Tag Archive for: education

Roughly Half of Gen Z Voters ‘Are Sympathetic to Hamas’

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Last weekend, multiple anti-Semitic protests broke out on college campuses including Ohio State University, Columbia University, and Yale University. The demonstrators tore down American flags, chanted about the death of Israelis and praises of the October 7 attacks, as well as some injuries and arrests. Ever since the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas broke out, intense targeting of Jews in the U.S. sparked as well.

Initially, people questioned whether the anti-Semitism was new or simply uncovered by the Hamas terrorist attack. But now, as more protests occur, many worry that colleges have become a breeding ground for not only leftist agendas at large, but also for much of this resurgence of Jewish hatred. Considering the amount of anti-Semitism displayed on college campuses in recent months, the news that a survey found roughly half of Gen Z voters “are sympathetic toward Hamas” is, for many, not a shock.

Summit Ministries and RMG Research released data on Monday showcasing “the startling difference between the sentiments of all voters and Gen Z voters specifically, those born between 1997 and 2012,” Breitbart reported. These particular results, which involved 1,003 registered voters, highlighted Gen Z’s terrorist sympathies with the label, “Landmark poll: Gen Z sides with Hamas.”

The respondents were asked, “Do you believe that Israel’s wealth and military power make its campaign against Hamas unjust?” According to Breitbart, “While most voters across the board, 58 percent, believe that Israel’s campaign is ‘just’ — compared to 21 percent who believe it is unjust — only 42 percent of voters aged 18-24 believe Israel’s campaign against Hamas is just. A plurality of voters aged 18-24 believe Israel’s campaign against Hamas is unjust,” Breitbart reported. This is despite the fact that roughly 60% of Gen Z voters “agree with the U.S. government classifying Hamas as a terrorist group.”

The survey also revealed that “one-third of Gen Z voters believe Israel does not have the right to exist as a nation. Across the board, just ten percent hold that same sentiment, showcasing the radicalization of America’s youth.” Comparatively, a Pew Research Poll from March found “roughly six in ten Americans (58%) say Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas are valid,” even if they did not all agree with how Israel responded to Hamas.

However, even though the majority of the U.S. voters appear to side with Israel amid the war, the poll from Monday made it unmistakenly clear that almost the majority of young voters do not.

Meg Kilgannon, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Education Studies, shared with The Washington Stand, “When colleges and even primary and secondary schools are educating their students in the ‘oppressor/oppressed’ paradigm, it’s little wonder that Gen Z will identify with Hamas as indigenous and believe that Israel is a ‘colonizing’ force.”

She continued, “We know that this is totally and biblically inaccurate, but this is a generation that has been formed by social media very profoundly where these ideas are pervasive.” As such, it leads to “a situation where there is very little downside for being a pro-Palestine protestor on a college campus in most states,” especially considering the fact that “universities have policies where they provide the police force and the court system to meet their need for (social) justice.”

Unfortunately, Kilgannon concluded, “this horrific situation is sadly not surprising.”

 

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Where Is the Safe Space for Jews?

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A recent trend on college campuses is to install “safe spaces,” places where students — or certain identity-group subsets of students — can go to feel safe. These safe spaces are exclusionary by design; they protect students by insulating them. In extreme cases, safe spaces have been deemed to cover entire campuses, leading to the exclusion or disinvitation of undesirable visitors.

This “safe space” trend has been rightly ridiculed for its tendency to protect college students’ feelings from exposure to opposing viewpoints. Such exposure serves to sharpen the mind and used to be college’s main virtue. Thus, protecting students from “harm” by sequestering them from intellectual diversity undermines the whole point of college education.

But the silly “safe space” trend adopted the language of harm and safety because those are important considerations. Sticking with the collegiate context, students can’t devote themselves to their studies if they take their life in their hands every time they walk across campus. Fertilizing their mental acreage is orders of magnitude more difficult when outside sounds like a warzone, or a rock concert, or both at the same time.

The safety of college campuses — most of whom have a department devoted to preserving it — is often taken for granted, else loving parents would think twice before sending sweet Suzy off to a dormitory. Basic physical safety should be a guarantee on which all students can rely, regardless of their background. Unfortunately, that guarantee is no longer universal.

Where is the safe space for Jews?

On Sunday, Rabbi Elie Buechler of Columbia University’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) strongly recommended that Jewish students “return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”

“The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear the Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme anti-Semitism and anarchy,” wrote Buechler. “It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus. No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.”

Last Thursday, anti-Semitic activists took over Columbia University’s central quad, turning it into a tent city overnight. The activists, many of whom are students, have praised Hamas’s military arm Al-Qassam, called for the destruction of Israel, and openly invited the killing of counter-protestors. Despite more than 100 arrests on Thursday, the rabble have only grown bolder.

Now, university administrators appear to have given up any hope of reasserting control of their campus property. The rabbi’s counsel to Jewish students was “the reason why classes went virtual at Columbia today,” Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, said Monday on “Washington Watch.” By Tuesday, Columbia University announced it was switching to hybrid classes for the remainder of the semester.

“There was one professor, Shai Davidai, who was having none of it,” Menken continued. “He said, ‘I am bringing 10 students and alumni with me Monday morning. We’re going to go on to the campus. We’re going to go right into the middle of that anti-Semitic demonstration, and we insist you keep us safe.’”

Rather than keep him safe, “Columbia deactivated the access card of their professor,” Menken related in disbelief. “Professor Shai Davidai of Columbia University had his access card deactivated by the university to prevent him from interfering with the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas demonstration at that campus.” Columbia University COO Cas Holloway personally appeared at the campus gate to prevent Davidai from entering the.

Davidai is an assistant professor in Columbia Business School’s Management Division, and he also leads Columbia’s anti-Semitism task force. Columbia administrators had to know that barring the head of the anti-Semitism task force from campus would provoke outrage, yet they chose to confront the backlash rather than confront the unruly mob that has taken over their campus. “Columbia was confronted with a clear choice either the anti-Semitic barbarians or the Jews. They expressly chose the anti-Semitic barbarians,” exclaimed Menken. “The entire administration of Columbia is utterly compromised by Jew hatred.”

Where is the safe space for Jews?

Certainly not at Columbia University, nor at Yale. Sahar Tartak, a Jewish student at Yale who is also a conservative reporter, was physically assaulted and blocked by protestors while attempting to film the pro-Hamas demonstration — which included taking down an American flag on a university flagpole — at that university. After demonstrators surrounded and blockaded her, a keffiyeh-garbed man stabbed Tartak in the eye with a Palestinian flag he carried.

At this point, the terrorist groupies aren’t even pretending to be motivated by non-violent, humanitarian concern for Palestinian civilians. “Anti-Semitism is always about finding a façade, a pretense, and then moving on to their end goal, which has always been ethnic cleansing and genocide,” argued Menken. “They were never anti-Israel protests. They were always anti-Semitic protests that glorify terrorism, that glorify atrocities, actual beheading of babies and rapes and holding hostages. These are not decent human beings.”

Where is the safe space for Jews?

You won’t find one at MIT, NYU, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, UC Berkeley, or Boston University. I’m sure that’s only the tip of the iceberg, since the anti-Semitic protests have reached even smaller, lesser known schools like Cal Poly Humbolt or UNC Charlotte.

At this point, it seems like American Jews are safest anywhere that isn’t a college campus. But that’s obviously not a workable solution in the long run. Today’s students are tomorrow’s lawyers, bankers, and politicians — not to mention professors. Are American Jews simply supposed to accept a second-class status, where they don’t get to go to college and are governed by those who hate them? How well did that work in 1930s Germany? If Jews aren’t safe on American college campuses, then ultimately they won’t be safe anywhere else in America.

Where is the safe space for Jews?

Jews could perhaps find a safe haven on other shores. But a cursory glance around the world shows the same violent anti-Semitism on shameful display in American universities. Judging by U.N. voting records, America sits near the top of the list of pro-Jewish countries. If Jews can find few countries friendlier than the U.S., and they are hated here, where can they go?

Where is the safe space for Jews?

The obvious exception is the world’s only Jewish-majority nation-state (although two million Arabs also live there peacefully), the postage stamp-sized parcel of seacoast known as Israel. Established in 1948 in response to the Holocaust, the modern state of Israel has provided a safe haven for persecuted Jews of every nationality.

Yet Israel’s Jews are not safe even within their own paper-snowflake borders. Hamas proved that on October 7, 2023, when they launched an unprovoked invasion on a Jewish holy day, slaughtering more than 1,200 Jews, kidnapping more than 200 prisoners, burning, raping, and pillaging wherever they could. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group supported by America’s geopolitical adversary Iran, openly calls for Israel’s “annihilation” and has broadcast its intention to repeat its October 7 attack as often as it is capable.

Hamas is not Israel’s only threat. Hezbollah, another Iran-backed terror group, operates out of Israel’s northern neighbor Lebanon, and it has kept up frequent rocket barrages against Israel to divide its attention. “There are, I believe, about 80,000 Israelis who can’t go home every night because the rockets being shot in by Hezbollah out of Lebanon,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) remarked on “Washington Watch.” “Obviously Israel cannot permanently tell 70 or 80,000 of their citizens, ‘you can’t go home at night.’”

Behind these groups lies Iran, a global terror sponsor, which is close to developing a nuclear weapon and is avowedly committed to Israel’s destruction.

Where is the safe space for Jews?

But perhaps the campus mobs openly supporting Hamas are ignorant of Hamas’s goal and merely want American Jews to return to Israel. If that were true, they would also have to be ignorant of the words coming out of their own mouth.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine is almost free,” they chanted. That’s a strange twist on their classic, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” By “free,” they mean free of Jews. By “from the river to the sea,” the chant invokes (and confuses) the boundaries of the land God promised to give to Israel in Deuteronomy 11:24, “from the River, the River Euphrates, to the western sea.” The technical term for seeking to drive all people of a given ethnic group out of a given territory is “ethnic cleansing.”

Again, they chanted, “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution.” “One solution” echoes the Nazis’ “Final Solution to the Jewish problem”: extermination camps. Intifada and revolution — both terms for riots or armed uprisings — are the means by which this chant proposes to achieve its end: the annihilation of all Jews everywhere.

No, the protestors know very well what unthinkable barbarity these chants call for. They share the end of Hamas.

Where is the safe space for Jews?

The utmost irony is that these disgraceful displays of anti-Semitism were sparked by the attack on Israel. When most sovereign nations suffer an unprovoked attack by an international terrorist outfit, they receive universal acknowledgements of sympathy, solidarity, and solace, even from parties who usually maintain a frosty distance. But when Israel was attacked, that outrage provoked not only sympathy for Israel but also expressions of solidarity with those who attacked her — even before Israel had mounted any military response.

This has led some Jews, even non-Zionists, to the inevitable conclusion that Israel’s demise would only result in further attacks on Jews everywhere. “The idea that Jews can be safe anywhere if they’re not secure in Israel has just been shattered,” said foreign policy expert Caroline Glick. “It’s very clear that the security of all Jews everywhere is contingent on Israel defeating our enemies in Israel.”

Under the Biden administration, Israel’s closest and most powerful friend is working overtime to snatch that rightful victory away from them. If that happens, it will lead right back to the question we’ve been asking all along.

Where is the safe space for Jews?

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Just a Disaster’: Biden’s Title IX Rule Empowers LGBTQ Movement, Erases Women and Justice

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The Biden administration’s revision of a civil rights statute designed to protect women’s rights in education erases women’s protections, rewrites landmark civil rights legislation to advance the LGBT agenda by federal fiat, and waters down legal standards for those falsely accused of sexual harassment.

The Biden administration obliterates the unique rights intended for women and girls by claiming Title IX’s prohibitions of discrimination against females in education apply to men who identify as women — regardless of their outward appearance — as well as those who identify as homosexual. Its “unofficial final rule,” released on April 19, now claims LGBTQIA+ activists may cite protections intended for women to accuse their fellow students of discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

The term “gender identity” appears 289 times in the 1,577-page document.

The new rule also requires that these “discrimination” allegations only meet the lowest standard of proof, known as the “preponderance of the evidence.” The rule — announced by Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights — also establishes “equitable grievance procedures.”

“They have completely demolished protections for women,” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm last week. “It’s just a disaster.” The new proposed rule “impacts speech. It impacts a free and appropriate education.”

In a comment emailed to The Washington Stand, Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Rachel Rouleau called the new rule “a slap in the face to women and girls who have fought long and hard for equal opportunities.” The Biden administration’s “radical redefinition of sex turns back the clock on equal opportunity for women” and “will have devastating consequences on the future of women’s sports, student privacy, and parental rights.”

The Biden administration’s federal fiat — never approved by legislation — rolls back regulations instituted in May 2020 by then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that reestablished legal norms and standards for those accused of sexual harassment.

Obama administration rules — also drawn up by Lhamon, a former ACLU attorney — allowed college sexual harassment investigations to be carried out by a single investigator, who acted as judge and jury. Vague definitions proscribing any “unwelcome conduct,” whether verbal or “nonverbal,” led school districts to punish students for unwelcome staring.

Under the Trump administration’s revised Title IX rules, anyone accused of sexual harassment on campus enjoyed the presumption of innocence, as in any other legal proceeding. The defendant also had the right to know the charges against him or her, examine all the evidence presented in the proceedings, have an adviser cross-examine any witness’s testimony, and appeal the ruling. The administration had to meet the more robust and normative legal standard of “clear and convincing evidence.”

At the time, Lhamon asserted that the Trump administration’s revised guidelines would make it “permissible to rape and sexually harass students with impunity.” No epidemic of unpunished campus rape followed.

The Biden administration’s new Title IX rule eliminates all these elements, which are standard in other consequential accusations.

“The final regulations restore and strengthen vital protections for students,” Biden’s Department of Education contended in a press release Friday.

All parties seem to acknowledge these rules will supercharge the number of sexual harassment cases on campus after it takes effect on August 1. “This rule is designed to encourage reporting,” a Biden administration official told journalists on a call Thursday.

Newly empowered with looser regulations, activist bureaucrats in the federal government, and on college campuses nationwide, “are going to enforce this rule, and they are going to enforce it aggressively,” predicted Kilgannon. “The Education Department laid down their marker and said, ‘Yes, indeed, you will face a penalty for this.’” States that refuse to implement the strategy will “be losing federal funds for your education programs in your state.”

Since more affluent areas, like the D.C. suburbs, rely more on property taxes to fund their schools, the threat of losing federal education dollars falls heaviest on the most vulnerable students living in underprivileged districts. “It is the poorest places who will be most harmed by this, because they rely the most on federal funding,” Kilgannon added.

To avoid running afoul of an activist bureaucracy’s interpretation of the newly broadened rule, education officials may shut down any speech that could turn into litigation, and threaten federal funding.

“This change reverses decades of progress toward equality, open discourse, due process, and parental rights,” observed the Southeastern Legal Foundation. The new rule will cause students to “self-censor rather than risk being reported for harassment” and “significantly undermines the role of parents — who should be the primary caregivers for their children and who are entitled to raise their children to share certain values and beliefs — by requiring conformity to the federal government’s views on biology and so-called gender identity.”

The regulations drew fire from Congress over these specific concerns. “Evidently, the acceptance of biological reality, and the faithful implementation of the law, are just pills too big for the Department to swallow,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

The new regulation pulls off a trifecta of administrative harm, as it “attacks the definition of sex, due-process rights, and free-speech rights,” said Inez Feltscher Stepman, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum.

The regulation also continues the decades-long trend of rewriting legislation through executive action. “Title IX was written in 1972 when ‘sex’ meant male and female, and no amount of interpretive jiujitsu permits a cabinet agency to rewrite the plain language of the law. Efforts to do so have failed repeatedly in Congress for one simple reason: Such an expansion of law is deeply unpopular, with opposition to these changes spanning both political and racial lines,” said Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, in a comment to TWS. Numerous polls have shown a supermajority of Americans oppose the extending of women’s rights to men, regardless of their self-identity.

“It is grotesque that the White House has chosen to capitulate to extremists in his party, sacrificing the First Amendment” in the process, Neily told TWS.

Women’s rights activists promise not to take the loss of their distinct place in the law lying down. “This is going to be the subject of lawsuits,” Kilgannon told Backholm, citing direct knowledge of multiple civil rights attorneys and organizations. Neiley told TWS explicitly, “This betrayal of students will not soon be forgotten by American parents, and we look forward to suing the administration over this policy soon.” Likewise, Rouleau told TWS that the “Alliance Defending Freedom plans to take action to defend female athletes, as well as school districts, teachers, and students who will be gravely harmed by this unlawful government overreach.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

An Overlooked Trump Cabinet Pick Could Upend The Left’s Grip On Power

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President Joe Biden summed up his education vision last year with a few words.

“There is no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children,” Biden said while honoring the 2023 teacher of the year.

Biden’s remarks triggered a firestorm among Republicans, education activists and parents alike.

Now those Biden critics are strategizing for a potential second Trump administration. Priorities have been outlined, shortlists have been drawn. Some are preparing to join the administration.

But it’ll be up to Trump to make his pick for the unheralded but critical cabinet spot of education secretary.

“It’s pretty much impossible to overstate the importance of the education secretary. Not just to Americans today, but to America’s future,” Angela Morabito, spokesperson for the Defense of Freedom Institute, told the Daily Caller.

“It is not a secret that our country is falling behind while we’re spending more per student on education than nearly anywhere else on Earth. And yet, our results are mediocre to put it generously,” Morabito said.

There’s been no shortage of anonymously sourced conjecture on who might take other cabinet roles. But the Secretary of Education has flown under the radar despite being a hot-button issue for Republican voters — and a position that influences the future of the country in a way that’s unique from any other.

The issue of education has exploded into the spotlight during Biden’s term after accelerating at a slow burn during the Obama years, which prompted a pendulum swing under Trump. Conservatives now have a set of priorities ranging from reeling in Title IX to rooting out bias from academia and teacher training.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced students into their homes and onto their computers for months of remote learning. In the summer of 2020, the killing of George Floyd sparked racial outrage throughout the country. In response, higher education institutions raced to affirm their anti-racism and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bona fides.

The takeover runs deep — in just a handful of years of full-blown DEI capture of higher education, universities have churned out a generation of insubordinate anti-American bureaucrats, Orwellian tech overlords and a protester industrial complex. The ideological opponents of conservatives virtually all share one common trait: they were trained and equipped on American college campuses.

Colleges and universities across the country implemented racial quotas, dropped standardized testing requirements and added segregated graduation ceremonies all in the name of DEI.

“I think, looking at all the DEI programs in higher ed is extremely important and starting to deny funds to colleges, who do the DEI programs. That way they either have to scale them back as we’re seeing some state schools doing like Texas and Florida, they’re scaling them back to stay there and try to hide the program or there’s abolishing the program altogether. But either one is incredibly important,” founder of the 1776 Project PAC, Ryan Girdusky, told the Daily Caller.

By 2023, the downstream effects of DEI and remote learning brought communities to a boiling point.

In K-12 education, a grassroots movement was born. Parents had become exposed to what their children were learning at school as lessons took place in the living room via Zoom. Concerned guardians cried out against critical race theory (CRT) lessons teaching students to value each other on the basis of their skin color. Communities sought to prevent their kids from being exposed to literature that could confuse them about sexuality and gender.

But it was too late. In K-12 education, students have fallen grade levels behind in math, reading and civics. Numerous jurisdictions have implemented policies allowing students to use bathrooms and join sports teams on the basis of their gender identity, rather than sex. Other K-12 schools host student clubs on the basis of race and themselves have implemented DEI initiatives.

“The idea of deconstructing, decolonizing math and decolonizing science are coming out of these teachers colleges, to get teachers who are just promoting critical theory in all its forms into K through 12 education. So the teachers colleges are essential place to look at,” Girdusky said.

The Biden administration has pushed many of the efforts rankling conservatives. The Department of Education has finalized a rule that would modify Title IX to protect students from discrimination on the basis of gender identity, a change that would allow boys — identifying as girls — to enter the ladies’ restroom.

On the higher education front, DEI policies have thrown out merit, experience and qualification, all things the nation’s universities were once highly renowned for. Student groups and activities on campuses have been divided into different racial groups. And in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, college students protested Israel at universities across America, in some cases threatening the lives of Jewish students.

Former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, former University of Pennsylvania President Liz MaGill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth sat in front of Congress on Dec. 5, 2023, fumbling through attempts to condemn antisemitism and explain how their institutions had become a cesspool of hatred.

“Our schools can and should be the best in the world. And they’re not,” Morabito told the Daily Caller.

Gay was ousted from her position after conservative journalists and activists uncovered numerous instances of alleged plagiarism in her academic writings. One of those conservative education activists, Christopher Rufo, told the Caller he’d like to see the next education secretary pursue an aggressive anti-DEI campaign nationwide.

“I think the next education secretary should be very aggressive in withholding or even terminating expenditures to universities that don’t meet a basic standard of fairness, equal treatment and compliance with American civil rights law,” Rufo told the Daily Caller. “This would send shockwaves through the entire public and private university system and start getting some of these ideologues who have captured University bureaucracies to start thinking twice before they administer discriminatory and illegal programs, which they do flagrantly at the moment.”

He added the next education secretary should make it clear to universities that if their policies fall out of line with the administration’s priorities, funding will be stripped.

Transforming America’s education system to meet conservatives’ vision will require the right person running the Department of Education. Numerous current Republican elected officials and activists have interest in the job, if offered, the Daily Caller has learned.

“I think when the country calls you to service, you have to listen. And when the president is looking to assemble a team to advance these ideas, these principles and these policies, he’s going to need the best people he can get. And I think something like that would be an offer that would be very difficult, if not impossible to refuse,” Rufo told the Daily Caller about the education secretary job.

“Me, I would do it,” Tiffany Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told the Daily Caller. “I think that there are a lot of other people that I’ve met over the past three years who would be willing to serve in the next administration for the purpose of putting the focus back on academic achievement and meritocracy across America.”

Moms for Liberty has grown into one of the most prominent grassroots organizations advocating for parental rights in the nation’s K-12 schools. Focused on school board races and policies enacted at the state level, Moms for Liberty has become known for its battle against age-inappropriate gender ideology lessons and the implementation of CRT.

Justice added that she has been working with a team of individuals through the parental rights movement that she thought would make good leaders in the education department for the administration, including Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, South Carolina Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds’ wife Erica.

Grassroots activists aren’t the only candidates to lead a potential Trump Department of Education. A who’s-who of elected Republican officials have the support of education groups that spoke to the Daily Caller, and there were indications some might be interested in the job.

One education group listed several current and former government officials on their shortlist for the position, including former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, former New Mexico Secretary of Education Hannah Skandera and Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley.

“From her perspective, it’s something that she is interested in,” a spokesperson for Reynolds told the Daily Caller.

“Is this satire?” said a former campaign aide for Sasse, who is still close with the now-President of the University of Florida.

Walters, who didn’t indicate whether he would accept the position himself, listed Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts, PragerU CEO Dennis Prager, Youngkin, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Sanders as his ideal candidates.

“First, I will do everything I can to support and help get President Donald Trump reelected,” Walters told the Daily Caller about whether he would accept the education secretary role if offered.

“I am focused on my role to ensure Oklahoma schools are rid of woke indoctrination, liberal union strangleholds, and reawaken a love for our country. The focus must be on firing Joe Biden and ending the culture for hating America,” Walters continued.

Another Oklahoman, Gov. Kevin Stitt, is “open-minded” about the position, an operative in the state told the Caller.

“I don’t have a firm answer on a yes or no, that he would take it. I do know that his reason that he got into public policy was because of the vitriol he has for the Department of Education and his number one personal goal in life is to see it completely dissolved,” an adviser to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told the Daily Caller.

Though the Heritage Foundation doesn’t have a formal endorsement for who it would like to see in the administration, there are role models the organization thinks are good examples for the movement.

“I know we’ve had multiple conversations with a handful of the current state superintendents, who I wouldn’t on the record say these are people that we would recommend or who we’d like to see, but people like Ryan Walters in Oklahoma, Manny Diaz in Florida, Ellen Weaver in South Carolina,” Crystal Bonham, a senior advisor to Roberts in communications at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller.

“They’re all doing work that we have pretty much wholesale endorsed and someone with their kind of character and background that would be ideal, if not Dr. Roberts. Or Lindsay Burke, she’s phenomenal,” Bonham continued.

As for Youngkin, his camp suggested he is very focused on continuing his leadership in Virginia.

“He’s got a clock behind his desk, in his office, in the Patrick Henry building where the governor’s suites are. It’s a countdown clock, because it’s only four years, you can’t run for reelection. So you know, this would all be just speculation. I certainly haven’t heard it. And I don’t know of any conversations that have occurred, but I do know that that his focus is definitely on Virginia,” Zach Roday, a former political adviser to the governor, told the Daily Caller.

The governor’s spokesperson pointed to how proud Youngkin is of his education track record in a statement to the Daily Caller.

“He’s focused on doing that right here in Virginia during his remaining time as Governor,” Christian Martinez told the Daily Caller.

Others are looking back for the best path forward.

“Secretary DeVos would be fantastic — I can’t think of anyone better and more battle-tested for the job,” school choice activist Corey DeAngelis told the Daily Caller. “She would be able to continue the momentum she started when she was at the helm of the department last time. If she is not interested in stepping back from private life again, the next Secretary of Education should be someone who will show a similar commitment to students.”

DeVos provided the Caller with several priorities she would like to see in a second Trump administration, including school choice legislation and undoing changes to Title IX that the Biden administration is eyeing. DeVos did not indicate whether she’d return to her old job, or if she had discussed it with the Trump team.

Girdusky was unsure who he would like to see in the education secretary role, noting that many contenders have a focus on school choice — a topic he thinks should be a priority but not a hyperfocus.

What the next Secretary of Education does will be even more critical than who it is. While right-leaning education advocates have been able to make progress against DEI policies and gender ideology, leading activists had different takes on what the department should prioritize if Trump takes the White House.

But rather than use federal power to enact change to the nation’s education system, some think the best solution is to get rid of what they consider to be the very problem.

“We need to dismantle the Department of Education,” Justice told the Daily Caller.

“Over the past 40 years that the federal government has really inserted its tentacles into every crack and crevice of American public education. And we need to tear it out root and branch so we are working at Moms for Liberty to ensure that we have a lot of advocacy at the state level. And in the counties where local control is so incredibly important,” she continued.

Justice added she wants to rid education of influence from outside agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition to dismantling the Department of Education, Walters told the Caller that he wanted the potential education secretary to drive DEI, CRT and transgender ideology out of schools, while also working to take down teachers’ unions.

Above all, Laurie Todd-Smith, director of America First Policy Institute’s Center for Education Opportunity, told the Daily Caller that she hoped a Trump education secretary would close the nation’s learning loss gap that students suffered after the pandemic. Todd-Smith also stressed the importance of undoing the Biden administration’s changes to Title IX.

In Texas, the state legislature has laid out the blueprint for using the government to rid universities of race-based initiatives, like Girdusky, Rufo and others have advocated.

Introduced by Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton in March 2023, Texas State Bill 17 quickly passed through the state legislature to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, where it was signed into law in June 2023. Under the legislation, an institution is not permitted to spend money appropriated to the institution for a state fiscal year until the Board of Regents submits to the legislature and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board a report certifying that it has complied with restrictions on DEI.

The Texas law bans DEI offices and initiatives at state-funded higher education institutions. The law also prohibits institutions from considering diversity statements from job applicants and bans mandatory DEI training for staff.

Now, Texas universities are facing consequences because of the law.

In April, the University of Texas Dallas laid off nearly two dozen of its DEI faculty in an effort to comply with the law, CBS News reported. The University of Texas at Austin eliminated 60 jobs and its Division of Campus and Community Engagement (previously called the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.)

While Justice and Rufo have priorities focused on their expertise, some education activists have a two-pronged approach in mind.

Girdusky said he hoped to see the future education secretary prioritize both K-12 learning loss while tackling issues in higher education.

“But really what there is, is there’s a two-step priority, one is going to be higher ed and the other one’s going to be lower education K through 12. A huge priority has to be to go after the teacher’s colleges. Because a lot of the problems that we’re seeing as far as education goes comes from teachers and colleges,” Girdusky told the Daily Caller.

In the same vein as Girdusky, Morabito expressed that the future education secretary should withhold funds from institutions or K-12 schools that engage in divisive activities.

“The first and the most powerful is federal civil rights law. It is unlawful for any federally-funded program or activity to discriminate based on race or sex, or perceived national origin. So federal funding should not be going to anywhere that discriminates based on sex or race or discriminates against the Jewish students based on shared national origin or perceived ancestry,” Morabito told the Daily Caller.

As for what Trump plans to focus on in a potential second administration, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, pointed the Caller to the former president’s already-released education plans.

Under the former president’s priorities for a second administration are several education focused initiatives. To tackle higher education, Trump says he will “fire the radical Left accreditors” and impose standards to remove all “DEI bureaucrats.”

Trump also released his 12-step plan for K-12 education, which would include passing legislation to prioritize “curriculum transparency and a form of universal school choice.” The priorities note that Trump would “keep men out of women’s sports,” an indication that he would undo any changes the Biden administration makes to Title IX.

Several education groups and activists that the Caller spoke with said they had not had any engagement with the Trump campaign about their vision for education.

Leavitt referred the Caller to a December 2023 statement from advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita on media speculation over transition team efforts. The statement, Leavitt said, makes it clear “that outside groups do not reflect official campaign policy or strategy.”

“People publicly discussing potential administration jobs for themselves or their friends are, in fact, hurting President Trump…and themselves. These are an unwelcomed distraction,” the statement from Wiles and LaCivita reads. “Second term policy priorities and staffing decisions will not – in no uncertain terms – be led by anonymous or thinly sourced speculation in mainstream media news stories.”

“I think it’s very important that we need an education secretary who is youthful, aggressive, intelligent, and ruthlessly determined to shatter the status quo. And so, establishment figures will no longer make the cut, and even Trump’s ambitious policy agenda on education, he’s going to need a leader who can step in day one, with the courage to get things done,” Rufo told the Daily Caller, also noting that he has a very good relationship with the former president’s policy team.

Girdusky said he asked the Trump campaign about the position around the turn of the new year.

“He had not gotten the nomination at the time and it just wasn’t the biggest priority at the time, which it was probably like, January when I spoke to them, maybe December even. So the nomination process hadn’t even come up. And I was just talking about the idea of education secretary or whatnot, and they didn’t have a list of names. It was a very informal conversation,” Girdusky told the Daily Caller.

Three prominent education groups that the Daily Caller spoke to had not had much communication with the Trump campaign about the issue. DeAngelis, Defense of Freedom Institute and Freedom Works’ education initiative “B.E.S.T’ all told the Daily Caller that they had not spoken with the campaign about their priorities or their short list.

Roberts, while in touch with the Trump campaign regarding Heritage’s transition project, has not spoken with the campaign about serving in the administration himself, a senior adviser told the Caller.

“Not at this point. They do talk fairly regularly. Most of that has to do with Project 2025 and kind of general, kind of getting ready for the transition period. So at this point, they haven’t yet talked about specifics in terms of if he’d be willing to take a cabinet position or if that’s even been offered,” an adviser told the Caller.

The same could be said for Justice.

“I’m throwing my hat in the ring now. How’s that?” she said.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Largest Christian University in the U.S. Was Fined $37 Million. Coincidence or Targeted Attack?

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A dust storm of political madness is brewing in Phoenix, Arizona as Grand Canyon University faces the continued threats of Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Christians have watched as the Biden administration attacks biblical views left and right, with a particularly vehement disregard of the sanctity of life and marriage. As such, it can’t be too surprising that Cardona, a part of this leftist administration, has “vowed” to shut down America’s largest Christian university.

In late October, GCU was hit with “a $37.7 million fine brought by the federal government over allegations that it lied to students about the cost of its programs,” AP News reported — an accusation GCU President Brian Mueller described as “ridiculous.” Around the same time, Liberty University, America’s second largest Christian university, was also fined $37 million “over alleged underreporting of crimes.” GCU appealed its fine in November even though a hearing is not expected until January 2025. But the question Mueller has is one of integrity. Is this genuine consideration for the well-being of students, or is this a targeted attack against religious institutions?

“It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the two largest Christian universities in the country, this one and Liberty University, are both being fined almost the identical amount at almost the identical time?” the college president speculated in a speech. “Now is there a cause and effect there? I don’t know. But it’s a fact.”

This April, the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing specifically about the administration’s decision to “crack down on GCU and other universities like it.” During the proceedings, Cardona and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), made their disapproval for GCU and similar universities obvious. “[W]e are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students,” Cardona emphasized.

Supporters of GCU agree the fine seems unprecedented and motivated by ideological bias, including American Principles Project Policy Director Jon Schweppe, who said, “The federal government’s education agenda is punishing schools that do not conform to their progressive ideology. It’s time we take a stand against this egregious abuse of power.” Another conservative think tank, the Goldwater Institute (GI), sued the Department of Education for “refusing to turn over” public “documents that explain why” they’re fining GCU. The goal of their lawsuit is to unmask the reason behind the fine.

“With its motto of ‘private, Christian, affordable’ and its track record of graduating students into high-demand and high-paying jobs, GCU is a success story by any metric. And it stands apart from universities across the country that are facing declining enrollment, that are indoctrinating students with radical politics, and that are under attack for failing to defend the First Amendment,” GI wrote. “So then why are the feds targeting GCU, a popular university that seems to be doing everything right? That’s exactly what we’re going to find out.”

While there is still immense uncertainty surrounding this case, GCU president took the time to share with The Washington Stand how his staff, faculty, and students are fairing in these troubling times and how believers everywhere can help. Mueller emphasized that GCU has faced various issues over the years. But despite the government’s action, he wanted people to know that “interestingly enough, “it has had zero impact on anything that we’re doing.”

He continued, “The enrollments are just continuing to grow … [and] the morale is very high in terms of our faculty and staff. The campus is extremely vibrant. I mean, the students absolutely love this place. They’re extremely loyal to it, and so we just keep marching through it.” And while the fine they’re being dealt by the Department of Education is “a problem,” Mueller is just thankful that GCU remains optimistic.

The Christian “mission, not politics, is our motivation and it is our hope,” he told TWS. As a university, Mueller explained how they exist to “pour into” the community around them. He added, “[O]ur reach into the neighborhood and caring for disadvantaged populations has been a way to live out our faith” in a way “that has risen above … political divide.” Ultimately, with support from “both sides of the aisle” in Arizona, he noted, “[A]ll the issues we have are with a very small number of people in Washington D.C.”

“We encourage people to be involved politically and vote,” Mueller said. “… But our faith will stand above the politics always, and our politics will never become our religion.” Because, for “many people in our country today, their politics have become their religion, and that’s when things … go really bad in our society.” He pointed out that GCU is “trying to be an example of a Christian community that can rise above those things and focus on helping people” through service, as Scripture calls believers to do.

Mueller concluded with a request for prayer as they work through these troubling times and for “the hearts of certain people in Washington, D.C. to be softened,” adding that “it’s hard to make progress and resolve differences when people just … don’t want to talk to each other.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘That Is Not a Religion’: DeSantis Bars Satanists from Florida School Chaplaincy Program

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The Sunshine State is now welcoming chaplains into public schools, but Satanists need not apply. On Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill into law allowing chaplains to volunteer to offer counseling at public and charter schools. However, the Catholic governor warned that Satanists would not be accepted into the program, as some Christian and conservative groups had feared.

“Now some have said if you do a school chaplain program that somehow you’re going to have Satanists running around in all our schools,” DeSantis said in a press conference. “We’re not playing those games in Florida. That is not a religion. That is not qualifying to be able to participate in this. We’re going to be using common sense when it comes to this, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

The Florida Senate version of the Bill was approved in February and the House version approved early last month. The legislation’s text states, “Each school district or charter school may adopt a policy to authorize volunteer school chaplains to provide supports, services, and programs to students as assigned by the district school board or charter school governing board.” The new law requires volunteer chaplains to pass a background check and would require school administrators to publicize each volunteer chaplain’s religious affiliation and obtain parental consent before a student begins counseling.

“Any opportunity that exists for ministers or chaplains in the public sector must not discriminate based on religious affiliation,” said The Satanic Temple’s (TST) “Director of Ministry” Penemue Grigori in February. “Our ministers look forward to participating in opportunities to do good in the community, including the opportunities created by this bill, right alongside the clergy of other religions.” Ryan Jayne of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Action Fund added, “I think there is a 100% chance you see satanic chaplains, and also of course other religious minorities that the majority-Christian population might not be a fan of. The Satanic Temple is a church, whether people like it or not.”

“It is wonderful to have such a strong statement denying the legitimacy of Satanism as a religion or church from Governor DeSantis. But I worry that appeals to common sense will not hold in the most ideological school systems, even in Florida,” Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon commented to The Washington Stand. “Regardless, this is an important step in acknowledging the role that faith plays in our lives and how important it is that the big questions students have about morality, life and death, and God’s plan for their lives are best answered by a parent or priest, pastor, or chaplain.”

DeSantis has criticized Satanism in the past, arguing that it is not a religion. In December, after military veteran and outspoken Christian Michael Cassidy toppled and beheaded a Baphomet idol erected in the Iowa state capitol building by TST, the Florida governor declared, “Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government. … Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”

On its website, TST responds to the question “Do you worship Satan?” The organization states, “No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.” TST adds, “Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. … Our metaphoric representation is the literary Satan best exemplified by Milton and the Romantic Satanists from Blake to Shelley to Anatole France.”

Now that it has been signed by DeSantis, Florida’s new law goes into effect on July 1.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Largest Christian University in the U.S. Was Fined $37 Million. Coincidence or Targeted Attack?

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

This Video Builds A Rock Solid Case For Only Trump As The Commander-in-Chief

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We have written about why Donald J. Trump is the only real choice for America’s patriots to become the 47th President of the United States, here, here and here.

It appears that World Net Daily’s Bob Unruh agrees with us. In his April 15th, 2024 article titled “Stunning video builds case for only Trump as commander-in-chief”  Bob wrote,

A stunning new video has been delivered that makes the case for ONLY President Donald Trump as commander-in-chief.

The Gateway Pundit explains it is the “most powerful pro-Trump ad of the year” – “It is that good.”

It is from Claremont Institute chairman Tom Klingenstein, a philanthropist, public speaker, writer, and playwright.

He explains:

Now that President Trump is the Republican nominee for President in 2024, it’s time for Republicans, including those who doubt him or even can’t stand him to get behind him. The times demand it. We are in a war fighting an enemy of revolutionaries that kick and spit on America. I call our enemy the Woke regime or the Group quota regime. This war is a contest between those who love America and those who hate it. But we do not have a commander-in-chief. You can’t win a war without one. We shouldn’t much care whether our commander-in-chief is a real conservative, whether he is a role model for children, or says lots of silly things, or whether he is modest or dignified.

What we should care about is whether he knows we are in a war, knows who the enemy is, and knows how to win.

Trump does. His policies are important but not as important as the rest of him. Trump grasps the essential things. He understands the Group quota regime is evil and will not stop until it destroys America. He is a fighter, bold, brave, and decisive, who has confidence in himself and his country.

Trump never apologizes for America. He rightly believes America is the greatest country in history. Trump says, in effect, we have our culture. It’s exceptional, and that’s the way we want to keep it. And we won’t keep it if we usher in millions of immigrants with cultures different from our own. Trump knows his job is to protect Americans and just Americans. Protect them not just from enemies abroad, but from the woke globalists within. He knows that America does not need more diversity. It needs more cohesion. The woke radicals tell the Trump voters they are a threat to democracy. Think about that. They’re saying, You Trumpsters are a threat to democracy. The woke radicals also tell us ad nauseam that America is systemically racist. Trump knows this is deadly nonsense, and he says so. This charge of systemic racism bounces off Trump because he has no white guilt, or any guilt for that matter. Trump tells his supporters what they already know. They are not racist, and they do not have white privilege. The woke radicals shut up those who disagree. Trump will not be shut up. If they manage to put him in jail, he will still roar like a lion.

The woke radicals have the moral arrogance of fanatics. Trump, God bless him, knows we are all sinners. Trump rejects the utopian fanaticism of the woke radicals. He is a businessman who takes the world on its own terms and navigates by facts and common sense. Trump’s base knows firsthand the America that Trump wants to recover. They love him, and they know he loves them. They will fight for him because they know he will fight for them. Trump speaks to his supporters as fellow citizens without any condescension or poll-tested BS. Despite his billions, he is one of them, an outsider looking in, a man who takes catsup on his steak. And is as disgusted as they are with the anti-American elite.

This natural appeal has molded everyday patriotic Americans into an army. We cannot stop the left’s revolution and retake the nation without these men and women. Unlike most Conservatives, they will actually fight for America. But they follow Trump. Without him, they stay home. With him, they are united and determined. At his rallies, his audience invariably breaks into chants of USA, USA. In these moments, Trump and his audience mutually pledge to each other their fidelity and their sacred honor.

His enemies hate him with an indescribable fierceness. Another Hitler, they say. Elect him and he will be a dictator. We should take this hysteria as reason for hope.

The America-haters rightly fear that Trump and his party are on the threshold of a successful counter-revolution. Trump hates his enemies every bit as much as they hate him. His enemies are America’s enemies. Trump is the most towering figure of our time. He has changed politics, not just in America, but in the West. If we are to take back America, we need someone who is unmovable, who has proven that he can stand up against the immensely powerful army of woke modernity that will attack him with all its might. Someone who will go after the deep state without pity or compassion. And someone who has the conviction that America is still the last best hope of Earth. That someone is Trump. Trump, the politician, came out of the blue. An unconventional commander against an unconventional enemy. Almost inconceivable as President at any other time.

Trump fits this turbulent moment to a T. Is it too much to wonder whether the appearance of this most unconventional man is providential?

Lincoln spoke of Americans as the almost chosen people. Trump gives us hope that the God who has never forsaken his almost chosen people will not do so now.

Read full article.

WATCH: Claremont Institute chairman Tom Klingenstein on Trump’s Virtues – Part II.

The Bottom Line

In our column Comparing Two Democrats: Confederate Jefferson Davis and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. we warned that America is in a Civil War 2.0.

American Civil War 2.0 is about destroying our Constitutional Republic and replacing it with a one world order. It also requires the enslaving of the American people.

It is yet to be seen if it will become a fully armed conflict, although we are witnessing groups like the pro-Hamas supporters calling for “the death of America” and their storming of the White House and violent marches across America waving the flag of the terrorist group Hamas and the burning of the American flag.

Unlike the Civil War of 1861, the American Civil War 2.0 is in essence not seceding from the United States but rather destroying it from within by a cabal of traitors.

Abraham Lincoln wrote, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

We know what President Donald J. Trump must do when inaugurated on January 20th, 2025.

He must drain the swamp from the schoolhouse to the White House, completely and totally.

©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Elementary School Denies Request to Start Prayer Club, Approves ‘Pride Club’

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In 2015, religious freedom seemed compromised when a Washington high school football coach was fired for praying with his team after a game. Joe Kennedy waited roughly six years for the Supreme Court to hear the oral arguments for his case. He was represented by a Christian nonprofit legal organization, First Liberty Institute (FLI), which took the position that “no teacher or coach should lose their job for simply expressing their faith while in public.” This was a notable case in 2022, and recent events have caused the issue to resurface.

Earlier this year, Laura, an 11-year-old girl who attends Creekside Elementary in Washington State, requested to start an interfaith prayer club at her school. But her request was denied.

When Laura and her mom approached the principal about the matter in February, they were informed that the school’s budget for clubs had been finalized in October. And according to a spokesperson for Issaquah School District, “[C]lubs offered are student-interest driven and meet outside of the school day. At the elementary level, participation in a club also requires parent permission. Once the school year begins, the building budget is set, and additional clubs are usually not added until the following school year.” But the story doesn’t end here.

Laura’s group, which she hoped to start with her friend, was meant to include people of all different religious backgrounds. She shared with Fox News that she was feeling alone, and that she thought this would be a good idea to bring students together. “I think that this is something that I am very passionate about,” she added. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really want to make this happen, if I didn’t think that it would be a great opportunity for everyone.” It was later discovered that an LGBT club was approved only a week prior to Laura’s club request being denied, which has caused spectators to raise their eyebrows.

As a result of this alleged hypocrisy, Laura filed a lawsuit on the grounds of religious discrimination with the help of FLI. Attorneys pointed out in a letter to the school, “The First Amendment ‘doubly protects religious speech.’ These First Amendment protections extend to elementary school students expressing their sincere religious beliefs through voluntary clubs. Yet the school district flouted its First Amendment obligations when they refused to allow a student-led interfaith prayer club. Its unlawful action violates both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause.”

Kayla Toney, associate counsel at First Liberty Institute, explained, “Denying the formation of a religious student club while allowing other clubs violates the Constitution,” drawing attention to the fact that the similar case with Coach Kennedy occurred “just a short drive away” from Laura’s elementary school. And in comments to The Washington Stand, Arielle Del Turco, Family Research Council’s director of the Center for Religious Liberty, said, “The fact that Creekside Elementary denied a religious club the same month that it approved a Pride club reveals a lot about American culture right now.”

She continued, “Sadly, the promotion of LGBT identities is held sacred while religion is sidelined and marginalized. It’s heartbreaking that Laura, a fifth-grade student, felt alone at school as a religious believer and that she knew other students who felt the same way. She reacted in exactly the right way by making an effort to build community with religious students.”

Del Turco went on to emphasize that, “Oftentimes, when people seek to prevent religious expression in government venues, they will use the excuse that they don’t want to imply that the government favors one religion over another.” However, when it comes to Laura’s case, she pointed out that “the school doesn’t even have that flimsy excuse because the students were seeking to start a … club that would be open to students of different faiths.”

Ultimately, “Any school that allows other clubs while specifically denying religious clubs is acting in a discriminatory manner and violating the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression and the free exercise of religion.” Del Turco concluded, “Christian fifth graders shouldn’t face viewpoint discrimination from their school leadership. It shouldn’t have had to come to this, but I fully expect this injustice to be rectified in the courts.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

House Launches Broad Probe into China’s Infiltration of U.S.

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On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee announced the launch of a wide-ranging investigation into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to infiltrate “every sector and community” in the U.S.

The probe, which has the stated objective to “thwart the CCP’s political and economic warfare campaign,” is being initiated with letters sent to nine different federal agencies requesting reports on what the agencies are doing to counter the communist regime’s efforts, along with how the agencies are coordinating their efforts with each other.

“Without firing a single bullet, the Chinese Communist Party is waging war against the U.S. by targeting, influencing, and infiltrating every economic sector and community in America,” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) stated. “The lives and security of all Americans are affected. The Oversight Committee has a responsibility to ensure the federal government is taking every action necessary to protect Americans from the CCP’s ongoing political warfare.”

The sectors that the investigation will focus on include education, agriculture, critical infrastructure, research, energy, business, space, and technology. Examples of the CCP’s incursion into these sectors have been making headlines for decades. Here are some recent examples in each sector.

Education: Almost 150 U.S. K-12 schools have been linked to “Confucius Classrooms” which attempt to spread communist propaganda. In higher education, “Confucius Institutes” (which have now been rebranded but have the same communist goal) have popped up in dozens of American universities. In addition, the regime has given over $426 million to U.S. universities since 2011, which experts say has led to increasing influence behind closed doors.

Agriculture: Chinese companies have purchased hundreds of thousands of acres of American farmland, some of which are near U.S. military installations.

Infrastructure: The Chinese government is attempting to “covertly plant offensive malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks,” which is currently at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” according to a report from FBI Director Christopher Wray in February.

Research and Technology: The CCP’s efforts to steal American scientific research and technology are well documented. Comer wrote to the National Science Foundation noting that the regime’s efforts to steal and influence research “takes a holistic approach and includes covert and legal means” and that it is attempting to weaponize “U.S.-backed research and technology for uses that are contrary to U.S. national security and competitiveness.”

Energy: In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Comer writes that the CCP has “successfully pressured U.S. environmental players and industries into adopting initiatives that plainly benefit China at great costs to American businesses and consumers.”

Business: China’s influence over corporate America was illustrated quite clearly recently when a room full of U.S. corporate executives gave Chinese President Xi Jinping multiple standing ovations in his visit to the U.S. last November. Comer also noted the CCP’s efforts to launder money through America’s real estate and casino industries. “These activities allow the CCP to engage in corporate espionage, feed the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., influence our nation’s schools and culture, and otherwise advance destructive goals on American soil,” he wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Space: As previously reported, the regime is currently pursuing “a ‘space coercion’ strategy that includes the use of both ground-based missiles ‘capable of hitting satellites orbiting at all altitudes,’ as well as orbital missiles — including nuclear warheads.” Comer argued in a letter to NASA that China’s space program should be “properly understood for what it is: an arm of its military, the People’s Liberation Army.”

Many other threats to the U.S. posed by the CCP abound, such as a massive influx of Chinese nationals of military age being apprehended at the southern border, balloon surveillance, the discovery of CCP “police stations” in U.S. cities, and the discovery of a suspicious biolab with ties to China in California. In a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Comer also voiced concern over the CCP engaging in “chemical warfare seeking to poison America with fentanyl, and how the Drug Enforcement Agency is responding.” Reports indicate that “nearly all the precursor chemicals that are needed to make fentanyl come from China.”

In a press release announcing the House investigation, Comer concluded, “Actions taken by the Committee today are just the beginning and I look forward to full cooperation from agencies as we work to thwart China’s efforts to influence and infiltrate the United States of America.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid Founder and President of Bob Fu stated, “It is indeed way overdue for the American people and government across the political spectrum to pay close attention and take an all of society approach to address the serious threat of the CCP’s well designed, decades in the making, comprehensive infiltration effort with unlimited warfare strategy.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Led by Riley Gaines, 16 Women File Groundbreaking Suit against the NCAA

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The NCAA has ignored Congress, its own committee members, state legislators, parents, and female athletes, but it can’t ignore this. In what is being called “a day of reckoning” for President Charlie Baker, the country’s biggest collegiate sports association is being taken to court over a radical transgender policy that has physically hurt, traumatized, and robbed young athletes of opportunities across America. “This is the time to speak up for all the women in the future,” swimmer Reka Gyorgy insisted. “It’s been two years, and nothing [has] happened. When will we change things if it’s not now?”

Those two years Gyorgy mentions are personal. It was 2022 when she lost her All-American title to Lia Thomas, something she’d worked for five years to achieve. Because Thomas decided to swim as a female, Reka was bumped to 17th — one spot shy of the top-16 cutoff she needed. She thought back on that devastation in an exclusive interview with The Free Press’s Francesca Block. “I was in the best physical [shape] I have ever been,” she explained. “And [this was my] the last chance. I was a senior, I was ready for racing. I was ready [to] give it all.” And yet, “going into the race [where] you know that one spot is going to be taken for sure [by Thomas], that’s a totally different mindset.”

“[W]atching that last heat of the 500 freestyle, it was just so emotional,” Gyorgy remembers. “Looking at the screen after the last heat touched the wall [and] seeing my name at 17th, I was shocked, to be honest. I went through all the feelings. … I was surrounded by my teammates and my coaches, and I started crying. I broke down because I felt right away that I [wouldn’t] have the second chance to swim again. And it just wasn’t fair. It was so unfair.”

While Riley Gaines grabbed most of the headlines after tying with Thomas for the trophy, it was Gyorgy who sent the first public letter of complaint to the NCAA. After the 2022 tournament, “[Reka] was really the first athlete at that national championships to take a stand,” Gaines said. “Had she not done that and had I not seen that, I certainly would not have taken the stand that I did. So I could not be more grateful for Rica. And she certainly inspired and continues to inspire more people than I think even she could possibly realize.”

Now the two women are linking arms, along with college athletes across swimming, volleyball, track, and diving, who’ve all been victims of the NCAA’s indifference toward Title IX and the devastation their rules have done to fair play. The lawsuit, which was organized by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, is considered the first of its kind — and, if you ask most Americans, long overdue. Among other things, it demands the association “revoke all awards given to trans athletes in women’s competition and ‘reassign’ them to their female contenders. It also asks for ‘damages for pain and suffering, mental and emotional distress, suffering and anxiety…” The Free Press explains.

Some of the most horrifying stories of Thomas’s involvement in girls’ swimming have come at the expense of girls’ privacy — another reason the women felt compelled to sue. As Gaines has shared before, most of the competitors at the NCAA Championships in Georgia had zero warning that a naked Thomas would be in the women’s locker room. “The first time we found out that this would be the case was when we were actually undressing next to this six-foot-four man who was also simultaneously undressing, fully exposing himself and his male genitalia,” Gaines said. “We were not given any prior acknowledgement. We were not given a way to make other arrangements for ourselves. This was something as women, as female athletes, that we felt uncomfortable with.”

One elite swimmer and fellow plaintiff, Kylee Alons, a 31-time All-American, was so embarrassed that she changed in a utility room after she encountered Thomas. “I was literally racing U.S. and Olympic gold medalists, and I was changing in a storage closet at this elite-level meet,” she told Block.

“… I can’t even put into words the feelings,” Gaines shared. “I mean, of course it’s awkward, it’s embarrassing, it’s uncomfortable, but really the feelings of betrayal and utter violation. And honestly, the locker room aspect of this whole thing was traumatizing. And it wasn’t even necessarily traumatizing because of what we were forced to see or how we as women were forcibly exploited without our consent. It was traumatic for me to know just how easy it was for those people who created and enforce these policies [to] totally dismiss our rights to privacy without even a second thought, without even bare minimum forewarning us.”

One thing people might not realize, Block explained after reading the lawsuit, is that a competitive swimming race suit “is much different.” “It’s really tight. It could take 15 to 20 minutes, sometimes 30, 40 minutes to put on.” So these young women aren’t talking about a few minutes of discomfort. “And let’s be honest here,” Gaines admitted, “a swimming locker room [is] not a place of modesty. I think we can all agree a locker room is not a comfortable place in general. But growing up a swimmer, I think, at least for speaking for myself, you grow to feel comfortable being vulnerable in that environment. But that vulnerability was entirely stripped from us. When you have your back turned, you’re undressing, and all of a sudden you hear a man’s voice in that changing space. … It was innate for every girl in that locker room to cover themselves, whether that was with their hands or their towels or their clothes — and to get out of that locker room as quickly as they could.”

Reka reminded people that this was a position the NCAA forced them into. “As Riley said, we didn’t get a heads up. … And it might seem silly for some people, but we had 18- to 22-year-old girls in the locker room — and some of them may not have seen a naked male before. And [it’s] just not right.”

At the end of the day, the women say, they’re all victims of the radical agenda of the Biden administration, the NCAA, and International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose main goal seems to be “actively and openly discriminating against women on the basis of our sex, which is everything that Title IX was passed to prevent from happening.”

And in a stunning admission by Baker to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the NCAA pursued this extreme trans policy without ever studying the “physical, psychological, or emotional harm” of the trans policy on female athletes. “That’s a bombshell,” Concerned Women for America’s Doreen Denny insisted after discovering it — buried — on page 18 of the president’s written response. That alone should be “grounds for the NCAA to cease and desist” from its policy immediately.

And it’s not as if the NCAA hadn’t been pressed to study the issue. Members of its own committees, including Bill Bock, who were experts on the science, urged the association to act. Bock’s years with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency led him to believe that allowing men to compete against women was essentially “massive, authorized cheating.” And yet, as he explained after resigning in protest, “There was no real mechanism for me to bring that issue to anybody within my committee and force a decision on it or something like that. … The board of directors of the NCAA is the ultimate decision maker. And they were the ones that ultimately made the decision to continue to allow Thomas to compete.”

When people asked about protecting a level playing field, the NCAA “tried to avoid the question,” Bock said. “Mostly, they [tried] to talk about something else … [like] inclusiveness and the need to be open to whatever somebody feels about themselves. … And then they say, ‘This could cause people to self-harm if we don’t allow them to do this.’ And so, we should make sport unfair because people will self-harm.”

But the biological realities are real, most international sports bodies have conceded as they snap back to stricter, girls-only rules. “Women are not just a testosterone threshold,” Gaines argued. “That is not the qualification to being a woman. Even if Thomas had zero nanomoles per liter of testosterone in his body, there are still advantages that males possess over women that make this unfair. The bottom line is, even if this wasn’t a physical sport, it’s a woman’s category, and by allowing men into women’s category, you are, again, objectively discriminating against women on the basis of our sex.”

To the haters who say she’s just anti-trans, Gaines fires back, “My stance is not anti-anything. My stance is pro-reality. It is pro-fairness. It is pro-common sense. It is pro-woman. And if being pro-woman is deemed anti-trans, then it must mean that being pro-trans is deemed anti-woman. And what do we call someone who’s anti-woman? We call them a misogynist.”

At the end of the day, she argued, “Reka and myself and the other athletes who are signed onto this lawsuit, we are standing for something. We are standing for women again. We are standing for women’s sports. We are standing for reality. We are not standing against anything. There’s certainly a place for people who identify as trans to compete in sports. Of course there is. And I encourage everyone, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation or race … to play sports, but play in a category that is fair and that is safe. Thomas competing against us was neither of those things.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Female University Athletes File Lawsuit Against NCAA Over Transgender Policy

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

How Biden’s 2025 Proposed Budget Impacts Values Issues

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President Joe Biden released his proposed 2025 budget on Monday. “As the president is fond of saying, a budget is a reflection of our values,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) at Senate hearings on the multi-trillion-dollar proposal. But Biden’s proposed budget would:

  • Place transgender-identifying minors into the foster care facilities of the opposite sex, a policy that has led to sexual abuse and human trafficking;
  • Deny most Americans, especially Christians, the right to participate in foster care for certain children unless they agree to subject those minors to transgender medical interventions, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone injections;
  • Seek to expand abortion;
  • Overturn laws that punish prostitutes for knowingly infecting others with HIV/AIDS;
  • Eliminate abstinence-based sex education;
  • Spike funding for Title X, a program that encourages doctors to give contraception to underage minors without parental knowledge and conceal children’s sexual activity from their parents;
  • Entrust government-funded workers with raising children beginning at the age of three; and
  • Increase funding for controversial, United Nations population programs.

Below is an overview of the budget’s most controversial features in his 2025 budget, which would raise taxes by more than $5 trillion, spend more than $8.6 trillion, enact a constitutionally-dubious wealth tax, implement a global minimum tax, and add $16.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

Promoting Extreme Transgender Ideology

Joe Biden has repeatedly committed his administration to promoting the LGBTQ agenda. The Biden administration’s proposed 2025 budget intends to make the LGBTQ revolution permanent by placing children in sex-segregated group homes of the opposite sex, and by denying Christians the right to participate in aspects of foster care.

Buried in Table S-6, on page 153 of the budget (page 157 of the PDF), is a line item committing to “[p]revent and combat religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex discrimination in the child welfare system.”

That apparently refers to a proposed rule the Biden administration issued last September requiring the foster care system to place LGBTQ-identifying children with “safe and appropriate” homes — homes that agree to facilitate a child’s social and medical “gender transition.” The rule would “require specific steps before the placement of transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming children in sex-segregated child-care institutions (CCIs),” specifically that they place children and teens in foster care facilities according to their gender identity. That is, the Biden administration intends to place children who say they identify as transgender into sex-segregated foster care facilities of the opposite sex. Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, pointed out this would open the beds and showers of female foster homes to teenage boys.

Such a policy has already led to tragic results. In Virginia, a 14-year-old girl named Sage began to identify as a boy. Police found the teen after she ran away and got sexually trafficked, but instead of returning her to her home, a judge accused her custodial grandparents of “emotional and physical abuse” by “misgendering” her. Sage was placed in the male section of a foster home, where she was beaten and given drugs. She then ran away again, where she was apprehended by a human trafficking ring in Texas, where she was “drugged, raped, beaten, and exploited.”

The definition of “safe and appropriate” also excludes anyone who expresses skepticism about exposing children to transgender procedures. Christians and anyone who shows “hostility” toward the LGBTQ agenda would be deemed unsafe to foster children who identify as transgender. Similar policies have already denied Christians the right to care for children in Oregon and Massachusetts. This issue stood at the heart of a 2021 Supreme Court ruling, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which ruled the city’s policy against contracting with Catholic Social Services because of their religious beliefs “violates the First Amendment,” specifically the Free Exercise Clause. The rule attempts to sidestep this concern by saying Christians can still care for foster children, just not those who identify as LGBTQ.

Multiple U.S. senators expressed concerns with the language of the rule at the time. “We are fighting back against the Biden Administration’s woke gender ideology and pronoun politics,” said Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) “Their new proposed rule aims to exclude faith-based foster care providers from helping children in need.” A coalition of 19 state attorneys general also raised alarms about the policy’s unconstitutional, and religiously discriminatory, language.

To justify these policies, the Biden rule falsely asserts, “when a LGBTQI+ child has their identity respected and supported by the caregivers in their life, their risks of attempted suicide decrease dramatically.” Yet a host of studies, from around the world over multiple decades, have found that transgender procedures do not help, and may harm, those who undergo them. A 2021 study in the Journal of Urology found, “The overall rates of suicide attempts doubled” among trans-identifying men “after vaginoplasty,” commonly referred to as “bottom surgery.” The budget indicates Biden is doubling down on this rule and its flawed methodology.

Abortion

In releasing the 2025 proposed budget, the “Biden-Harris [a]dministration has taken action to protect and expand access to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraception,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, “in every way possible.”

The budget spreads misinformation while announcing the administration’s intention to expand abortion in all 50 states. “Twenty-seven million women of reproductive age — more than one in three — live in one of the 21 [s]tates with an abortion ban currently in effect. In the last year, women have been denied medical care needed to preserve their health and save their lives,” the budget asserts. In fact, no state bans abortion if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Pro-life advocates say doctors may have been confused specifically because abortion industry lobbyists have repeatedly claimed “miscarriage care” is illegal.

After touting Biden’s actions on behalf of the abortion industry, the budget states, “The [a]dministration continues to call on the Congress to pass legislation restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade in [f]ederal law.” The Biden administration endorses the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act, which goes well beyond Roe.

In concrete terms, the budget proposes giving $390 million to the “family planning” services of Title X, a 36% hike. As this author exposed, training sessions funded by the Biden administration encourage Title X providers to talk about sex with minors behind parents’ backs, hide minor children’s sexual activity from parents both during live conversations and in medical records, and even to have vans roam neighborhoods giving minors federally funded contraceptives.

The budget also “provides $594 million, an increase of $37 million above the 2023 level, for USAID directed high-impact and lifesaving voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs and America’s voluntary contribution to the United Nations Population Fund,” the budget states. UNFPA was long complicit in forced abortions necessitated by China’s one-child policy and remains tied to controversial population control efforts worldwide.

The abortion lobby said the proposed budget proved the Democratic administration is enacting their values. “The Biden-Harris administration is fighting by our side,” said Mini Timmaraju, CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL). “[T]his budget is proof. We look forward to partnering with our allies in the White House and Congress to pass a budget where our values are reflected.” Planned Parenthood also greeted the budget as “an encouraging sign of their continued support for sexual and reproductive health care.”

Universal Pre-K

As he did in last year’s $6.9 trillion budget proposal, Joe Biden proposed offering “free” preschool to children beginning at age four and “charting a path” to expanding the program to three-year-olds. The program is a longstanding item on the Left’s wish list, constituting a part of Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, mentioned in Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address, and referenced in Obama’s 2010 report to the UN Human Rights Council. Yet children being raised by daycare are associated with a panoply of negative outcomes for children and, polls show, is unwanted by parents, especially mothers.

Fighting Laws against Spreading AIDS, Combatting ‘Hate Crimes’

The 2025 proposed budget continues President Joe Biden’s fixation on overturning state laws designed to prevent AIDS-infected prostitutes from spreading HIV. “The Budget further supports State and local efforts to promote equity and protect civil rights by including $10 million for a new initiative to modernize outdated criminal statutes with a discriminatory impact on HIV-positive individuals … and $50 million for programs to combat hate crimes.”

The Biden administration sued the state of Tennessee over its aggravated prostitution law (§ 39-13-516), which charges anyone who knowingly sells sex while HIV-positive with a felony. The lawsuit came as the administration is negotiating the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Agreement. In January, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Ghebreyesus instructed “[p]olitical leaders at all levels” to “counteract conservative opposition” and “enact progressive laws” championing “sexual rights.” Specifically, “Countries must repeal laws that criminalize homosexuality, sex work and HIV transmission.”

Ending Abstinence-Based Education

The Biden budget would end funding for the Sexual Risk Abstinence Education program. Instead, he would give $101 million for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program, despite a 2015 survey which found 40% of teenagers said these classes made them feel pressured to have sex. The Department of Health and Human Services lists eight regional Planned Parenthood alliances among the current Teen Pregnancy Prevention grant recipients.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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Biden Giving Sanctuary New York City Over $100 Million in Aid for Migrants

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Bribing Future Generations for Marx?

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Can anybody name one-square inch on the planet where Communism has done anyone any good? Anywhere? Not for the ruling elites, but for the people themselves?

It doesn’t exist. How, then, do they continue to manage to create new recruits? Well, a story out of California last week explains one strategy.

Writing for The Free Press for Free People, Francesca Block reports (3/7/24): “An activist group in California has paid nearly 100 public high schoolers $1,400 each to learn how to fight for racial and social justice.”

This is the brainchild of a group called Californians for Justice (CFJ), and they’re working in Long Beach to create a new breed of Communists, who are interested in learning “restorative justice practices.”

Here is an example of where CFJ stands on the issues. After the brutal October 7th Hamas attack against some 1200 Israeli men, women, and children in the Gaza area, Californians for Justice described Israel (the victim) as being guilty of “ethnic cleansing and apartheid orchestrated by white supremacist settler colonialism bent on the goal of wiping out the indigenous Palestinian population.”

Dividing the world into the supposed oppressors (Israelis) and the oppressed (Hamas) is Marxism at work.

The Free Press for Free People notes a recent social media video helping to recruit other students to join the movement for so-called “social justice.” One student was asked: “Why should students join CFJ?” The student replied, “You get paid good.”

But, all bad grammar aside, do these naïve students realize what they are defending?

Years ago, I read a fantastic book by a former socialist and idealist on the problem of socialism and Communism.

His name is Joshua Muravchik, and as a young man, he was the president of the Young Socialists. But as he matured intellectually, he came to be a major critic of that which he had earlier espoused.

He wrote the book called, Heaven on Earth. The basic thesis is that the Communists promised heaven on earth and instead delivered hell on earth.

And how could they not? It always begins with the premise that there is no God and that man is basically good. Thus, from the very outset, it is always doomed to fail.

As Muravchik noted in an interview I once did with him for Coral Ridge Ministries for our video expose on socialism: “In terms of the most terrible kinds of socialism, the kinds that engaged in mass killing, I think there’s, at the root of that, this idea that you can make a perfect society here in this world, that you can make a heaven on earth. And that’s just a false idea.”

Muravchik observed that when you start from that premise, and you refuse to learn from experience and reality, you’re in for trouble. And the Communist and socialist radicals didn’t learn. “They just kept insisting that their ideas were perfect, and it was only the human beings who were getting in the way of achieving it. Then it’s not such a big step to start killing these human beings until you get all the bad ones out of the way, to build your little utopia out of the ones who are left.”

And the result, per Muravchik? “The Communist countries did prove to be the greatest killers of all time.”

One of the remarkable books I have in my office was published by Harvard University Press in 1999. It’s The Black Book of Communism.

At the end of the 20th century, this bold book, written by many authors, dared to tell the truth that the vast killing fields of the 20th century were the fruit of communism in one form or another.

In a review of the book, Publishers Weekly notes: “Essentially a body count of communism’s victims in the 20th century, the book draws heavily from recently opened Soviet archives.”

America’s founders showed the world a better way to promote lasting good in the world. You begin with the foundational truth that our rights come from God, not the state. Our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, indeed mentions God four times.

And then, building on that clear structure, because of man’s inherent sinful nature, you divide power so that no one man or small group can seize all the power for themselves. As James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, summed up well: “All men having power ought to be distrusted.”

Communism works the opposite way. It says man is good, but the system is bad. Let’s tear down the system and implement “social justice,” and we’ll usher in the long-awaited millennium. But as Muravchik notes: They promised heaven, but only delivered hell. If only more young people could learn the lessons of history and resist the temptation of intellectual bribery, before it’s too late.

©2024. All rights reserved.

Experts Worry that Illegal Immigration Is Affecting the Education System

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Since the beginning of the border crisis in which millions of illegal immigrants have flooded into the country, American citizens have been affected in various ways, most notably by the spike in crime.

Some sanctuary cities have recognized that crime is out of their control and have sought changes in their sanctuary policies. Saturating news headlines are cases of illegal immigrants stealing, assaulting, raping, or even murdering innocent American civilians. In addition, taxpayers are funding the housing, food, and health care of people who aren’t legally in the U.S., with taxpayer money funding gender transition procedures as well.

Experts are also pointing to how illegal immigration is affecting the education system, as Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, explained on Thursday’s episode of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.”

FRC President Tony Perkins highlighted that “the ongoing border crisis undermines our nation’s education system” and is “often left unmentioned.” But the reality, Kilgannon said, is that both poor and wealthy districts are affected by the illegal immigrant students coming in.

“Americans are very generous,” she said, “and it’s hard for us to turn down a student at the schoolhouse door if they present themselves to learn.” But even so, most schools don’t have a choice on whether they accept the illegal migrants, which then places an added and significant “strain on the budget,” Kilgannon added. And she explained how a lot of them come in without an ability to speak English, which requires special services.

Financial strains, in particular, are hard on the high poverty areas, Kilgannon described, because they’re already struggling to fund their schools. They hardly have enough money for the legal American citizens, she noted, but additionally, “it affects wealthy areas too because of the drug crisis.” As drug overdoses at schools increase, Kilgannon discussed the growing controversy over “whether or not the school is notifying parents when children overdose at school.”

She added, “But the reason that kids are overdosing at school is because, for one thing, there’s poor control over the environment by the people who are running the schools. But there’s [also] an increase in drugs coming across the border. … There’s more availability of these drugs, and it’s causing all kinds of pressures to be put on many, many areas of our society. And of course, it’s happening to our school system as well.”

As a former state legislator, Perkins highlighted that what he used to see were parents who had to deal with very strict rules about which schools they could attend based on the district they lived in. But with illegal immigrants, he shared that those same rules don’t apply. “I mean, we’re making our own citizens have to live within the boundaries and the rules, but then someone who’s not even a citizen of this country can come in and go wherever they want, and we have to pay for it,” he said. Kilgannon agreed and stated “there are so many rules that they do not have to follow that regular American citizens have to follow.”

Perkins observed that it looks like “these schools are just expected to absorb the cost of the Biden administration’s immigration policy.” Kilgannon referred to it as “an unfunded mandate,” which can be defined as “regulations or other requirements imposed by a higher level of government on a lower one, but without accompanying appropriations to cover the cost of compliance.” Both Perkins and Kilgannon reflected on whether “local governments could take action against the Biden administration for that reason.” Kilgannon added, “I certainly would want to if I were running a school system that was dealing with these kinds of things.”

In addition, Perkins briefly mentioned how these education concerns caused by illegal immigration only add to the concern over declining test scores and proficiency rates with each year. Considering this push for schools to cater to the Biden administration’s open border policy, he concluded, “I would just think at some point a state’s got to draw the line and say, ‘We’re not doing it.’ … [T]his is absolutely out of control.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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RELATED VIDEO: Understanding Immigration Podcast

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Poll: 69% of Americans Believe Free Speech Is ‘Heading in the Wrong Direction’

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Over the years, research centers have routinely polled American citizens on the topic of free speech. And with each passing year, the country seems more convinced that while freedom of speech is important, how one practices that right can be problematic.

For example, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the Polarization Research Lab (PRL) at Dartmouth College recently released a poll that revealed 69% of the 1,000 Americans they surveyed believe free speech is “heading in the wrong direction.” However, it’s noteworthy that their concerns stem from the growing inability for people “to freely express their views.” And “alarmingly,” the researchers wrote, roughly one-third of the Americans polled believe the First Amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees.”

The poll experimented with a variety of controversial statements, asking respondents to choose which ones they found most offensive. Out of the most surprising results, 52% felt their community “should not allow a public speech that espouses the belief they selected as the most offensive.” Additionally, “A supermajority, 69%, said their local college should not allow a professor who espoused that belief to teach classes.”

Reason magazine summarized, “These results indicate that though the average American is concerned about protecting free speech rights, a significant portion of the population seem poised to welcome increasing censorship.”

FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said the “results were disappointing, but not exactly surprising.” He continued, “Here at FIRE, we’ve long observed that many people who say they’re concerned about free speech waver when it comes to beliefs they personally find offensive.” But Stevens, as well as Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm, believe the best way to protect free speech is, in fact, to protect the right to be potentially offensive or controversial.

Backholm, who serves as a senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at FRC, commented to The Washington Stand, “It isn’t just that the First Amendment also protects offensive speech, it primarily exists to protect offensive speech.” He explained that there’s “no need to recognize the right to say, ‘I like tacos,’ because” most people wouldn’t see a reason to silence that. The entire reason for the constitutional guarantee to the freedom of speech,” he added, “is because the Founders understood the government’s instinct to stop people from saying things the government disliked.”

Especially with the rise of cancel culture, Backholm emphasized, “A lot of people today believe there is a constitutional right not to be offended.” Additionally, they also often “believe the right not to be offended is of greater importance than the freedom of speech,” which he noted is commonly the reason why “pronoun laws and campus safe spaces” are created. “Yes, there are limits to free speech, but those limits are not triggered by the emotional stress associated with discovering there are people in the world who disagree with you,” he said.

As for the Americans in the poll who are more worried about offensive beliefs being freely expressed, Backholm said, “The problem with restricting ‘offensive’ speech is that different things are offensive to different people. The pro-life position is offensive to some while the pro-abortion position is offensive to others.” Ultimately, it begs the question: Should all conversations about the issue be banned? To which he answered, “Obviously not.”

Stevens emphasized the importance of teaching this generation about the value and meaning of the First Amendment. “These findings should be a wake-up call for the nation to recommit to a vibrant free speech culture before it’s too late.” Because, as Backholm concluded, “If we want to be free, and most of us do, we must accept the fact that being exposed to ideas and behaviors we dislike is the cost of being able to do and say things other people don’t like.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

10 Times as Many Teachers Say Trans, CRT Lessons Hurt Rather Than Help Schools

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A new survey reveals a cavernous gap between teachers’ unions and the views of most parents, teenagers, and teachers on whether public schools should teach LGBT ideology to students — and whether parents should have the right to opt their children out of those classes.

While elite teachers’ unions such as the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) believe schools should teach sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) classes to children, their customers — parents and students — disagree, as do many of their members, according to a series of new polls released last week.

More than 10 times as many teachers said debates over LGBT ideology, including sexual orientation and gender ideology, “have had a negative impact on their ability to do their job,” compared to 4% who said they improve learning, according to the Pew Research Center: 41% to 4%. Social Studies and English teachers were the most likely to say SOGI topics harmed their teaching time; they were also the classes most likely to discuss those issues, the survey found.

Yet some left-wing activists are working to change that. MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated $10 million to a group that instructs math teachers to “infuse social justice into mathematics.”

Teachers, Parents, and Students Do Not Want LGBTQIA+ Issues in the Classroom

Half of all teachers say “students should not learn” about gender identity issues in school, including 62% of elementary school teachers, 45% of middle school teachers, and 35% of high school teachers. Among those who believe the school should weigh in on such divisive topics, 33% of teachers say gender “can be different than sex assigned at birth,” while 14% believe in biological sex. More than twice as many elementary teachers believe transgender ideology as believe in biology; the proportion reaches three-to-one among high school teachers (45% vs. 15%).

The poll apparently shows those supportive of transgender beliefs are more likely to address the topic in school. Just under one-in-three teachers say sexual orientation or transgender ideology come up occasionally (21%) or frequently (9%). But teachers who belong to the Democratic Party were 15 points more likely to confess that LGBT issues creep into their classrooms than Republican teachers (36% to 21%).

Although a plurality (48%) of teachers believe parents should be able to opt their children out of transgender ideology indoctrination classes, one-third of instructors believed such classes should be compulsory.

“On both topics, parents’ views were more evenly split than the views of teachers,” according to the Pew survey. For instance, a majority of parents (54%) believe they should be able to determine whether teachers can subject their children to trans ideology.

The largest percentage of teens do not want to hear about LGBT ideology in the classroom, either: 48% say the topics should not be taught at school. Teens are also slightly more likely to believe in biological sex than in transgenderism (26% vs. 25%). But Democratic students are 525% more likely than Republican students to say gender identity is not tied to physiognomy.

Teenage students are more likely to feel uncomfortable hearing about transgender or sexual orientation issues than feel comfortable (33% vs. 29%). More than twice as many Republican students are more likely to feel uncomfortable hearing about such topics than to feel comfortable.

Only 14% of all teens say transgenderism or homosexuality “has never come up in any of their classes.”

The poll seems to indicate many teachers believe parents have too much say in their children’s education. While a plurality of teachers said parents had “the right amount” of influence, teachers were more likely to say parents had “too much influence” than not enough (32% to 19%). Democrats were 42% more likely than Republicans to believe parents had too much influence.

Republican-leaning teachers are more likely to honor parents’ views on these subjects, the poll found: 69% of Republican teachers say schools should not be in the business of teaching LGBT issues, and 80% say parents should decide whether their children attend such classes. Half of Democratic teachers say public school LGBT classes should be mandatory, and 53% say schools should teach transgender ideology.

A strong majority of teachers (58%) belongs to the Democratic Party, Pew noted.

Asian and “[w]hite Democrats are more likely than [b]lack and Hispanic Democrats to say parents should not be able to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation and gender identity,” Pew stated. In all, 53% of Asian Democrats and “six-in-ten [w]hite Democrats say this, compared with 42% of Hispanic Democrats and 34% of [b]lack Democrats.” A plurality of black Democrats say parents should be able to opt out of LGBT indoctrination (46%, compared to 34% who oppose it).

Teachers’ Unions Out of Touch with Students, Poll Shows

The views of teachers, parents, and students strongly conflict with the stance of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, the three-million-member NEA and the 1.5-million-member AFT. The NEA provides model legislation to teach LGBT ideology in public schools and carries out numerous training sessions to promote gender ideology to teachers.

The NEA’s “Pronoun Guide” includes “Ze, Zim, Zir, Zay or Zee.” It urges teachers, “Inspire and encourage your student” with its two-page list of “LGBT+-affirming books.” It instructs teachers in 33 states how they can obtain a free “Rainbow Library” from GLSEN.

“You can use your work environment,” e.g., the classroom, “to show support for students of all backgrounds — for example, by hanging a Black Lives Matter poster or Pride flag or making clear that you will use a student’s personal gender pronouns,” the NEA advises teachers.

The union’s leadership has strongly emphasized its commitment to radical LGBTQ advocacy, regardless of parental objections or, seemingly, state law. “We will say gay! We will say trans!” bellowed NEA President Becky Pringle at the group’s 2022 Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly, taking aim at the popular “Parental Rights in Education” law, signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), who went on to win a rousing double-digit reelection months later. The bill says teachers may not “encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” before the fourth grade. The NEA stated its union members would “validate our students,” presumably when children’s gender choice conflicts with their parents’ values.

The NEA’s chief union rival, the AFT, “also coached its members on how to inject gender identity politics into the classroom,” found a report from the Defense of Freedom Institute. The AFT’s Together Educating America’s Children (TEACH) conference last July held sessions on “Affirming LGBTQIA+ Identities in and out of the Classroom” and “The TGNCNB [Transgender, Gender-Nonconforming, Nonbinary] Inclusive School and Classroom.”

Teachers in Tennessee’s Clarksville-Montgomery County School System, which strongly supported President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, learned that the U.S. operates as a “system of oppression” that confers “privilege status” on “white,” “able-bodied,” “men, cisgendered,” “heterosexual,” “Christian” Americans; but the U.S. allegedly brands an “oppression status” on any “person of color”; “woman, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer,” “LGBQ+, polyamorous”; and people whose religious views are “pagan.”

The LGBTQ movement’s advocacy goes outside the classroom to the restroom, locker room — even the hotel room. Last summer, teachers at Governor’s Ranch Elementary School in Littleton, Colorado, attempted to force a fifth-grade girl to share a bed with a boy who identified as a girl on an overnight field trip. Last July, the AFT adopted a resolution supporting “inclusive” policies allowing men to access female facilities, “including, but not limited to, bathrooms and locker rooms.” AFT President Randi Weingartenwalked away from a reporter who asked her about girls who do not feel safe undressing in front of boys in their locker rooms.

“Both teacher unions ignore the reality that most teachers want to teach, not affirm a student’s gender identity, either due to their personal values or their beliefs that doing so oversteps their authority and encroaches on the role of parents,” says the Defense of Freedom Institute.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.