NTF Issue Paper:FIGHTING TO KEEP CRITICAL RACE THEORY OUT OF NEBRASKA SCHOOLS

NTF issue paper: criticalracetheory.doc. 6-21.
NEBRASKA TAXPAYERS FOR FREEDOM ISSUE PAPER:
FIGHTING TO KEEP CRITICAL RACE THEORY OUT OF NEBRASKA SCHOOLS.

BACKGROUND
. The divisive and racist Critical Race Theory (CRT) is spreading its poisonous venom throughout Nebraska education, from the Dept. of Education to pre-K classes. This insidious curriculum is infecting an increasing number of public school districts and our post-secondary institutions. It is imperative that taxpayers first make themselves aware of the subversive content of CRT, next discover if it has infiltrated your local educational institutions like school boards or schools, and then join other taxpayers and parents to either root it out or take immediate preventive measures to ascertain that it does not infect your educational systems.

STATE DEPT. OF EDUCATION
. Our Education Dept. publicizes a number of books, etc. that are offensive to traditional education. The 1619 Project offers a distorted economic history filled with inferior scholarship, smears our War for Independence and Founding Fathers, distorts the U.S. Constitution, and falsifies our history up to the Lincoln Presidency. Anti-Racist Apush propagandizes students to identify and expose supposedly racist policies that have led to deplorable racial disparities in American society. The Anti-Racism Extension Guide for Teachers Learning for Justice emphasizes White privilege and White racist behaviors and attitudes. The Zinn Education Project lacks footnotes and does not provide evidence for its leftist interpretations. President Trump said, “Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.” In the department 5th Grade Social Studies guidelines, the text declares that the current language of “explorers, settlers” and “road to independence” promotes ignorance of White supremacy and structural racism. Also included is Race: Power of an Illusion, a 3-part video series which slants the concept of race and its impact on the foundation of American ideals. Department sources feature an accent on equity, text acknowledging racism and the ideology of White Supremacy. Part of one section reads: “When we let our discomfort or ignorance shield us from recognizing our country’s racist history and present, we are part of the problem. Failing to acknowledge racism not only erases histories, cultures, and identities, but also ignores ongoing differential treatment based on race. For example, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ignored three decades of research showing students of color are disciplined more harshly than white students when she decided to rescind Obama-era guidelines aimed at discipline equity. Acknowledging the social construct of race and racism and the ideology of White supremacy recognizes the problem so that we are not harmful in our ignorance and so that, together, we can strive for solutions. For educators of color, the work means continuing to call out racism and recruiting white coconspirators to join in antiracist work.” This article, from ASCD Update, used by the NE Commissioner of Education in a June, 2020 communication to all public and non-public school superintendents, asking them to commit to promoting active anti-racist teaching and leading and committing to culturally relevant standards, pedagogy, and materials. Activities and programs promoted by our state education dept. closely mirror CRT: Every human interaction determined by race. People are racist in varying degrees depending on their skin color. There are no individuals, only “socially constructed groups.” Science, reason, and evidence are “white,” whereas “African-American” people have “Cultural Trauma” defined as “a collective memory of slavery grounding a people’s sense of itself.” This dept. attitude is drifting down to individual school districts, unfortunately, through advisories and mandates.

UN-L
. UN-L is exploring means to insert race issues into its curriculum. Its core curriculum will address diversity, race, privilege, and power. No mandatory CRT sessions now required for students, but future curriculum changes and requirements will include all of the above for all students.

CREIGHTON U
. This university has begun a diversity and inclusion initiative including anti-racism classes and a presidential inclusive excellence council with racial healing objectives. CRT training will begin soon, with reading materials and educator guides. One goal means to promote university training, dialogues, and educational opportunities that seek racial healing and transformation.

OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
. OPS uses our tax dollars to fund a Director of the Office of Equity and Diversity (OED). Its summer reading enrichment suggestions include How White Parents Can Teach Their Kids To Be Anti-Racist, Black Lives Matter at School 2020 Resource Guide, and anti-racism resources for White people. This department will host a webinar series to support a Strategic Framework for Educational Equity. The Community to Classroom Connections Webinar Series will lead a series of discussions that illustrate the importance of Access and Opportunity, Pursuing Diversity, Building Efficacy, and Social Responsibility as they connect to the overall development of an equitable school district and society. One dept. objective is to address the areas currently festering within our schools and adversely suppressing the achievement of the minority student population. Re-established is the OED Advisory Council composed of community leaders in the areas of equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice. Specific objectives that
this Advisory Council will work towards includes:
• Critique a Strategic Plan for Equity and Diversity
• Review and develop policies that impact Equity and Diversity
• Engage schools and the communities they serve around Equity and Diversity
• Implement inclusive best practices for all OPS staff
• Support the direction of the Inclusion Committee
The Inclusion Committee is an employee resource group and community connection point to support the district on workplace environment and student supports. In its inaugural year, 2019-2020, the central areas of focus were a review process for assessing all curriculum and materials considered for adoption to detect bias and a supplemental book list of texts to support the curriculum, representative of students and families. In 2022, this committee will establish specific sub-committees and community groups that specialize in high priority topics and areas of need. The following books about radical leftists encouraged for OPS students:
Every May, OPS celebrates Malcolm X Day, Muslim Heritage Month celebrated in October. One of the activities given Crestridge School 5th Graders was lobbying to gain Section 8 welfare housing into their home school area as they learned about systematic racism, notwithstanding that such would decrease the property value of their homes. In February, 2021, OPS offered its custodial staff a means to examine stereotypes, myths, and barriers that divide races and genders. OPS partnered with leftist Inclusive Communities to sponsor a workshop, which offered topics like Unconscious Bias and Intentional Exclusion. OPS no longer calls the winter break Christmas Break but Winter Recess and renamed Easter Break as Seat Time. The OED director complained that Muslims, Hindus, etc. do not enjoy their high holidays as school holidays like Christians, a practice he believes inequitable. OPS students encouraged to become Black & Brown youth advocates and take leadership training under the auspices of the radical NE ACLU, learning how to lobby state senators on bills. To fulfill its commitment to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, gender ID, or sexual orientation in its programs or activities, OPS gathered a group of educators and community leaders to meet monthly and form an Inclusion Committee. Its objective is to give professional development to OPS staff and an opportunity to network with community activists. The committee will discuss issues of equity and diversity that impact students, staff, and family members within the district. Advocates completed a textbook bias review in language arts. Moreover, a group of activists and OPS supporters meet quarterly as an advisory board for strategic planning. The board includes a diversity and inclusion coordinator for the Empowerment Network, program manager for the Latino Center, a diversity and inclusion manager, and Cammy Watkins, Deputy Director of Inclusive Communities, who wants to defund Omaha police.

INFECTING OTHER SCHOOLS
. In Oct. 2020, the Bellevue Public Schools created an Equity & Diversity Committee to promote diversity and inclusion in all areas of the school district. The committee includes 25 staff, students, and community members, with external guidance from the Inclusive Communities. This organization identified needs for professional development for staff, hiring additional minorities, new disciplinary rules, and inserting “diversity” in curriculum and even for mascots! Worse, the Westside School District implemented re-education mandates in anti-hate, anti-bias education for those unfortunate students found guilty of using hateful, derogatory, or vulgar language in reference to sex, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Thus, students, coaches, and teachers guilty of such infractions banned from all extracurricular activities and programs pending “re-education.” 1st Amendment rights to tell jokes and tease now subject to serious sanctions.

NE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
. Conservative NE Att.-Gen. Doug Peterson joined 19 other state attorneys-general in informing the federal Education Dept. that they oppose teaching CRT in classrooms. Their communication stated that CRT promotes the idea that America is a fundamentally racist nation, that our institutions are systematically racist. Such warped view does not support the teaching of actual U.S. history but instead endorses the idea that our Founding Fathers established White supremacy and oppression, forces still at the root of our society. Their letter requested Education Sec. Cardona to retract a proposal to prioritize CRT for federal grant programs. Such prioritizing would strongarm states into accepting this deeply flawed theory or forego federal funding. The Education Dept. proposal offers federal grant funding to schools that use CRT under the guise of developing culturally responsive teaching and learning, incorporating racially diverse perspectives into teaching.

INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES
. This leftist organization evolved from what once was a legitimate organization named the National Association of Christians and Jews, which promoted community interest and goodwill among religious denominations. Now a nonprofit 501©3 organization, it provides education and advocacy services related to diversity and inclusion, both key words used by leftwing groups. The group works with schools, businesses, and the local Omaha area community. Its social justice work embodies typical socialist/communist objectives. It collaborates with groups and coalitions that champion reverse discrimination in employment and oppose voter ID. Socialist Democrat State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sits on its board, and radical Cammy Watkins serves on the staff. It staffs residential youth camps, where its minions undoubtedly propagandize our youth. Its programs abound with Critical Race Theory. In its May, 2021 newsletter is the following article: Queer Table Talk on Youth. Other articles demand cultural change in our society. Learn more about this radical group at https://www.inclusive-communities.org/ Its hq is on the UN-O campus at 6400 University Drive No., where it enjoys free office space.

SUGGESTED READINGS FROM INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES
:
Lewis, Amanda E. “Some Are More Equal than Others: Lessons on Whiteness from School.”
Lipsitz, George. “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics”
Thandeka “Learning to be White: Money Race and God in America”
Adams, Maurianne. “Readings for Diversity and Social Justice.” Includes isms with sections on theory, actual stories, and ways to work for social change and justice in each area.
Adams, Maurianne; Bell, Lee Anne; Griffin, Pat. “Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice.” Very wonderful book w/ step by step exercises and lesson plans for teaching diversity. Chapters on racism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-semitism, ableism, and classism.
Katz, Judith. “White Awareness.” Designed for facilitators as a training handbook complete with exercises and tools, this book guides white people through the process of understanding, challenging, and confronting issues of racism. The training program provides a meaningful way to help create change in the white community.
Doane, Ashley W.; Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. “White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism”

NTF SUGGESTED BOOKS EXPOSING CRT
:
Red, White, and Black, by Robert Woodson, civil rights leader, director with Am. Enterprise Foundation and Urban League.
Cynical Theories, by Peter Wood.
Cynical Theories, by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose.

TAKE ACTION NOW
. Our younger generations, especially our youth attending public schools and universities, continually become subjected to leftist racist propaganda from leftist teachers, professors, and peddlers of curriculum like Critical Race Theory that misrepresents and erases our national historical heritage and culture from the time of our Founding Fathers. Their intent is to destroy our traditional nationality and replace it with a socialist/communist tyranny that controls our educational institutions with a political vise. Contact your local school board member and university regent to block and remove CRT from our schools and campuses, then join our NTF Education Watch Project committee to protect our school children and collegians.

Research, documentation, and analysis for this issue paper done by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom. This material copyrighted by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, with express prior permission granted for its use by other groups in the NE Conservative Coalition Network. 6-21. C

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