CRT and LGBT in the Classroom: Americans Have Had Enough

Opponents of critical race theory protest outside of the Loudoun County School Board headquarters in Ashburn, Va., on June 22, 2021. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Commentary

The U.S. education system appears to have been hijacked by people with a specific agenda. Actual education has been replaced by indoctrination and teachers replaced by activists pushing nefarious agendas.

Young children are being exposed to provocative, highly sexualized content. They’re also being encouraged to question their privilege and their supposedly racist roots.

However, all isn’t lost. More and more Americans are speaking up against the madness. They’ve had enough. According to the latest University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll, an increasing number of Americans want the insanity, or the slide into insanity, to stop—and they want it to stop now.

The vast majority of respondents said teachers asking children in grades K–6 for their preferred gender pronouns was wrong. The vast majority also said they were against the idea of assigning children in grades K–6 books that discuss transgender issues. They also opposed the idea of teachers discussing their sexual orientation with young children.

Commenting on the poll, author Don Surber had this to say: “LGBT classes are indoctrination, not education.”

The same could be said about critical race theory (CRT) classes. As Surber noted, although “CRT proponents claim this is only taught in college, they should have no problem with banning teaching a racist and anti-American doctrine that seeks to discredit the Constitution.” But for some strange reason, “proof of CRT instruction in schools keeps popping up.”

Surber finished by asking a pertinent question: “If so many people oppose teaching CRT and LGBT, why are these subjects being taught in public schools?”

Signs against critical race theory in front of the Loudoun County School District administration building in Virginia on Nov. 9, 2021. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

He’s right. How did we get here?

I’ll tell you how. Last year, in an article for The American Mind, I discussed something called the gated institutional narrative (GIN), a concept first put forward by polymath Eric Weinstein. The GIN perfectly encapsulates the madness that has swept—and continues to sweep—through the U.S. education system.

As I said at the time, the “GIN explains the ways in which heavily filtered information is presented to the public by the mainstream media and academics.” Take The New York Times’s “The 1619 Project,” for example. Although the project has been lambasted by highly respected commentators, it still, for some unfathomable reason, carries a great deal of authority.

On closer inspection, however, the reason it carries so much authority is entirely understandable. After all, the project was initiated by The NY Times, one of the most influential newspapers on the planet. Its historically inaccurate narrative has also been pushed by comparably powerful media outlets, frequently and forcefully. Furthermore, it appeals not to facts, but to feelings. In this age of speaking “your truth” instead of the truth, The NY Times decided to tell its “truth.”

The GIN, as I said in The American Mind piece, “is like an exclusive nightclub. Only the right kind of people can enter.” Orthodox thinkers—in other words, people willing to follow the herd—are the only people permitted entry. Those who refuse to comply are quickly turned away.

“Go away and sober up,” they’re told.

Boxes of donated LGBT books sit stacked on the playground at Nystrom Elementary School in Richmond, Calif., on May 17, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Bad ideas beget bad ideas—the inaccurate (often pernicious) ideas generated within the GIN bounce around in a gigantic echo chamber. Then, like a swift missile strike, they’re launched into broader society.

At the same time, good ideas—that is, ideas that counter the bad ones created within the system—are intentionally blocked from entering. With such a design, it’s easy to see how bad ideas, even wicked ones, continue to circulate and become more virulent in nature.

Bad Ideas Spread Like a Virus

In his latest book, “The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense,” Dr. Gad Saad discussed how bad ideas, or “idea pathogens,” spread like a virus, killing common sense in the process. In the U.S. education system, as you’re no doubt aware, commonsense is in short supply.

If in doubt, let me point you in the direction of a recent piece written by Jonathan Turley, one of the country’s leading legal scholars. Unlike so many involved in academia, Turley has a backbone. He has a significant voice and isn’t afraid to use it. Instead of echoing the narratives of the GIN, Turley exposes the absurdities occurring within the gated community.

In the insular world of academia, he noted that “there have been growing controversies over language guides and usages, including the use of pronouns that some object to as matters of religion or grammar.” Now, he said, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), “the largest association of science teachers in the world,” wants to add to the controversy.

Take a read of the NSTA’s latest guide, and you’ll quickly see that Turley’s concerns are very much warranted. The educators are now pushing for “gender-inclusive biology.” What, you’re probably wondering, could this new-age biology entail?

In short, unscientific calls to permanently abandon everyday terms such as “men,” “women,” “parent,” “mother,” and “father.” Mothers, according to the guide, should only be referred to as “persons with ovaries.” Fathers, meanwhile, should be referred to as “persons with testes.”

Although tens of millions of Americans have had enough, don’t expect the GIN to stop churning out bad ideas anytime soon.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.