America’s Largest Teachers’ Union Votes to Help Members ‘Fight Back Against Anti-CRT

[IceWizard]

America’s Largest Teachers’ Union Votes
to Help Members ‘Fight Back Against Anti-CRT Rhetoric’





Third grade students practice grammar at an elementary school
in Woodland, Washington.
(Nathan Howard/Getty Images)



The largest labor and teachers’ union has voted to spread and further the
teaching of the quasi-Marxist critical race theory (CRT), which it describes
as a “reasonable” and “appropriate” framework for students to understand
and interpret America’s past and present.

The National Education Association (NEA), which represents more than
3 million employees in public education, on June 30 kicked off its 100th
Representative Assembly. During the four-day online convention, the union
adopted a measure that would commit at least $127,600 to advance
its pro-CRT agenda.

According to the plan, the NEA will share and publicize information about
“what CRT is and what it is not,” dedicate a “team of staffers” to assist union
members who “want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric,”
and provide a study that critiques “power and oppression” in American society,
including “white supremacy,” “cisheteropatriarchy,” and capitalism.

The union also declared that it opposes attempts to ban CRT and the New York Times’
highly controversial “1619 Project,” which recasts American history on the claim
that the United States was founded, and remains today, a racist nation.

In addition, the measure calls for an “accurate and honest” teaching of “unpleasant
aspects of American history,” and affirms that CRT is an appropriate framework for
educators to address those topics.

“The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics, it is reasonable
and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding
and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory,”
the measure reads on NEA’s website.

The vote comes after the NEA approved another measure, which seeks to “research the
organizations attacking educators doing anti-racist work” and put together “a list of resources
and recommendations for state affiliates, locals, and individual educators to utilize when
they are attacked.”

“The research, resources, and recommendations will be shared with members through
NEA’s social media, an article in NEA Today, and a recorded virtual presentation/webinar,”
it says. The item was approved with an initial annual budget of $56,500.

The reason behind the measure, according to the NEA’s website, it that the “attacks on
anti-racist teachers are increasing, coordinated by well-funded organizations such as the
Heritage Foundation,” and that the union needs to be “better prepared to respond to
these attacks so that our members can continue this important work.”

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, has been hosting
vocal opponents of CRT, including author and filmmaker Christopher Rufo, who has written
extensively to expose the CRT’s Marxist origins, how critical race theorists seek to undermine
the foundations of American society, and how the ideology infiltrates schools, businesses,
and government agencies.

“The national teachers union is funding an attack machine against me, @Gundisalvus,
and our allies,” Rufo wrote on Twitter in response to the NEA vote, tagging Mike Gonzalez,
a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “We were born for this fight—and will show no
mercy to the corrupt ideologues who are ruining American education. Swords up!”