In response to recent demonstrations and unrest, the California state senate is poised to pass a bill that would require all students at public high schools to take a mandatory ethnic-studies class. One might think such a curriculum would pay attention, for instance, to the contributions of blacks, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and Jews to the state’s history. But, in keeping with recent trends, Jews somehow don’t count as an ethnic minority. More disturbingly, write the editors of the Wall Street Journal, at the heart of the curriculum isn’t literature or history, but radical indoctrination:
The model curriculum now on the education department’s website says the course should “build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance.” Yes, this is a course for K-12 students. It suggests teachers provide “examples of systems of power, which can include economic systems like capitalism and social systems like patriarchy.” . . . The state guidance includes more than 200 pages of approved course outlines. Some of these seem to mandate student political activities, potentially raising First Amendment concerns.
It’s not a coincidence that many radical left movements are infused with anti-Semitism. They posit theories of control by shadowy capitalist groups that often echo anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. One course outline tips its hat at this. “Students will write a paper detailing certain events in American history,” it says, “that have led to Jewish and Irish Americans gaining racial privilege.”
Meanwhile, a secular Baltimore private school founded by Jews a century ago has expressed a willingness to cave to the curricular demands, bearing more than a whiff of anti-Semitism, of a local activist group affiliated with Black Lives Matter.
Read more on Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-radical-indoctrination-11598829048