Tuesday, December 08, 2020



Teachers in San Diego are forced to attend 'white privilege' training where they are told they're racist and asked to commit to becoming 'anti-racist' activists

Teachers in San Diego are reportedly being required to attend a 'white privilege' training in which they are asked to commit to becoming 'anti racist' and acknowledge that they meet on stolen land taken from Indigenous peoples.

According to documents shared by journalist Christopher F. Rufo, the training is mandatory for all teachers within the San Diego Unified School District.

As part of the training, the teachers are told to discuss how they would feel if they were told: 'You are racist.'

Teachers were also asked to discuss how they'd feel if they were told: 'You are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.'

The documents, which were leaked by Rufo, show the outline of the discussion and the talking points, including how teachers must become 'anti racist' activists'.

In order to do this, teachers have to 'confront and examine [their] white privilege,' acknowledge 'white fragility' and 'teach others to see their privilege'.

During the session, instructors inform teachers that they will experience 'guilt, anger, apathy [and] closed-mindedness' due to their 'white fragility'.

In addition to the aforementioned, the seminar also included a section on 'land acknowledgement'.

'We acknowledge that we meet on stolen land, taken from Indigenous peoples. I am speaking to you from Kumeyaay land. We must acknowledge the hidden history of violence against Indigenous peoples in an effort to move towards justice,' one slide reads.

The acknowledgement was referring to the Kumeyaay tribe of Indigenous peoples who were forced off their ancestral lands. They lived at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the US.

According to Rufo's article, he believes that teaching 'white fragility' will do nothing to help students improve their academic abilities.

He says 'it will only serve activist teachers who want to shift the blame to “systemic racism".'

Such trainings stem from the reckoning that the nation faced this summer over racial injustice in policing and other spheres of American life following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, who died under the knee of a white police officer.

President Donald Trump condemned such trainings in September and moved to end racial sensitivity training for federal government employees, claiming it is 'divisive, anti-American propaganda'.

The Commander-in-chief said at the time that he wanted to cancel taxpayer funded seminars on 'critical race theory', describing them as 'a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue'.

Systemic racism in America took center stage for discussions held on the local and national levels of government, including at the presidential and vice presidential debates.

At the first presidential debate, Trump said such training is 'teaching people to hate our country'.

Ultimately, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election, partly because they had 90 per cent of the black vote.

Last month, three civil rights groups filed a lawsuit, challenging Trump's executive order that prohibits federal agencies, contractors and grant recipients from offering certain diversity training.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed the complaint in federal court in Washington, DC, along with the National Urban League and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

The lawsuit argued that Trump’s order violates free speech rights and strangles workplace attempts to address systemic race and sex discrimination.

The executive order 'unconstitutionally forces Plaintiffs to choose between censoring speech on these important issues or forfeiting any opportunity to enter into a federal contract,' the groups argued in the complaint.

Trump’s executive order, signed in October, called out workplace trainings that explore deep-seated racism and privilege that the administration says could make white workers feel 'discomfort' or guilt.

The president then ordered the Labor Department to set up a hotline to investigate complaints about training sessions.

The directive uses a 55-year-old presidential order spurred by the Civil Rights Movement that sought to ban discriminatory practices at companies that contract with the federal government.

Critics say Trump’s order twists President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 initiative into a vehicle for white grievances.

The Labor Department is also using the 1965 presidential order to target companies, including Microsoft and Wells Fargo, over public commitments to expand or bolster black and Hispanic representation in leadership roles.

The government opened inquiries into both companies, warning them against using 'discriminatory practices' to meet their goals.

Eton College's 'woke agenda' is 'promoting one political ideology over another' and could jeopardise the school's charitable status, Free Speech Union warns

The sacking of an Eton tutor over a controversial lecture on 'gender roles' could jeopardise the school's legal status as a charity, the Free Speech Union has warned.

English teacher Will Knowland was dismissed for refusing to remove a video published on his YouTube channel that denounced 'radical feminist orthodoxy' – which was intended for the £42,500-a-year school's older pupils.

He appealed the decision and a disciplinary panel will consider his fate on Tuesday, though the ruling is not expected to be announced for several days.

The sacking has sparked a free-speech storm which has seen headmaster Simon Henderson accused of pushing a 'woke agenda', and of presiding over a 'progressive' atmosphere akin to 'religious fundamentalism'.

Eton, which was founded in 1440 and has educated 20 prime ministers, has now been told that Mr Knowland's sacking 'promote[s] one particular political ideology over another' – and puts its legal status as a charity in jeopardy.

In a letter seen by MailOnline, the Free Speech Union has disputed the College's claim that a failure to dismiss Mr Knowland for not removing his 30-minute YouTube video could expose Eton to potential liability under the Equality Act.

Director-general Toby Young accuses the school of 'overstating its legal risk in relation to the Equality Act' to the exclusion of it primary duty as a charity to 'provide a broad, open-minded, challenging education'.

He questions if Eton's trustees are properly carrying out their legal duties and warns that the dismissal 'promote[s] one particular political ideology over another'.

'Promoting a specific point of view may be a way of furthering another charitable aim, but it would not be education,' Mr Young writes.

'This would be highly troubling in any school, but for one with such a storied history and pre-eminent international reputation, it is potentially catastrophic.'

The letter states that the Free Speech Union will make a complaint to the Charity Commission requesting a statutory inquiry into the College, 'in the event of Mr Knowland's dismissal being affirmed on appeal'.

They also threaten to write to the Attorney General to make a reference to the Charity Tribunal 'regarding the meaning of the advancement of education for the public benefit in relation to matters of political and cultural controversy'.

Mr Knowland's lecture was never actually delivered at Eton, but a video of the 'Patriarchy Paradox' was uploaded to his own YouTube page.

Some figures who initially backed Mr Knowland – including Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker – have now distanced themselves after learning more about the lecture, which included incorrect statistics about rape.

Mr Knowland also approvingly quoted an article saying women wanted to be 'overwhelmed by the sheer power of masculinity'.

In a letter to parents, the headmaster insisted that the importance of 'independent thinking and intellectual freedom' was 'non-negotiable' at Eton – but added that he wanted boys and staff to treat other's differences with 'mutual respect'.

He refused to comment in detail on the sacking of Mr Knowland, who has attracted tens of thousands of pounds in donations towards a tribunal.

Mr Henderson did, however, stress that the initial disciplinary process following the controversial 'Patriarchy Paradox' lecture was conducted by 'three of our most senior teachers' and not the Head Master himself.

In a statement to MailOnline, Mr Young said: 'I am concerned that Eton's Fellows haven't been as on top of this as they should have been. 'Lots of current and former pupils have leapt to the defence of Eton's ethos, championing its tradition of introducing pupils to a wide range of views and encouraging them to make up their own minds, but that's really the Fellows' job.

'They are the custodians of Eton's reputation. They should be protecting its long and distinguished history of free speech and independent-mindedness.'

A spokesperson for Eton College said: 'We considered our obligations and have kept the Charity Commission informed throughout.'

They added that Mr Knowland's video lecture could have breached a number of the school's policies, as well as Eton's legal and regulatory obligations.

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http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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