I remember how it was -- JR
Sunday, January 08, 2023
Axios Lies for Arkansas School Caught Teaching Critical Race Theory
Axios is an American news website allegedly combating "the erosion of truth, trust, safety and sanity in news".
Days before the 2022 elections, a concerned parent from Bentonville, Arkansas, sent a disturbing email to the 1776 Project PAC. The email contained a class handout and classroom audio files recorded by his son, a student at Bentonville High School. The audio files contained two recordings of lectures and class discussions by Benjamin Ring, an English teacher at Bentonville, telling his class the definition, history, and virtues of critical race theory.
Ring set aside days of his English III course to walk his students through critical race theory in detailed fashion—and the student, wishing to remain anonymous, was quick enough to hit “record.”
Throughout the lecture and discussion, Ring intones that critical race theory is a beneficial and positive thing, stating that “CRT can be useful, helping us become a better society.”
After receiving the email containing the fairly cut-and-dried evidence of critical race theory instruction, the 1776 Project PAC confronted the Bentonville School District about this material being taught in classrooms, sharing parts of the audio in a tweet on Nov. 6.
Axios jumped in on the controversy—where things took a wild turn. Axios reporter Worth Sparkman claimed that the 1776 Project PAC was lying, and that critical race theory wasn’t taught anywhere outside of post-graduate university law schools. Sparkman acknowledged receiving the audio and presentation proving CRT was taught at Bentonville, though hasn’t updated his story or apologized.
CRT defenders often make this claim, given that critical race theory is usually applied via curriculum and pedagogy and not outlined as a theory in K-12 instruction. By pointing out that the words “critical race theory” aren’t at the top of the chalkboard when students come in, progressive journalists can claim that critical race theory isn’t being directly taught.
In education, we would call this theory a part of our pedagogy (i.e. how something is taught) or praxis, rather than our curriculum (i.e. what is taught).
The Bentonville English class took it a step further by including critical race theory in both pedagogy and curriculum. Ring took specific time out of his classroom schedule to teach his English III class his interpretation of the core function and background of critical race theory, and we have the audio files and class notes to prove it.
Sparkman reached out for comment to a member of the 1776 Project PAC, who shared the evidence that Ring was directly teaching critical race theory. Sparkman ignored this evidence and continues to falsely claim that it wasn’t (and isn’t) being taught at Bentonville or anywhere else.
Sparkman and Axios have refused to provide comments to The Daily Signal concerning the dishonest “fact-check.”
Aiden Buzzetti of the 1776 Project PAC told The Daily Signal:
The audio recordings we received and released to the public confirmed without a doubt that teachers in Bentonville feel comfortable talking about critical race theory with students, even as Bentonville Schools accused the 1776 Project PAC’s concerns as ‘baseless.’ When we engaged with reporters regarding Bentonville schools, we spoke very clearly about how Critical Race Theory is applied in the classroom and does not have to be a clearly defined item in the curriculum, and yet every single local reporter ignored the audio recordings and provided handout.
The reporting by Axios and other outlets was extremely disingenuous and meant to discredit not only our concerns, but the concerns of the local candidates.
Perhaps ironically, Ring’s definition of critical race theory is rare for its accuracy and clarity. As Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and foremost scholar on CRT in education, used to say when I sat in her classes, CRT is “an interpretive lens … a way to examine how institutionalized inequality is present in our various systems and textual sources … ”
Critical race theory is simply a lens with which to analyze and criticize the role of racism its scholars claim is inherent in every facet of American society. In Indianapolis Public Schools, I watched this theory put into practice as teachers and administrators were told to dismantle white supremacy and eliminate whiteness in their classrooms and schools.
This includes shaming character traits considered “white” like: perfectionism, a “sense of urgency,” defensiveness, “quantity over quality,” the “worship of the written word,” paternalism, and “binary” thinking.
Additionally, critical race theory suggests that there exists a cultural dichotomy in American life—between those who look white and those who don’t—and that white people have unfairly benefited from privilege, and are thus complicit in institutional racism. This concept derives from the philosophies of Herbert Marcuse and Paulo Freire, Marxists who suggested that individualism was evil, and that those at the “top of society” were responsible for all evils and wrongs below them.
Ring told his students, “CRT has very little to do with Marxism,” and that “Marxism is a phrase we pin on things to make them anti-American.”
Critical race theory founders and scholars like Ladson-Billings, Barbara Applebaum, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado have directly cited Marcuse and Friere’s openly Marxist works in forming their understanding of CRT and its applications. Crenshaw specifically praised Marxism as an ally to “leftist Black nationalism” and “radical feminism.”
While Ring’s presentation states that “[CRT is NOT] an assertion that all white people are racists, or even to blame for the past. (That’s a straw man fallacy.),” critical race theory scholar Applebaum disagrees. In “Being White, Being Good: White Complicity,” she claims that “ … all whites are responsible for white dominance since their ‘very being depends on it.’”
Bentonville exhibits another cautionary warning: Red states are not safe because they have Republican majorities. Indiana, Idaho, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, and many others have case after case of schools that teach or use critical race theory, radical gender theory, and other progressive social theories regardless of parental concerns.
In Bentonville, self-described Republican and Christian board member Jennifer Faddis told Axios, “As a board member, I’ve never seen any hint of CRT in our classrooms, and as a Christian and registered Republican, I would be the first to speak out against it.” Other school board members told Axios there was no critical race theory present in Bentonville. As has often been the case with many schools caught lying, these school board members have faced no consequences for their apathy and dishonesty.
None of Bentonville’s seven school board members responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Axios exhibits a similar cautionary warning we’ve seen before: Progressive media institutions will cover for schools, overtly lying if necessary, to keep parents in the dark. Any institution that parrots press releases and official statements without further investigation is more interested in political propaganda than reporting facts.
If they won’t follow their editorial standards, then we’ll call them out on it. If schools won’t do their due diligence in investigating parents’ concerns, then we’ll elect better school boards. We’ll keep working until our children have educational opportunities wholly beneficial to them.
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Federal Appeals Court Upholds Florida’s Transgender Bathroom Ban. Now What?
The transgender bathroom wars don’t stop for the holidays.
The latest battleground is Florida, where on Dec. 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled that the word “sex” in educational programs means being a biological “male” or “female.”
In Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, the court ruled that a school board’s policy of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex does not violate either the Constitution or federal civil rights law.
Transgender male student Drew Adams (a biological female) challenged the policy in 2020, claiming that it violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which provides that no state may “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Adams also argued that the policy violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program that receives federal funding.
A three-judge appeals court panel initially agreed with Adams, but the full appeals court subsequently decided to take up the case and reconsider the ruling. The result was a 7-4 decision upholding the policy on both constitutional and statutory grounds.
Judge Barbara Lagoa delivered the majority opinion. She began by identifying the “unremarkable—and nearly universal—practice of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex” at issue in the case.
She then pointed to the court’s conclusion:
[W]hen we apply first principles of constitutional and statutory interpretation, this appeal largely resolves itself.
The Equal Protection Clause claim must fail because, as to the sex-discrimination claim, the bathroom policy clears the hurdle of intermediate scrutiny and because the bathroom policy does not discriminate against transgender students.
The Title IX claim must fail because Title IX allows schools to separate bathrooms by biological sex.
Adams had argued that, by separating males and females, the school board’s bathroom policy necessarily discriminated against transgender students—those students who, despite their underlying biology, identify as either male or female.
These sex-based separations were, Adams argued, a violation of the equal protection clause. The Supreme Court has held that legislative distinctions based on biological sex are subject to an “intermediate” standard of judicial review—a standard lower than “strict scrutiny,” which almost certainly makes it invalid, but higher than “rational basis,” which nearly always leaves it alone.
To satisfy intermediate scrutiny, the bathroom policy had to (1) advance an important governmental objective; and (2) be substantially related to that objective.
Lagoa wrote that the school bathroom policy cleared both hurdles because it advanced the important governmental objective of protecting students’ privacy in school bathrooms, and it did so in a way that was substantially related to that objective. With intermediate scrutiny satisfied, there was no equal protection violation.
Regarding Adams’ claim of discrimination under Title IX, Lagoa wrote that the plain and ordinary meaning of “sex” in 1972, when Title IX was enacted, was biological sex. Because of that (and through its implementing regulations), Title IX envisioned the kind of sex-segregated bathrooms that the school board’s policy required.
What’s more, the school board had attempted to accommodate transgender students by providing single-stall, sex-neutral bathrooms, which Title IX neither requires nor prohibits.
Lagoa wrote that there was no reason, as the District Court had done, to consider “sex” ambiguous. The statutory scheme and purpose of Title IX, along with the vast majority of dictionary definitions at that time, clearly defined “sex” based on biology and reproductive function.
By maintaining bathrooms separated by biological sex, the school board had satisfied its duties under Title IX.
Though she wrote the majority opinion, Lagoa took the unusual step of also writing a separate concurring opinion, warning of the adverse impact that defining “sex” under Title IX to include “transgender status” or “gender identity” would have on the rights of girls and women in education and school sports.
Reaching Adams’ desired outcome, she wrote, would have “repercussions far beyond the bathroom door.”
She wrote:
There simply is no limiting principle to cabin that definition of “sex” to the regulatory carve-out for bathrooms under Title IX, as opposed to the regulatory carve-out for sports or, for that matter, to the statutory and regulatory carve-outs for living facilities, showers, and locker rooms.
And a definition of ‘sex’ beyond ‘biological sex’ would not only cut against the vast weight of drafting-era dictionary definitions … but would also force female student athletes ‘to compete against students who have a very significant biological advantage, including students who have the size and strength of a male, but identify as female … .’
Such a proposition—i.e., commingling both biological sexes in the realm of female athletics—would ‘threaten … to undermine one of [Title IX’s] major achievements, giving young women an equal opportunity to participate in sports.’
In her concurrence, Lagoa made many of the same arguments that we at The Heritage Foundation have made in countering the Biden administration’s pending and massive alteration of Title IX to include “transgender status” (among many other changes).
The educational, athletic, and professional gains of women and girls over the course of five decades are in the crosshairs as the federal Department of Education’s rule-making process seeks to make the very changes that Lagoa decried.
If such a profound cultural and policy change were to be made, it should come from Congress, rather than unelected judges or executive branch bureaucrats.
The next phase of the bathroom wars could play out on a national scale. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a similar case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
In Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, et al., the appeals court came to the opposite conclusion; namely, that Title IX and the Constitution’s equal protection clause protected a transgender male student (a biological female) from a school board’s bathroom policy that prohibited the student from using the bathroom that corresponded with that student’s gender identity.
Such a clear split between two federal circuit courts on the same legal issue, especially one involving both the Constitution and a federal statute, makes it more likely that the Supreme Court will decide to settle the conflict.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito predicted such a development in a dissenting opinion more than two years ago. In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (2020), in an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court interpreted the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination, to include “gender identity.”
In excoriating the majority for “legislating,” instead of “interpreting,” Alito wrote:
What the Court has done today—interpreting discrimination because of ‘sex’ to encompass discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity—is virtually certain to have far-reaching consequences.
Over 100 federal statutes prohibit discrimination because of sex … . The briefs in these cases have called to our attention the potential effects that the Court’s reasoning may have under some of these laws, but the Court waves those considerations aside.
As to Title VII itself, the Court dismisses questions about ‘bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.’ … And it declines to say anything about other statutes whose terms mirror Title VII’s.
The Court’s brusque refusal to consider the consequences of its reasoning is irresponsible … . Before issuing today’s radical decision, the Court should have given some thought to where its decision would lead.
As the briefing in these cases has warned, the position that the Court now adopts will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety.
Many court-watchers see Bostock as the pebble that triggered an avalanche of court battles over the meaning of “sex” in federal law.
Should Adams decide to appeal to the Supreme Court, the clock has already started ticking. All petitions for writ of certiorari must be filed within 90 days of entry of the federal appellate court’s judgment, making Adams’ request for review due somewhere around early April.
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DeSantis Demands Woke Colleges to Reveal How Much They Spend on CRT and Diversity Teachings
The Governor’s office of Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) announced an investigation to find out how much money woke colleges spend on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The Office of Policy and Budget director Chris Spencer called for the information to be released in a December 28 memo addressed to Florida education commissioner Manny Diaz and State University System of Florida chancellor Raymond Rodrigues.
The memo states that Florida is beginning to consider budget proposals and that the universities need to gather data on diversity initiatives.
“It is important that we have a full understanding of the operational expenses of state institutions,” the memo said, adding “this letter is a request for information from the Department of Education and the State University System regarding the expenditure of state resources on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and critical race theory within our state colleges and universities.”
Each Florida college is required to submit a comprehensive list of all staff, programs, and campus activities related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory to determine how much hard earned tax payer money went to funding these woke ideologies.
During his inauguration speech after winning a second term in a landslide victory, DeSantis vowed to continue to keep the Left’s progressive message out of kids’ lives, ensuring that students will not be exposed to it.
“We must ensure school systems are responsive to parents and students, not partisan interest groups, and we must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology,” DeSantis said, adding “we will enact more family-friendly policies to make it easier to raise children and we will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence.”
DeSantis gained a political edge for banning CRT from classrooms and drawing attention to Democrats’ radical agenda. In 2022, the Florida governor signed bills prohibiting children from being taught about sexual orientation and gender identity, which sent the Left off into a rage of fits.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
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://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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