U.S. Department of Education Cracks Down on Anti-Racism Initiatives
In a search for “anti-American” propaganda, the U.S. Department of Education plans to scrutinize employee activities relating to race in schools across the United States. This approach follows a White House Office and Budget Management (OBM) directive issued on September 4 for “[f]ederal agencies [to] cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund… divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions.” An internal email, obtained by Politico in the week of September 8, directs all Department of Education offices to review a wide range of training materials, both within the federal government as well as with outside contracts.
The OBM memorandum follows heightened racial tensions due to high-profile police killings of Black Americans and nationwide protests, which have stimulated widespread discussion of race around the country. Russell Vought, the director of the OBM, writes that “these types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce.”
According to the internal email, guidance from the Department of Education on what content is considered unfavorable closely reflects the directions in the OBM release: training that enforces the ideas that “(1) virtually all White people contribute to racism or benefit from racism (2) critical race theory (3) white privilege (4) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country (5) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil (6) Anti-American propaganda.” However, due to a lack of publicly released information from the Department of Education, the nature of these investigations, as well as the process of ending programs thought to be non-compliant, remain unclear.
The day after this plan’s implementation, President Trump responded on Twitter to an unverified account claiming that public schools in California were teaching the New York Times’s 1619 project. He promised that the “Department of Education is looking into this. If so, they will not be funded!” According to the New York Times, the 1619 project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative” through examining 17 works by contemporary Black writers.
The Department of Education has not commented on Trump’s claim. However, due to a longstanding federal law prohibiting any federal government agency’s attempts to “exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum,” it is unclear how the threat to slash funds would be carried out.
A policy finalized and published on September 9 by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos also hopes to promote free speech in universities across the country, putting into effect an executive order by Trump in March 2019. The rule threatens to cut off some Department of Education funding to public universities that violate First Amendment policies and to private universities that violate their individual school’s policies regarding free speech, while also providing further protections for faith-based institutions.
In a statement released by the Department of Education about the new policy, DeVos said, “This administration is committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of students, teachers, and faith-based institutions.” In extreme cases, this could make colleges and universities ineligible for grants in the future. The policy will be effective sixty days following its publication.