‘Action Civics’ Proliferates as U.S. Department of Education Promotes ‘Patriotic’ Civics Content

Most people have heard of the 1619 Project sponsored in 2019 by the New York Times, which served to accelerate the spread of “action civics” among other things including the related critical race theory (CRT) and antiracism curricula. For years, the concept of action civics lurked in the shadowy realm of leftist educational agitprop but was officially greenlighted in 2012 under the Obama Administration, when the U.S. Department of Education issued the report A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future.

If one reads between the lines, the opening quote in this report provides a clue as to its intent: “Each generation must work to preserve the fundamental values and principles of its heritage ... to narrow the gap between the ideals of this nation and the reality of the daily lives of its people; and to more fully realize the potential of our constitutional, democratic republic....” (emphasis added). To many, this implies a need to deviate from teaching children about America’s founding documents, history, and system of government, and replace it with politicized instruction in identity politics and victimology.

Kinsey Reimagined: Cloaking Deviancy in ‘Scholarship’

“In more sinister ways, children’s involvement was never a byproduct of sexual liberation but rather the ultimate intent.” So wrote freelance journalist and mom Lisa Ann Thomson, in Public Square Magazine, January 2024. She was describing the sexual revolution that began as far back as the turn of the 20th Century, and bemoaned the many ways “the incessant sexualizing of our children from seemingly all quarters” continues unabated.

Thomson astutely noted that “20th-century theories are impacting the sexualization of children today, starting with the influence of Sigmund Freud, who posited that child development should be understood in psychosexual stages, including his Oedipal Complex theory.” She added that Freud’s protégé, Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, “coined the term ‘sexual revolution’ with his 1936 treatise of the same title.”

‘Ethnic Studies’ Takes Another Radical Turn in Minnesota

Parents and observers who believe CRT (critical race theory) has been routed from education throughout the land should think again. While CRT has been banned in many states and school districts, as well as outlawed by Executive Order at the federal level since last January, it has in many areas been absorbed by a more benign-sounding yet sinister approach known as “ethnic studies.”

But ethnic studies curricula are nothing new. As Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), articulated so well in his August 2024 article that was reprinted in Education Reporter, ethnic studies “traces its origins to the 1968 student strike at San Francisco State College” in California. That strike, Kurtz explained, “ushered in the first Black Studies department, along with the associated founding of the Third World Liberation Front, which demanded and got the first college programs in Ethnic Studies (Chicano Studies, and the like).”

ICE Nabs Criminal Illegal Alien Serving as
Schools Superintendent in Des Moines

Liberals rioting and throwing tantrums over the deportation of illegal alien criminals living in the U.S. should take solace from the fact that some have managed to achieve success before ICE could catch up with them.

One glaring example is Ian Andre Roberts, who was employed as superintendent of Des Moines, Iowa public schools until last month when he was arrested for illegally entering the country from Guyana and fraudulently working in the U.S. using false credentials. He was also in possession of illegal weapons and had prior narcotics and weapons charges.