The nation’s largest teachers union scrubbed its website of an agenda item that announced a campaign to push critical race theory — the ideology that dubs America as irredeemably racist — in all 50 states across more than 14,000 school districts that the union works with.
Over the July 4th holiday weekend, the National Education Association (NEA) held its annual representative assembly. The union passed an agenda item that pledged to “share and publicize” “information already available on critical race theory (CRT) — what it is and what it is not.”
Following negative press coverage of the resolution from primarily right-of-center news outlets, Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action, uncovered that the NEA removed the agenda item from its website.
The passage of the agenda item flew in the face of several Democrats and many in the mainstream media who claim that critical race theory doesn’t exist. Reason columnist Robby Soave opined that “many progressives rested their entire defense of CRT on the idea that it’s a very narrowly defined aspect of elite law school training.”
The former Virginia Governor and current gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe said that critical race theory is “another right-wing conspiracy theory” that was “totally made up by Donald Trump.” A former ThinkProgress employee said that the idea that critical race theory is taught in K-12 schools a lie.
MSNBC has perpetuated the myth that critical race theory is a hoax as well. “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd called critical race theory “manufactured,” while anchor Joy Reid accused leading anti-CRT activist Christopher Rufo of “making up your own thing, labeling it something that already existed as a name, slapped that brand name on it, and turned it into a successful political strategy.”
The resolution seemingly ignored the several states that passed legislation banning educators from teaching critical race theory as fact in public school classrooms. Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Florida, and Iowa have passed such legislation, though thousands of teachers nationwide have pledged to continue teaching the ideology.
Per The Daily Wire’s reporting, the NEA’s original agenda item promised to create a team of staffers dedicated to providing members with information about how to “fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric” and “share information with other NEA members as well as their community members.”
The NEA also vowed to “oppose attempts to ban critical race theory” and the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which has been scrutinized by historians as ahistorical.
The resolution also insists that the NEA’s president make public statements in the media “that support racial honesty in education including but not limited to critical race theory.”
In a separate business item, the union promised to create an opposition research hub against organizations that oppose critical race theory. According to the business items, implementing the newfound critical race theory strategy and subsequent task forces would cost the union an additional $127,600.
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