Terry Schilling on CRT Indoctrination in American Schools: A Divided, Weak Future for the Country

Stock photo of children in a classroom. Taylor Wilcox/Unsplash

America faces a future marked by division and weakness if its youth continues to be indoctrinated with anti-American ideologies like critical race theory (CRT) warned Terry Schilling, president of conservative advocacy group American Principles Project.

An outgrowth of Marxism, CRT interprets society through a Marxist dichotomy between “oppressor” and “oppressed,” but replaces the class categories with racial groups. Proponents of CRT see deeply embedded racism in all aspects of American society, including in neutral systems such as constitutional law and standardized tests.

“The real big picture here is that when you’re indoctrinating children to believe that their country’s evil, that their fellow citizens are either oppressors, which means they’re evil, or the oppressed, and absolutely helpless, incompetent and weak, you’re gonna have really bad problems down the road,” Schilling said in an interview with NTD News’ “Capital Report.”

A father of five, Schilling said he has pulled his children from public schools because he was “offended” that they were taught at school the idea that being white makes them “oppressors.” He added he doesn’t want his children to be taught that they are born “oppressed,” either.

“I think I'd be much more offended, and upset, really outraged, if schools were teaching my kids that they were the oppressed, that they were caught in a system that they would never be able to overcome,” Schilling told host Steve Lance. “I think that’s more devastating, because it’s disparaging.”

“They’ve really removed the hope from our kids,” he continued. “I think it creates a really bad future, a divided future, but ultimately, a really weak future that our country won’t be able to stand on.”

Even when putting aside the issue of CRT indoctrination, according to Schilling, there is still a “lack of academic content” in the public school system of his Fairfax, Virginia, hometown. He said this only contributes to a massive exodus from public schools.

“It’s one thing to be indoctrinating kids and teaching them bad things. It’s a totally other thing to be not teaching them any of the basics like reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and everything else,” Schilling said. “Parents are seeing this. They’re pulling their kids out of school, we’ve seen a huge migration away from public schools over the past two years.”

When asked about the political impact of the growing parental rights movement, Schilling said the Democratic Party, which has established a reputation of dismissing parents’ role in public education, will have to face a “Tea Party-style wave” of frustrated parents in the upcoming midterm election.

“I think the Democrats are now saying the quiet part out loud, which is that parents shouldn’t be telling schools what to teach,” Schilling said, referring to the remark former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe made in last year’s gubernatorial race debate, a particularly problematic line that has been widely attributed to the Democrat’s defeat against his Republican opponent, now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“Parents are outraged,” he said. “It’s not just Republican parents, it’s moderate and Democratic parents who also want to have a say in their kids’ education. So I think what you’re gonna have a family-size, family-style Tea Party coming into 2022 where you’re taking back school boards, you’re taking back state legislatures, and you’re taking back Congress; in reaction to Democrats exposing themselves for wanting to get parents out of the way when it comes to indoctrinating our kids and instilling values into them that are just blatantly anti-American and anti-human.”