Sometimes, you can judge a man as much by the enemies who align against him, as by the friends who rise up to support him.
Arnn is accused of ridiculing public school teachers as dumb and claiming that they don’t care about students. This is more than a distortion—it’s an abject lie. Arnn pointed to the fact that education departments are often the most ideologically radical sections of U.S. universities, which have themselves largely adopted the role of left-wing indoctrination mills. You don’t need access to a syllabus from one of these programs to grasp that fact (although it would certainly drive the point home).
Politically motivated actors took the opportunity to attack Arnn and demand that Lee distance himself from the Hillsdale president and the school itself. State media and the leftist publication The Tennessean readily accepted the task of kickstarting the manufactured outrage over the comments.
In the same pronouncement, Lee proposed $32 million to “increase the number of high-quality charter schools.” The real motivations behind the current offensive against Hillsdale’s involvement in Tennessee schoolrooms should begin to become apparent.
Public schools prioritize the monopoly they hold over the type of material taught to students. It provides the opportunity to ensure that their accepted worldview is the one that is uniformly professed. Charter schools are a traditional enemy of the entrenched position of teachers’ unions and centralized education enthusiasts; Hillsdale’s influence in public school classrooms would further intrude into space traditionally controlled by the latter.
“Hillsdale College and their warped version of history have no right to be in our kids’ public schools,” state Sen. Raumesh Akbari said after Lee’s initial decision.
Believing that it’s actually Hillsdale who has the “warped version” of American history—as opposed to the radical perversion of the latter that largely holds sway in the U.S. today—perfectly illustrates the danger that a program such as the “1776 Curriculum” poses to leftist institutional power over education.
Disingenuous activists like to claim that critical race theory (CRT) is a concept of law only taught at the highest levels of university. Its central tenet is that all legal (and social) interaction is imbued with and fundamentally dictated by white supremacist racism that actively seeks to marginalize communities of color for white advantage.
Arnn alluded to this exact point in his speech. He discussed the fact that many graduates of university education programs are taught that their role isn’t to just simply be an individual who facilitates the intellectual development of students; instead, the goal is to be an activist who teaches a radical reimagining of morality that prioritizes ethereal systems of power as well as demonizing “whiteness” and privilege, which are said to pervade all social interactions.
There are clearly grounds for concern over what is being injected into schools from leftist ideologues. Of course, Akbari will likely see this as just a correction to the “warped version of history” that doesn’t attempt to simultaneously racialize and sexualize every facet of society.
Proponents of this latter mindset jumped on the bandwagon of attacking Arnn after his words were twisted around to fit the mainstream media narrative. The Tennessee Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and leftist Democratic politicians loudly voiced their outrage.
The NEA happens to be currently holding its annual conference in Chicago.
NBI 53 proposed to “develop strategies for placing the intersectionality of climate justice and environmental racism at the center of all relevant conversations and business.”
Others are purported to discuss mandatory masking and COVID-19 vaccines, focus on encouraging students to develop their unique gender and sexual identities, and even to “publicly stand for abortion.”
NBI 68 (awaiting debate) would fight for courses that allow individuals “to navigate white supremacy culture.”
NBI 11 (passed) focused on supporting queer and people of color to run for school boards.
Good thing that outlets such as The Tennessean and all those leftist politicians remain vigilant to the infiltration of pernicious ideas like “America is good” into Tennessee classrooms. The socialist Fourth International undoubtedly stands in solidarity with the gatekeepers of the U.S. uniparty’s establishment-approved education.
Others will weather the assault and keep fighting. Not because it is easy, but because it is right. As alluded to earlier, the attacks of your enemies often reflect better on your character than any praise from a friend ever could. One would expect that Hillsdale College as an institution likely takes pride in being the target of such ire from the likes of shameless race-baiters, avowed Trotskyists, and people who just downright dislike America.
I know I would.
