Government Urged to Review ‘Radical Claims’ Allegedly Made During Racism Training in Schools

People hold up placards in support of the Black Lives Matter movement as they take part in the inaugural Million People March from Notting Hill to Hyde Park in London, on Aug. 30, 2020. Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images

The government is being urged to conduct an independent review of companies that allegedly introduce “radical claims” into schools on race, gender, and other “contentious issues.”

In a new petition, Don’t Divide Us (DDU) said “unproven assertions” about race, gender, and sex are being introduced into schools by “activist-influenced groups who are more concerned with promoting political interests than in educating the next generation.”

DDU was set up to take a stand against what it calls the UK’s “divisive obsession with people’s racial identity.”

The organisation said that it wants the government to commission an independent review of third-party organisations that provide schools with materials on race, gender, and other contentious issues.

“These radical claims disrupt children’s psychological and emotional world in order to normalise a one-sided, pessimistic and anxiety-inducing world-view where there is nothing but oppressive relations of power,” DDU said in its petition.

Anti-Racism

The group gathered examples of anti-racism materials, calling them “politically partisan content.”

In one primary school, it found children had to sign an anti-racism pledge stating that “intent does not supersede impact” and “I will be actively anti-racist.”

Anti-racism trainer Arise disputed that the pledge came from the company and that it “does not and has never written policies for schools.”

“Arise delivers anti-racism assemblies for children and young people,” a spokeswoman told The Epoch Times.

“We talk about bullying and how wrong it is. We also talk about what the children should do if they see racism happening or if it’s happening to a friend. We encourage children to talk to an adult about any behaviour that is worrying them and remind them that they are special and that all human beings deserve to be treated with respect,” she added.

The Epoch Times found that there are many examples of primary schools in England that have signed up for “anti-racism” pledges. It is not known if the schools used external companies or if they developed pledges themselves.

DDU pointed out that data analysis company Flair Impact used “quantitative data” to drive one secondary school’s “race equity” programme. In one presentation, pupils were allegedly asked, “how well do you understand the term ‘white privilege’?”

Flair Impact claims on its website that “racial bias is holding your organisation back” and that it “harnesses data to drive racial equity.”

Its CEO Nii Cleland told The Epoch Times that it “was not a training company.” He did not confirm whether the company had put the presentation together, or how it uses “quantitative data” to drive a school’s “race equity” journey.

Some primary schools are recommending reading lists as part of their commitment to anti-racism, some of which DDU says makes “huge assertions about group guilt and oppression.“

According to DDU, such influences on exam boards, educational publishers, and schools mean that “wittingly or not,” they are “endorsing or promoting a minority-held, radical, narrative of British society, culture and history as systematically and institutionally racist.”

‘Racialises the Atmosphere’

DDU Director Alka Sehgal Cuthbert told The Epoch Times that there’s an “awful lot of focus, money, and attention going into steering teachers into playing a different role,” which she said was the “social engineering rather than educating.”

Cuthbert wants schools to teach traditional subjects without seeking to influence children politically. To this extent, she wants the Department for Education to issue explicit and mandatory instruction to schools that “their job is to educate as already stipulated in the Education Act 1996.”

She said that it’s not just one-off lessons on “George Floyd and BLM [Black Lives Matter].”

Chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, Tony Sewell, who is on DDU’s advisory council, has previously warned that “it is increasingly apparent that a single, contentious interpretation of anti-racism has taken hold across many of our country’s institutions.”

Cuthbert said that third-party organisations are “delegitimising established views” rather than focusing on the “core belief that people are moral equals.”

She said that experienced teachers have contacted them after they received anti-racist training in schools.

One teacher told DDU that one anti-racism trainer at a session started reading from a work by Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race.” The teacher told the organisation that for “the first time ever,” she felt like she “was the white teacher and my colleagues were not white.”

“It just racialises the atmosphere, something really subtle changes,” said Cuthbert.

A Department for Education spokesperson pointed to its guidance on promoting British values in schools which states: “All schools are actively required to promote our shared fundamental British values including individual liberty, as well as mutual respect and tolerance. Schools should assess all materials they use to ensure they are impartial and balanced. Schools are best placed to work with parents, pupils and public services to decide what is best for their pupils.”