Fighting not only against taxpayer-funded educators but also the corporate media that is lying about the ins and outs of critical race theory, conservative parents are rightly focusing their energy on eradicating the evil race-based ideologies from their kids’ classrooms. Amid the CRT tug-of-war, however, they shouldn’t forget about the other education disasters that have rolled out of the radical Biden administration.
Here are five education nightmares, courtesy of the president that Democrats and Never Trumpers assured us would be “moderate.”
1. Abolished Patriotic Education Initiatives
Back in January, under the guise of “Advancing Racial Equity,” the Biden administration abolished the 1776 Commission, which aimed to promote patriotism in American education at a time pro-U.S. sentiments were — and certainly still are — under attack.
Focusing on skin color and peddling the notion of ongoing “system racism,” Biden issued an executive order declaring, “It is therefore the policy of my Administration that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”
Part of that order revoked (not revised or repurposed, but completely abolished) President Trump’s executive order that established the Advisory 1776 Commission, which had provided an in-depth report on America’s founding ideals, especially the Declaration of Independence and the fact that “all men are created equal.”
“Of course, neither America nor any other nation has perfectly lived up to the universal truths of equality, liberty, justice, and government by consent,” rightly noted the 1776 Commission report that Biden nuked. “But no nation before America ever dared state those truths as the formal basis for its politics, and none has strived harder, or done more, to achieve them. … The core assertion of the Declaration, and the basis of the founders’ political thought, is that ‘all men are created equal.’ From the principle of equality, the requirement for consent naturally follows: if all men are equal, then none may by right rule another without his consent.”
In the 1776 Commission void, the Biden administration embraces notions of “equity” in which some people are more equal than others and where outcomes are more important than opportunities and natural rights — which leads us to Biden’s role in the race-based issue of the day.
2. Embraced Critical Race Theory
Critical race theory is all either side of the aisle can talk about, it seems, but CRT as an indoctrination tool doesn’t just occur in the elementary classroom. Race-based education also occurs at the adult level, and Biden helped get the ball of race obsession rolling.
In the same executive order, Biden also revoked Trump’s September 2020 order prohibiting race and sex stereotyping in federal agencies.
“Today, however, many people are pushing a different vision of America that is grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual,” Trump’s now-revoked order had read, taking aim at the poisonous ideologies of intersectionality and critical race theory that are presently ripping through educational institutions and destroying national unity. “This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.”
The Biden administration’s preference instead for an obsession with skin color and intersectional hierarchies isn’t restricted to federal agencies, or even federally funded institutions, as local battles over critical race theory illustrate plainly.
3. Shrugged Off Due Process
Through a March executive order, Biden initiated the repeal or substantial revamping of the Trump-era rule on claims of sexual assault and harassment at schools receiving federal funds. Trump’s rule — which was an attempt to undo the disasters of the previous administration, in which Biden was vice president — had required those schools not only to resolve sexual allegations quickly, but to do so through a clear and fair grievance process that gave due process to alleged victims and the presumption of innocence to alleged perpetrators.
Biden’s order instructed the Department of Education to review the Trump administration and former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s due process expansions on college campuses, which gave students accused of sexual misconduct a chance to receive a fair trial, investigation, and evaluation. Biden aspires to reinstate at least some Obama-era policies that overhaul Title IX and potentially withhold funding from schools that don’t comply with broader sexual harassment definitions and lowered evidence standards for victims, as he previously promised on the campaign trail.
In May, Biden nominated Catherine Lhamon to the post she held in the Obama administration, where she gutted due process safeguards as assistant secretary for civil rights within the Department of Education.
4. Tried to Expand the Government’s Role in Education
In April, the Biden administration put forward a huge and unaffordable swelling of the federal government’s role in education. Through his so-called American Families Plan, Biden proposed sticking the federal government’s nose not only into public elementary education, but into everything from early childcare to college. It’s worth noting education is a facet of American life not even mentioned in the Constitution, but that hasn’t stopped big-government Democrats from trying to micromanage — and massively fund — it.
“Investing in education is a down payment on the future of America,” Biden said in pushing for a federally funded “at least four years of free education.” What he doesn’t want you to think about, however, is whose dollars will ultimately be making that payment, for whom they’ll be making it, and what kinds of left-wing ideas and violations of individual rights those dollars would be funding (see points 1-3).
5. Gave Tax Dollars to Foreign Students Because ‘COVID’
As part of his exorbitant American Rescue Plan, Biden announced in May that $36 billion of those funds would go toward institutions and students affected by the coronavirus lockdowns. He then issued a Department of Education ruling, however, announcing that both international and even undocumented students could receive those emergency grants.
While American young people are forced to cough up their hard-earned dollars in taxes and pay higher prices for simple goods and services thanks to inflation (barriers to what might otherwise be college savings), the Biden administration shelled out taxpayer funds to non-Americans to attend U.S. universities.
Local fights over critical race theory might well be some of the most important battles your family is fighting now as you pursue an unadulterated education for your child. But as you wade through that educational mess, don’t forget all the other ways Biden is screwing up your kid’s future.
