A “Moms for Liberty” chapter in Williamson County, Tennessee was threatened with legal action after expressing concern over a critical race theory-spewing curriculum in public K-5 schools. Although Tennessee has passed anti-critical race theory legislation, even schools in red counties are still promoting the idea that some races are inherently oppressors and some are inherently oppressed.
The curriculum, which is called Wit and Wisdom and is published by Great Minds, is used in at least one district or school in all 50 states, according to their spokesman. The Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, headed by mom of three and former Air Force B-1 bomber pilot Robin Steenman, formed a deep-dive team to comb through the curriculum. The team consisted of more than 30 parents in Williamson County, and found common themes of cannibalism, white people being inherently racist and otherwise bad, suicide ideation, extreme emotion, graphic death, and anti-American sentiments throughout the children’s books.
After posting images of the curriculum on Facebook to warn fellow parents, Steenman was contacted by Chad Colby, senior director of communications for the publisher, to warn of copyright violation.
“With this email Great Minds is informally reaching out to ask you to remove any and all copyright material you have posted. We are asking to avoid having lawyers involved in the process. Parents and citizens who wish to view the copyrighted material can contact the school district or their school,” Colby wrote. The email asked for all content to be removed within a few days “so legal action is not required.”
Steenman contends section §107 of the Copyright Act allows for “comment and criticism” of copyrighted materials.
“I think it was kind of a scare tactic because I believe we’re fully within our rights to share the teachers manual in the manner that we’ve been sharing them,” Steenman told The Federalist. “If you’re trying to hide the teachers manual from the general public and the parents, that speaks poorly of your curriculum. What are you trying to hide? We’re not commercially reproducing it or teaching from it. It is strictly within U.S. Code 107 for commentary and criticism.”
The group said key areas of concern in the curriculum were images of seahorses having sex, children fantasizing about suicide, a graphic description of a stillbirth, and portraying all whites as the enemy, such as comparing whites to a plague — saying they’re “locusts and they’ll devour us.”
Steenman’s group is the first to file a complaint under Tennessee’s critical race theory law.
“Wit & Wisdom never passed the state review, it failed twice. And then the Department of Education simply overrode the failing review and granted waivers to push it into 33 counties in Tennessee,” according to Steenman. “Tennessee anti-CRT legislation became effective on July 1, so Williamson County is the first county to file a formal complaint for Wit & Wisdom.”
Great Minds spokesman Chad Colby did not respond to a request for comment.
