Biden revokes Trump report promoting 'patriotic education'
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 3 years ago • 32 commentsBy: COLLIN BINKLEY (AP NEWS)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Joe Biden revoked a recent Trump administration report that aimed to promote "patriotic education" in schools but that historians mocked and rejected as political propaganda.
In an executive order signed on Wednesday in his first day in office, Biden disbanded Donald Trump's presidential 1776 Commission and withdrew a report it released Monday. Trump established the group in September to rally support from white voters and as a response to The New York Times' "1619 Project," which highlights the lasting consequences of slavery in America.
In its report, which Trump hoped would be used in classrooms across the nation, the commission glorifies the country's founders, plays down America's role in slavery, condemns the rise of progressive politics and argues that the civil rights movement ran afoul of the "lofty ideals" espoused by the Founding Fathers.
The panel, which included no professional historians of the United States, complained of "false and fashionable ideologies" that depict the country's story as one of "oppression and victimhood." Instead, it called for renewed efforts to foster "a brave and honest love for our country."
Historians widely panned the report, saying it offers a false and outdated version of American history that ignores decades of research.
"It's an insult to the whole enterprise of education. Education is supposed to help young people learn to think critically," said David Blight, a Civil War historian at Yale University. "That report is a piece of right-wing propaganda."
Trump officials heralded the report as "a definitive chronicle of the American founding," but scholars say it disregards the most basic rules of scholarship. It offers no citations, for example, or a list of its source materials.
It also includes several passages copied directly from other writings by members of the panel, as one professor found after running the report through software that's used to detect plagiarism.
Matthew Spalding, the panel's executive director and a vice president at the conservative Hillsdale College, defended the report, saying it calls for "a return to the unifying ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence." He said in a statement that the report "wasn't written for academic historians but for the American people, and I encourage them to read it for themselves."
One of the group's chairs, Carol Swain, a former law and political science professor at Vanderbilt University, said that if the commission had been allowed to continue its work, it would have added more members and issued a report with more than just "the highlights."
"Professional historians take themselves too seriously," she said in an interview. "I see the criticism as being ideologically driven."
In documents announcing Biden's executive order, administration officials said the panel "sought to erase America's history of racial injustice."
The American Historical Association condemned the report, saying it glorifies the founders while ignoring the histories and contributions of enslaved people, Indigenous communities and women. In a statement also signed by 13 other academic groups, the organization said the report seeks "government indoctrination of American students."
The sharpest criticism of the report was directed at its presentation of slavery and race. The report attempts to undermine allegations of hypocrisy against Founding Fathers who owned slaves even as they espoused equality. It also attempts to soften America's role in slavery and explain it as a product of the times.
"Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil," the panel wrote in the 20-page report. "The unfortunate fact is that the institution of slavery has been more the rule than the exception throughout human history."
Blight, at Yale, compared it to "a sixth- or seventh-grade kind of approach to history — to make the children feel good." He added: "But it's worse than that, because it comes out of an agenda of political propaganda."
The authors argue that the civil rights movement was distorted to advance programs promoting inequality and "group privilege." It complains, for example, about affirmative action and other forms of "preferential treatment."
Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar and historian of racism at Boston University, called the report "the last great lie from a Trump administration of great lies."
"If we have commonly been given preferential treatment, then why do Black people remain on the lower and dying end of nearly every racial disparity?" Kendi said on Twitter. "Whenever they answer this question, they express racist ideas of Black inferiority while claiming they are 'not racist.'"
Other scholars underscored what was left out. The report includes nothing of Native American history, and its only reference to Indigenous people is a racial slur quoted from the Declaration of Independence.
In one passage jeered by historians, the authors draw a comparison between the progressive movement in America and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said the report is intended to discredit contemporary public policies rooted in America's progressive reform movement. He worries that, even after Biden dissolved the commission, its report could end up in some classrooms.
"Historians need to be paying attention to curriculum conversations in localities and at the state level," Grossman said. "The nonsense that's in this report will be used to legitimate similar nonsense."
In a public meeting of the commission this month, some members held out hope that Biden would keep the commission alive. But others said they needed to push the report to state and local education officials.
"It's really going to be up to governors and state legislators and school board members and parents and higher education commissioners even students to take this charge and carry this work forward," said Doug Hoelscher, a White House assistant under Trump.
After the report was removed from a White House website, some of its authors moved to make it available on conservative websites. In an opinion piece published by the Heritage Foundation, one of the commissioners, Mike Gonzalez, said the members "intend to continue meeting and fulfilling the charges of our two-year remit."
The report ultimately demands a shift in teaching at schools and at U.S. universities, which the panel describes as "hotbeds of anti-Americanism." It denounces any teaching that breeds contempt for American ideals, blaming that kind of "destructive scholarship" for the nation's divisions and for "so much of the violence in our cities."
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Are they going to finally recognize that the Irish, Native Americans, Haitians and Dominicans were enslaved before the African Government sold their citizens to the white people for enslavement when their enslavement of the Irish and Natives failed?
Were the natives of Haiti or the Dominica being brought to the American colonies as slaves ? I dont recall ever hearing that.
The Irish were not slaves, they were indentured , meaning their was a time period on their forced labor.
Some Native Americans were used as slaves, but that gradually ended when the Europeans realized that escaped Native Americans were much harder to recapture for a variety of reasons.
I stand corrected. I apologize. I researched further.
The Haitians made the US citizens think twice about enslaving them.
Tomato Tahmato. Forced labor is slavery.
Right, because they fought and fought hard. They weren't about to allow it. Hence the French and Indian War and the War of 1812.
ok
The report was on the level of something D'nesh D'Souza or Tucker Carlson would write not something on the level one would expect from serious professional educators or historians.
We cannot allow "leaders" to minimize racism and classism in historical America. This "report" equated 'progressive' with fascist which led one pundit to wonder if getting rid of child labor made one a nazi.
Of course he did. He wants to indoctrinate kids with made up stories about how the colonies revolted from Britain to protect slavery and other lies that feed the racist narrative he pushes.
Can't have a commission that tells the truth interfering with his Stalinist rewriting of history.
I wonder if that includes that only African Americans were enslaved?
what is your point?
It's a serious curiosity. There are a lot of people that believe that African Americans were the only people enslaved.
The Irish were not enslaved. Some Native Americans were, but not on the scale or for the length that the Africans were.
What happened in Haiti or Dominica, at that time, is not really relevant to US history.
Go to St. Croix, St. Thomas, or St. John islands and say that and let me know how that goes. All three are US Territories and all had Haitians and Dominicans living on them at that time... still do. Hell... go to Puerto Rico and say that and see what happens. The English really tried to enslave the Irish... maybe you need to take a US History college course. Native Americans are still being oppressed... far worse than African Americans are today. Again... please read some books on US history.
I'm not going to argue with you since your mind is made up and just about everything you say is wrong. The slavery of the natives or Africans in Haiti and the Dominican Republic that was occurring at the time slavery was instituted in the United States was done by France or Spain, not America.
Above [at the top of the comments section], I admitted that I was wrong. When I say something and find out later that I'm wrong, I apologize.
I just saw that. We're good and I apologize for whatever tone I took.
When America, particularly the colony of Virginia, made slavery race based in the early 1700's how many other countries in the world had race based slavery? If this was not a completely American "innovation" they were at least in the forefront, thus the argument that "slavery has always existed around the world through all times" is highly disingenuous at best. The slavery fairly unique to America directly led to hundreds of years of racism. Race based slavery needed rationalizations, and one of them was that Africans were inferior human beings who needed to be submissive to whites in order to survive. 400 years later our nation still has many people who believe people of color are inferior.
And you dont think this should be taught in school ?
Well, since it was England doing it and America didn't exist, I would say England. As well as Portugal, Spain, France. Other countries like Belgium got into it a little later. I believe about a million white Europeans were enslaved by the Ottoman Empire during that time period. China was importing African slaves over a thousand years ago and still has race based slavery today.
And you dont think this should be taught in school ?
When did I say slavery shouldn't be taught? I said lies shouldn't be taught. Of course slavery needs to be taught, but to pretend it was some invention of the US is a lie.
And prior to that were the Irish, Native Americans, Haitians, and Dominicans... that was kind of the point I was making earlier.
You missed males right after white(s). Because so were / are women... supposed to be submissive that is, at least that's how some people think.
HELL YES it should be taught in school! And like Sean has stated, shouldn't be lies though either.
Are you trying to claim that British colonies like Virginia are not part of American history? Without the British colony of Virginia there would be no George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
WelI I agree lies shouldnt be taught. Neither should lies of omission. Thomas Jefferson never wanted to end slavery in his lifetime, did he? But we often hear Jefferson was opposed to slavery. I guess for other people, not him.
Speaking of Thomas Jefferson, my nephew just got a full scholarship to Thomas Jefferson University Medical School. I'm so proud!
you trying to claim that British colonies like Virginia are not part of American history
No. You asked about what countries practiced slavery in 1700. England, the ruler of Virginia and other colonies certainly did.
Without the British colony of Virginia there would be no George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
Of course it should be taught, but that includes that they were colonies of the English crown.
Yes, hypocrisy is a common human failing. Jefferson at least recognized the incongruity between his beliefs and his actions. Some people are vocally opposed to slavery or Child labor, yet they are happy to take money from companies that profit off those practices and don't even seem to recognize any conflict exists between those behaviors.
I agree.
That's pretty awesome!
That is very good, You should be proud
What these dip shit bigots fail to recognize or admit is that we've had about 240 years of white affirmative action since 1776 where you couldn't hold certain jobs, get job training, get loans, get accepted to most universities and colleges or buy houses in certain places unless you were white. But as soon as anyone suggested affirmative action for minorities the white bigots are enraged at the supposed "injustice" of it. And now we have those slimy racists trying to re-write American history to make it seem like they were somehow champions of equality. What a bunch of sniveling lying cowards.
Why do you write things that aren't true?
Why do you write things that aren't true?
It seems to be an endemic trait amongst large numbers of liberals.
Why do you seem determined to deny facts? Or is it that you've been kept from the truth all your life so you don't have any knowledge of reality?
Facts like "the south is just as racist today as it was in 1960 (pay no attention to those black senators who keep getting elected)?
You just claimed most American universities or colleges don't allow admission to non whites. Let that sink in. There simply is no relationship between reality and your preposterous declarations on this site.
You mean like Columbus "discovering America" in 1492?