Radical Race and Gender Instruction Exposed in California Elementary School
Third graders were asked to rank themselves by "power and privilege."
By Sara Dogan
At R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School in Cupertino California, students were made to participate in a lesson to help them understand their "power and privilege" based on race, gender, religion and other characteristics, and rank themselves accordingly.
As investigative journalist Christopher Rufo reports, a third grade teacher at the school gave a lesson on "social identities" during which all students were expected to "create an 'identity map,' listing their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics."
The teacher then went on to explain to the 8 and 9 year old children that they live in a “dominant culture” of “white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],” who “created and maintained” this culture in order “to hold power and stay in power.”
The lesson in radical race theory--which absurdly was held during math class--continued with a reading from This Book is Antiracist, a radical text which teaches that “those with privilege have power over others” and that “folx who do not benefit from their social identities, who are in the subordinate culture, have little to no privilege and power.” In keeping with this racialist theory, the reading explains that “a white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman.”
According to Rufo, students were then told to "deconstruct their own intersectional identities and 'circle the identities that hold power and privilege' on their identity maps, ranking their traits according to the hierarchy" that was provided in class.
Students were also assigned to write at least one full page on "Which of your identities hold power and privilege?" and "Which ones don't?" Examples provided to the students included a personal statement by a transgender person which instructed, "I used to think that everyone is either a boy or a girl...but now I know that gender is something that you get to choose" and "some people may not identify as male or female, but rather as nonbinary."
The unorthodox lesson in radical race and gender theory outraged parents at the school, who were given no advanced notice about the lesson.
“We were shocked,” said one parent interviewed by Rufo. “They were basically teaching racism to my eight-year-old.” That parent was able to assemble a small group of parents who met with the school's principal to protest the radical lesson. Under pressure, the administration agreed to suspend the program, but such instruction remains commonplace at schools across the United States.
To learn more about the Freedom Center's campaign to halt indoctrination in K-12 schools, please visit our website, www.stopk12indoctrination.org. To read the K-12 Code of Ethics CLICK HERE. To order the Freedom Center’s new pamphlet, “Leftist Indoctrination in Our K-12 Public Schools,” CLICK HERE. To donate to our campaign to stop K-12 IndoctrinationCLICK HERE.
