President Biden has appointed an avowed Critical Race Theory supporter to the Department of Education.
Biden appointed Precious McKesson, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party’s Black Caucus, as a Special Assistant in the DOE’s office of Communications and Outreach.
Precious McKesson announced this week that she has accepted a position in the U.S. Department of Education. https://t.co/7tzyACLRnx
— WOWT 6 News (@WOWT6News) October 6, 2021
After Nebraska Board of Regents board member Jim Pillen introduced a resolution to bar CRT from the University of Nebraska education system, McKesson co-authored an August op-ed in which it stated:
Pillen and other Republicans, including Gov. Pete Ricketts, have made CRT a political boogeyman without actually knowing what it is. Simply put, CRT examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism. Students would be taught about the systemic racism that still exists today and permeates our society.
Further, CRT is a 40-year-old academic framework, so one has to wonder why the Republican Party is now trying to frame all educational experiences that discuss diversity and equity with a negative partisan lens. From our collective experiences, the only answer is to create a wedge between white communities and communities of color, making us the villain rather than having Nebraskans see us as their neighbors and co-workers.
… Ricketts and Pillen are also trying to dictate how a person can attain knowledge, information and engage in intellectual activity, which violates more than academic freedom. It is a direct assault upon the sovereignty of one’s soul, mind and body.
McKesson cast the only Biden-Harris vote out of Nebraska’s five electoral college ballots in 2020.
Republican Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana, a member of the House’s Education and Labor Committee, called her appointment a ‘slap in the face,” telling the Daily Mail, “The Biden administration claims CRT doesn’t exist, then appoints a CRT activist to the Department of Education and sics the FBI on parents who oppose their poisonous ideology. The backlash against CRT started because Democrats are obsessed with inserting politics in the classroom, where it doesn’t belong. Appointing a political activist to an agency that’s responsible for kids’ education is a slap in the face to parents across the country.”
Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas added, “At a time when President Biden’s Justice Department is targeting school parents for simply voicing their concerns and objection to the teaching of radical curriculum in our nation’s schools, it is shocking, but not surprising, that they’ve moved to confirm another CRT advocate to a high rank within the Department of Education.”
On Tuesday, Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott took aim at the Biden administration and the FBI targeting parents who protested against Critical Race Theory being inculcated in children’s education. He tweeted, “Joe Biden’s attorney general wants the @FBI to go after parents for speaking out at school board meetings to protect kids from radical curriculum like critical race theory. Biden’s disgusting socialist agenda must end. We won’t let him intimidate & silence parents.”
Joe Biden’s attorney general wants the @FBI to go after parents for speaking out at school board meetings to protect kids from radical curriculum like critical race theory.
Biden’s disgusting socialist agenda must end. We won’t let him intimidate & silence parents.
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) October 5, 2021