OPINION:
Last year started with a disturbing discovery: Radical indoctrination took place in the Ames School District. A student at Iowa State University contacted the Campus Bias Tip Line at Young America’s Foundation. Students from preschool to high school at the local school district, according to their website, were going to “engage in the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, a 5-day guide to expand student understanding of the Black Lives Matter at School Principles.”
Lessons and resources provided to the teachers were pulled directly from the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Among the ideas forced on students — aged 4 to 18 — were “queer affirming,” “transgender affirming,” “globalism” and “disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics.”
Some of the lessons even linked to coloring pages designed for each day’s focus, such as a “transgender affirming” graphic that states, “everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they are a girl or a boy or both or neither or something else, and no one gets to choose for them.” This wasn’t San Francisco or New York City. These coloring pages were given to preschoolers in Ames, Iowa. If this level of liberal indoctrination can take place in the Heartland of America, it can happen anywhere in the country. All the more reason that parents must be vigilant on behalf of their children.
Unfortunately, the story YAF exposed in Iowa is just one of many. Here are the other top nine examples of radical indoctrination taking place on campuses in 2021:
Number 9: The editor-in-chief of the student newspaper at Oklahoma State University was forced to resign because she wrote a column that was skeptical of the masking and COVID-19 protocols. Once she was gone, the paper printed a “correction” to her column. So much for free speech and a free press.
Number 8: Students, teachers and families at the Farmington Public Schools in Michigan were urged to campaign and vote for candidates fighting for “social justice,” join protests sponsored by BLM and help bail out rioters. They might not be able to read, write or do the math, but they’ll be ready to protest.
Number 7: A student ran up to a pro-life YAF activist on the Iowa State University campus, punched through the sign and hit the club member. Just another example of the “tolerant left.”
Number 6: Students and administrators at the University of Buffalo held an event to erase Thanksgiving. The description of the event read: “How can we erase this whitewashed history for good?” A common theme of communists worldwide is erasing major parts of history and purging ideas.
Number 5: Standard American English upholds “white supremacy” according to a statement sent to South Puget Sound Community College students. They said that it ”masquerades as neutral and objective but marginalizes other ways of communicating, often those used by people of color.” Simply put, they are wrong.
Number 4: Students were actually segregated based on their race during an “anti-racism” training at Texas Tech. YAF exposed the administrator who suggested segregation to “offer a comfortable and safe environment for groups to discuss racial traumas undisturbed.” After YAF’s expose, Texas Tech announced they were discontinuing the program.
Number 3: A webinar hosted by the Virginia Department of Education featured a speaker who told educators that 9/11 was “not about memorializing how many lives were lost.” During the presentation, educators were also warned against the teaching of American exceptionalism.
Number 2: Each year, YAF helps students across America put up 2,977 flags as part of the 9/11: Never Forget Project. Each flag represents an innocent victim killed by radical Islamic terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.
In September, a student senate member at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, was caught on video destroying the display on his campus. He was not removed from office and showed no remorse for his actions.
Number 1: YAF helped students at Saint Louis University bring in Matt Walsh to speak on campus. Administrators tried to put up roadblocks, then the church on campus said he could not speak there because his views were inconsistent with the Catholic Church. His topic was the pro-life movement.
One of the student organizers was threatened with suspension and expulsion for hanging up posters — off-campus. Yet again, another example of liberals NOT respecting freedom of speech or diversity of thought on campuses across the country.
Radicals understand that if they control all means of communication during the formative years, they can dominate their opinions for the rest of their life. All the more reason, we must engage in a Long Game plan to take back our schools, campuses, communications and culture in the new year. We must persist for freedom.
• Scott Walker is the president of Young America’s Foundation and served as the 45th governor of Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.