USD 497 Spends $10,300 to Promote Marxist Theory

The February 2, 2014 issue of the Lawrence Journal-World included an article about Leidene King of the Pacific Educational Group (PEG) presenting a two-day program entitled “Beyond Diversity: An Introduction to Courageous Conversations and a Foundation for Deinstitutionalizing Racism and Eliminating Racial Achievement Disparities.” According to the article, “dozens of teachers, administrators and other people connected to the Lawrence school district.”

“Courageous Conversations” is based on a book by Glenn E. Singleton, PEG CEO, and Curtis Linton. The program is rooted in a discipline known as Critical Race Theory (CRT). What is CRT? The UCLA School of Public Affairs answers this question:

CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. CRT also rejects the traditions of liberalism and meritocracy. Legal discourse says that the law is neutral and colorblind, however, CRT challenges this legal “truth” by examining liberalism and meritocracy as a vehicle for self-interest, power, and privilege.

According to Robert Holland of the Lexington Institute, CRT “is a radical academic doctrine that gained currency in elite U.S. law schools in the 1980s and 1990s, and has more recently taken hold with multiculturalism advocates in teacher-training instructions.” “One of the progenitors of CRT, the late Derrick Bell, aHarvard University law professor, berated liberal civil-rights scholars for their championship of a colorblind society,” Holland continued. “Like many of his allies, he relied largely on narrative and anecdote to advance his arguments, and argued for sweeping societal transformation generated more by political organizing than rights-based legal remedies.”

Interestingly, Bell was one of Barack Obama’s law professors at Harvard. When Obama was later a lecturer (not a professor) at the University of Chicago Law School, one of the courses he taught was a seminar entitled “Current Issues in Racism and Law.” Bell was one of the writers Obama required his students to read. In an interview prior to his death, Bell discussed the Marxist foundation of CRT. As of 2009, Bell served as a sponsor of New Politics, a magazine almost completely staffed and run by members of Democratic Socialists of America.

In 2009, PEG’s Singleton was the plenary speaker at the Summit for Courageous Conversation in Baltimore. Other speakers at the summit included keynote speakers Gloria Ladson-Billings and Antonia Darder.

Ladson-Billings was the president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2005-06. In 2008, a gentleman named Bill Ayers was elected to serve as an AERA vice-president. That’s the same Bill Ayers who was a domestic terrorist with the communist Weather Underground during the 1970s and befriended Obama during the 1990s. In 2012, Dr. Nelly Ukpokodu of Lawrence, Kan., was elected co-chair of Critical Educators for Social Justice, which is a special interest group of AERA. Ukpokodu is a disciple of Paulo Freire, the Brazilian Marxist who is best known for his influential work, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”

Darder is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Latino/a Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the author of “Culture and Power in the Classroom, Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love.” Darder actually worked and studied with Freire.

Darder was also a keynote speaker at a National Association of Multicultural Educators (NAME) event in New Orleans. Ukpokodu currently serves as chair of NAME’s International Connections Committee, while an Ayers serves as NAME’s co-president. This Ayers is Rick, Bill’s younger brother. Conveniently, Bill was on the co-president nomination team.

So how much did USD 497 spend on this two-day program? $10,300. Does USD 497 really believe the taxpayers want to spend that much to promote a Marxist theory?