Just three days after endorsing Critical Race Theory as “reasonable and appropriate,” the nation’s largest teachers union deleted from its website its pledge to teach the radical ideology in public schools.
The National Education Association published a plan this week in which it vowed to “fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric” and defend teachers who wanted to teach the theory to their students.
The agenda item says the union will “share and publicize” information “already available on CRT — what it is and what it is not,” and oppose efforts to ban CRT and the New York Times’s 1619 Project from public school classrooms.
“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 plan stated.
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) July 7, 2021
This agenda item disproved claims by leftists that Critical Race Theory is not being taught in public schools.
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe had claimed CRT is “another right-wing conspiracy theory” that was “totally made up by Donald Trump.”
MSNBC host Chuck Todd said concerns about CRT are “manufactured.”
And American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten claimed CRT is “not taught in K-12 schools” despite what “the right’s culture warriors” might say.
However, the NEA’s endorsement of CRT proved the concept is infiltrating the public school system, according to conservatives.
“The NEA, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, used their annual business meeting to cement a coordinated, national campaign to advance the divisive Critical Race Theory ideology,” Jessica Anderson, the executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Action, said in a statement.
The backlash led the NEA to wipe any mention of CRT from its plan:
?BREAKING?
3 days after their annual meeting concludes, @NEAToday, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, scrubs the agenda items announcing their nationwide campaign to push CRT from their website.
Why are they covering up their support for CRT? ? pic.twitter.com/uWZomRt2dV
— Jessica Anderson (@JessAnderson2) July 6, 2021
“The NEA is working to cover up their indoctrination of America’s students, and teachers by scrubbing the agenda items from their website,” Anderson continued. “Americans want unity and truth — not the divisive Marxism seeded in CRT.”