Tag: indoctrination

‘Whitelash’: Professors say white students get angry, frustrated by ‘anti-racist education’

Two social work scholars argue that their “anti-racist education” efforts in the classroom faced “whitelash” from white students, who became emotionally distraught, pushed back by using “color-blind rhetoric,” or later wrote negative course reviews.

Quinn Hafen from the University of Wyoming and Marie Villescas from Colorado State University recently published an article in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research detailing their experience creating a “pedagogy of discomfort” to challenge white supremacy in the classroom.

The method was criticized by two scholars in interviews with The College Fix, who called the experiment somewhat abusive.

“[T]he more I reflect on that paper, the more I find it cruel to shame students based on immutable identities they hold, regardless of identity,” one observer said via email. “For the professors, it appeared that White and male students were their target.”

The College Fix reached out via email to both Hafen and Villescas regarding some of the concerns raised about their teaching methods. Hafen and Villescas did not reply.

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U. Pittsburgh teaches high school students, teachers to be ‘social justice’ activists

The University of Pittsburgh has partnered with local public high schools through the Justice Scholars Institute to “prepare young people to be advocates for change and social justice.”

The institute’s emphasis on creating “social justice” activists raises questions about whether the program is truly about education or if it’s about advancing a political agenda.

“The term ‘social justice’ is designed to make radical political views sound non-political and virtuous,” Paul Runko, director of strategic initiatives for K-12 programs for Defending Education, told The College Fix in a recent interview.

“You’re not opposed to justice, are you? Because that would make you a supporter of injustice. The phrase itself has no concrete meaning, which is part of why it is so useful,” Runko said. Defending Education is “a national grassroots organization working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.”

Through the university’s Justice Scholars Institute, high school students in Pittsburgh public schools can take college-level courses and earn credits.

The educational program is aimed at equipping students “to become change agents within their school, community, and broader world,” according to its website.

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The climate cult is brainwashing your kids — and you’re paying for it

America’s education system is facing a growing list of challenges — from plummeting test scores and the lingering hangover from COVID-era remote classes to teacher shortages and mounting public frustration over gender ideology.

But take it from a former teacher: Another grave problem is haunting our classrooms. Climate extremists have infiltrated American schools, and they’re indoctrinating our children in radical ideology. It’s time the Department of Justice took action to stop it.

Fortunately, they’ve taken the first step. In May, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against four states for allegedly funneling public funds into unconstitutional climate litigation. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the litigation “burdensome and ideologically motivated,” and she’s right. The troubling part is: It’s happening in our public school classrooms too.

If the Trump administration is serious about rooting out taxpayer-funded climate extremism, the next logical step is clear: Launch an investigation into the climate ideologues flooding our education system with fearmongering and pseudoscience.

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HHS Cracks Down on Planned Parenthood’s Smut-Filled Sex Ed Programs with Defunding Warning

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took a major step toward cleaning house at Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, issuing a sweeping policy directive yesterday that will defund programs promoting radical gender ideology, sexually explicit material, and medically inaccurate information, currently funded under the cover of “teen pregnancy prevention.”

The grooming of teens and pre-teens by left-wing nonprofits and programs is under attack by the Department led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health issued Program Policy Notice 2025-01, which reaffirms parental rights, prioritizes medical accuracy, and mandates compliance with several recent Executive Orders, including those ending federal promotion of gender ideology, DEI, and what the administration calls “radical indoctrination.”

The move could wipe out millions in taxpayer funding for groups like Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, AccessMatters, Bridgercare, and dozens of other TPP grantees who have been pushing graphic sexual material to children as young as 11 under the federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program.

The government encourages 11 year olds to have sex, but just not to ever get pregnant. Pregnancy is treated by the left as a disease, but underage sex is treated as inevitable.

Among the federally funded lessons flagged for immediate defunding:

  • “Be Proud! Be Responsible!” (AccessMatters): Instructs children on how to “make condoms fun,” suggesting they “hide a condom on your body and ask your partner to find it,” “pretend you are different people,” and “wrap condoms as a present.”
  • “Making Proud Choices!” (Bridgercare): Teaches middle schoolers to practice putting condoms on penis models, with guidance to cut condoms into sheets for oral sex and discussion of flavored condoms for use during foreplay.
  • “Linking Families & Teens” (MOASH/AccessMatters): Includes gender pronoun identification sheets and materials normalizing gender transition and sexual activity among minors.

Planned Parenthood’s own entries are especially egregious. According to internal HHS review documents, Planned Parenthood’s programs often:

  • Promote hormone therapy for minors on affiliated websites.
  • Encourage preteen children to create a “plan to become sexually active.”
  • Include gender ideology that replaces biological terms with “internal” and “external” condoms.

“Effective immediately,” the new HHS policy states, “any content that fails to meet the standards of medical accuracy, age appropriateness, or relevance to teen pregnancy prevention will be deemed unallowable and subject to defunding.”

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CU Boulder class teaches ‘queering literacy’ methods for high school teachers

Aspiring high school English and social studies teachers can learn “queering literacy” methods at the University of Colorado at Boulder this upcoming fall semester.

“Queering Literacy in Secondary Classrooms” teaches students using “theories and practices of literacy teaching and learning that challenge multiple forms of oppression,” according to the course description.

“Using the tools of queer pedagogy,” this course will prepare education majors to “develop, and enact strategies for planning and implementing literacy instruction that moves beyond inclusion of differences in the English/language arts and social studies curriculum,” the course description states.

A professor who regularly teaches the course provided further insights on the content in a phone interview with The College Fix.

Professor Sara Staley described education as facing a “highly polarized political moment right now, especially around topics like DEI.” The current listed professor for the fall 2025 semester is Ashley Cartun.

Staley said she wants to support “teachers and students” who are “trying to create spaces of belonging in every classroom.” She said Colorado “laws and policies” require teachers to “create a safe, respectful, inclusive learning environment for a diverse population of students.”

She said, “a lot of research” shows teachers are not trained enough in “gender and sexual diversity.” Staley also co-runs the Queer Endeavor, a CU-Boulder program that works in “close collaboration with district and school leaders, K-12 teachers, and counselors” for LGBTQ education.

There is also “a lot of research that shows that school can be a pretty unwelcoming place for students who are different” especially for “queer and trans youths,” Staley said.

The class she teaches helps students learn about “diverse identities” and “what it looks like to read a book with a queer character in it” without reinforcing “negative stereotypes.”

Staley said, “queer pedagogy” is about “supporting students to think critically by asking questions of what they read.”

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California ordered to clean trans ideology out of classroom materials

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a letter to California on June 20 ordering it to remove gender ideology references from educational curriculum and programs funded by a federal sexual education grant or face the loss of funding.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) reviewed materials created through California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), a federally-funded sexual education program, and uncovered “egregious content” teaching young students they can change their sex. HHS noted the PREP program has mission of providing minors with medically accurate education rather than ideological agendas.

“After requesting, receiving, and reviewing California’s PREP materials, ACF uncovered egregious content teaching young students that gender identity is distinct from biological sex and that boys can identify as girls,” states an HHS press release. “The educational materials promoting gender ideology have nothing to do with Personal Responsibility Education and are outside the scope of PREP’s authorizing statute.”

The California Department of Public Health didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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UK Gov’t Secretly Used BBC & ITV Soaps for ‘Underhanded’ Vaccine ‘Propaganda’ to Covertly Shape Public Opinion, Coerce Compliance

New Freedom of Information (FOI) documents confirm what many long suspected: The UK government secretly used popular soap operas like EastEnders and Coronation Street to push vaccine propaganda during the pandemic, raising urgent questions about how much influence the state holds over British media, and how far officials are willing to go to manipulate public thought, opinion and behavior under the guise of public health.

The findings echo May 2021 revelations that scientists on the UK government’s behavioral advisory committee admitted they used fear-based “totalitarian” tactics to control public behavior during COVID-19, describing the approach as “unethical,” “dystopian,” and a form of “mind control.”

They also mirror an October 2024 U.S. House investigation that found the CDC and Biden administration used a $900 million COVID campaign to “manipulate Americans” with “deeply flawed” messaging, “overpromising” vaccines “without evidence,” and funding Big Tech companies to “track and monitor Americans.”

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Primary School Children Being “Sexualised” by Lessons on the “300 Flags of Pride”

Leaflets handed out at primary schools by the charity Swindon and Wiltshire Pride claim there are more flags representing sexuality and gender identity than there are for countries.

The material, signposted by the local council on social media, goes into detail about a “small selection” of 29 varieties.

It says: “While some might think [300] is too many, it’s all part of a drive to be more inclusive of the expansive breadth of identity within the community.”

Along with the rainbow LGBT Pride flag are a variety of offshoots, from the “intersex-inclusive Pride flag” to the “polyamory Pride flag” and even a black and white “heterosexual flag” for straight people, which it says can include transgender people.

The materials make up part of a free annual support guide produced by the charity, which also points to websites providing advice on controversial practices such as wearing a “binder to reduce apparent size of breasts”, the use of cross-sex hormones in under-18s, and information on “fetish spectrums”.

Parents of children at the primary schools told the Telegraph their concerns had been ignored by the local Labour council. …

One mother, a former teacher, said the guide being given out in primary schools was “really concerning”.

“Obviously the polyamory one, encouraging children to have multiple sex partners, they shouldn’t be sexualising children,” she said. “In the guide itself, under education, it states it is ‘for schools, teachers, and students’.

“A couple of sentences down, for example, it says ‘raise awareness of the lesser known identities across the fetish spectrum’,” she added, saying that was “inappropriate”.

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California Ordered to Cut ‘Gender Ideology’ From Sexual Education

The Trump administration has given California 60 days to remove all references to transgender or non-binary gender concepts from its federally funded sex education curriculum—or risk losing millions of dollars in federal funding.

In a letter sent on June 20, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) materials include “gender ideology” content not permitted under federal law.

Citing multiple lesson plans and teacher guides, the agency said the state’s curriculum teaches that gender identity is distinct from biological sex—something ACF says is outside the program’s statutory scope.

“The Trump Administration will not tolerate the use of federal funds for programs that indoctrinate our children,” ACF acting assistant secretary Andrew Gradison said in a statement. “The disturbing gender ideology content in California’s PREP materials is both unacceptable and well outside the program’s core purpose.”

Among the flagged material are lessons describing transgender, non-binary, gender-fluid identities, as well as references to social and medical gender transitions, including hormone therapy and “gender-affirming” surgeries.

ACF stated that these subjects fall outside the statutory framework of the PREP program, which is designed to educate youth on abstinence, contraception, and select adulthood preparation topics such as healthy relationships, financial literacy, and job readiness. Teaching about gender identity does not qualify, the agency says.

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How ‘Equity’ debases education

In the current backlash against DEI, most criticism is focused on the “D” — diversity — which replaces the principle of meritocracy with racial criteria in hiring, admissions, and promotions. Notorious examples of implementation include police and fire departments lowering requirements for education and physical fitness, or aviation authorities adopting  biographical assessment in place of traditional skill-based hiring evaluations.

The “E” — equity — is more complex. Equity has replaced the concept of equality, which progressive ideology in the U.S. deems discriminatory because of its emphasis on individual effort that may result in unequal outcomes. A symbolic definition is that the educational equity must provide every child with what he needs to achieve his full academic and social potential. This vision resembles Karl Marx’s idealistic communism that provides resources “to each according to his needs.” Although formulated in the Marxist sense, equity is more restrictive because it is supposed to benefit children from only “underprivileged” backgrounds. But, beyond empty reasoning, equity’s actual goal is absolute equality in the educational outcomes regardless of individual ability or effort. To accomplish this, curricula and teaching methodology are being drastically rewritten in many parts of the country.

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields have come under increased scrutiny. Critics argue that these disciplines have historically been tools of nationalism, colonialism, and systemic inequity. As a result, some school districts across the country are scaling back advanced curricular offerings. Mathematics has especially faced pressure due to its perceived role in perpetuating discrimination and cultural dominance. Many equity-focused proposals aim to reduce the emphasis on mathematics in school programs.  Common suggestions include eliminating accelerated mathematical tracks in middle school, removing early-entry algebra for gifted students, and consolidating high school algebra and geometry into an “integrated math” course.

Aligned with these equity principles are significant changes in teaching methodology. Traditional grading practices are increasingly viewed as inequitable and are being reconsidered or eliminated in some districts. Proposals often include removing homework deadlines and allowing late work without penalty. In subjects such as reading and mathematics, achievement levels are being abolished, with all students placed in honors classes regardless of academic performance.

In terms of student discipline, many schools have adopted “restorative justice” approaches as an alternative to traditional punitive measures. This model focuses on mediation and rehabilitation rather than suspension, emphasizing support not only for the victim, but the offender too. More than 20 states have already enacted policies introducing restorative justice in schools. These practices involve allowing misbehaving students to avoid traditional consequences and even receive incentives such as snacks or breaks in quiet spaces. The restorative justice programs let misbehavers blame factors outside their control, that is, typically societal injustice.

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