFLA-TV she feels as though the verse is “attacking” her.
Gentilesco — who works at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel about a half hour north of Tampa — told the station she grew up hearing stories about her parents in the Holocaust. That’s why passing by the parking space — adorned with the words from Philippians 4:13 in the New Testament: “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” — every school day angers her so, WFLA said.
“I feel like it’s attacking me as a Jew,” Gentilesco told the station, adding that “it brings me to the verge of tears, because it brings me back to the 6 million that perished. Six million perished because of our faith — because we’re Jews.”
Gentilesco added to the station that she wouldn’t mind the verse in a place like a church — but that letting it be on school grounds is going too far.
“You put it on a state-funded property, I’m not OK with it,” she told WFLA.
The station said Gentilesco brought up her grievances about the Bible verse to the school’s principal, who then checked in with the school district. The verdict? Pasco County Schools won’t be removing the Bible verse, WFLA said.
“It’s not a violation,” the district’s Public Information Officer Stephen Hegarty told the station. “This is personal expression.”
Hegarty added to WFLA that “there is no proselytizing going on; it’s not compelling students to do anything one way or the other.”
What’s more, he added to the station that the painted Bible verse on the parking lot space doesn’t reflect what students are being taught.
“It has nothing to do with instruction,” Hegarty told WFLA. “It’s just a teacher expressing themselves just like they might wear a crucifix on their shirt.” He added to the station that “teachers and students are free to express themselves.”
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What Did You Say? 
Virginia college students get heated protesting Liz Wheeler’s ‘Ideology of Transgenderism’ speech
By Kyle Morris | Fox News | Published April 27, 2023 4:27pm EDT
Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/virginia-college-students-get-heated-protesting-liz-wheelers-ideology-transgenderism-speech
Conservative commentator Liz Wheeler was met by dozens of protesters Wednesday evening when she arrived to a Virginia college to deliver remarks about “transgenderism” and its impact in America.
The protest kicked off ahead of Wheeler’s arrival on the campus of James Madison University, where she delievered a speech, “The Ideology of Transgenderism,” and was challenged by a number of her detractors in attendance.
Wheeler, a podcast host who often sounds off on topics critical to the conservative agenda, was invited to speak at the event by the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter.
The demonstrators, all of whom appeared to protest peacefully against Wheeler’s appearance on campus, were captured on video gathering outside and inside the venue as they displayed signs and chanted ahead of the event.
FOX NEWS POLL: BOOK BANNING, TRANSGENDER ISSUES SEEN AS PROBLEMATIC
While several protesters gathered outside the venue, others gathered inside, just outside the room where Wheeler was slated to speak. Those demonstrators also displayed signs that featured messages protesting Wheeler’s appearance on campus and in defense of transgender people.
KANSAS BOARD SETS NEW TRANSGENDER ATHLETE RULE FOR STUDENTS
Wheeler took aim at “queer theory” during her speech, concluding it allows people to “choose your identity” and forgo your “evil identity” of being a certain race because it’s a “marginalized identity.”
Inside the event, Wheeler was also challenged by those who had opposing views about transgenderism after she finished speaking.
Wheeler went on to describe to the individual how sex change surgeries are performed on young males in America and how some sex change surgeries have resulted in death because they are “so dangerous.”
A Fox News Poll released this week found that 48% of respondents believe overly accommodating transgender policies are a major problem for public schools.
Kyle Morris covers politics for Fox News. Story tips can be sent to kyle.morris@fox.com and on Twitter: @RealKyleMorris.
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