Model Letter to Editor

Dear {Editor,}

I teach my children to live up to the ideals of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King, Jr., each of whom helped pave the way for the most free, equal, and prosperous society the world has ever known. 

I do not wish the {School District} to use ideological concepts and pedagogies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), “The 1619 Project,” and so-called “action civics,” “anti-racism,” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” which contradict the ideals of these American heroes. These ideological concepts and pedagogies terribly harm children’s schooling because they: 

• Divide students by group identities such as race and sex and assign blame to groups of children on the basis of race, sex, and other group identities. 
• Champion a distorted notion of “equity” that substitutes equality of outcomes for equality of opportunity as the goal in every area of life,
• Declare, slanderously, that any departure from equality of outcomes is the result of “implicit racism,” “systemic racism,” or other forms of malice. 
• Teach hostility to America. 
• Substitute vocational training in radical activism for intellectual inquiry. 
• Require students, teachers, and administrators to assert, and assent to, these ideological concepts and pedagogies, which thereby create a climate of fear and silence. 
• Require the {School District} to violate the Civil Rights Act’s legal requirements for nondiscrimination, thereby placing it in legal jeopardy, and make the taxpayers liable for whatever penalties and fines it must ultimately pay out. 
• Harm our children’s readiness to succeed after graduation, because these pedagogies replace the instruction they need to be properly prepared for college and career. 

The {School District} should take immediate action to end and remove these ideological concepts and pedagogies. Itshould declare that it is committed to the common humanity of all its students, and will apply equal standards and identical pedagogies to all students, without regard to race, sex, or any other group identity. It should explicitly repudiate ideological concepts and pedagogies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), “implicit racism,” “systemic racism,” and so-called “action civics,” “anti-racism,” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and remove them from all its materials and policies, including standards, curricula, committee remits, professional development and training material. It should enact policies, including transparent posting of all school materials on its website, to ensure that all administrators and faculty act and teach in accordance with these commitments, and which provide disciplinary sanctions, up to and including termination of employment, for willful and continued refusal to cease using them. 

Some so-called “anti-racists” may insist that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination,” but I continue to hold onto the truth so eloquently expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr., that “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” 

Best wishes,

{Parent Signature}