Model Letter to State Policymaker

Dear {Title}{Name},

I write to express my opposition, as a parent, a taxpayer, and a citizen, to the introduction of several related ideologies and teaching practices into the curriculum, instruction, professional development of teachers and staff, and other policies of the public schools of {State Name}. I do not wish my children, or any others, to be taught using any of these ideologies or pedagogies. Neither do I wish the public school districts to use them in any policy or training for their staffs.

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 teach them Washington’s lesson that “perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.” 

I teach them Jefferson’s lesson that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

I teach them Douglass’s lesson that the Constitution is a “Glorious liberty document” and to draw “encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.”

I teach them King’s dream of a world in which our children “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

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” contradict these ideals. They also amount to educational malpractice. 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, and declares, 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 and free judgment. 
• Teach anti-intellectual ideologies, self-reinforcing assertions that share a defensive structure that rejects criticism as illegitimate, instead of providing a real education, which must always be open to challenge and disproof. 
• Require students, teachers, and administrators to assert, and assent to, these ideological concepts and pedagogies, which thereby create a climate of fear and silence, and compel our children, their teachers, and staff to conform to unjust authority rather than to judge freely and to speak and act fearlessly. 
• Require our school districts to violate the Civil Rights Act’s legal requirements for nondiscrimination, thereby placing it in legal jeopardy, and making the taxpayers who support them liable for whatever penalties and fines the school districts may ultimately be found liable. 
• Harm our children’s readiness to succeed after graduation, because these ideological concepts and pedagogies replace the instruction they need to be properly prepared for college and career. 

I urge you to take action to end and remove these ideological concepts and pedagogies from our public schools. The most effective action you could take is to pass legislation based on the model Partisanship Out of Civics Act (https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/the-partisanship-out-of-civics-act), which forbids schools from using the intellectual components of Critical Race Theory or action civics and gives teachers and students conscience protections against Critical Race Theory and action civics mandates.

I would also urge you to look at the other model bills suggested by the National Association of Scholars (https://www.nas.org/civics-alliance/our-work/local-policy/pledges), which include an Academic Transparency Act, a Legislative Review Act, and a Schools Nondiscrimination Act. This package of model legislation would go an extraordinary way toward rescuing our schools from Critical Race Theory and action civics.

I urge you above all to make a priority of removing Critical Race Theory and action civics from our schools. I care about this issue more than I care about any other one. I will be glad if you do good work on {issue} or {issue}—but rescuing our children and our schools comes first.

Best wishes,
{Parent Signature}

Critiques of Critical Race Theory and Action Civics

• The American Mind, “A Statement Regarding ‘Critical Race Theory’”; David Bernstein, “Who Decides What’s Racist?”
• Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez, “Critical Race Theory, the New Intolerance, and Its Grip on America”
• Stanley Kurtz, “‘Action Civics’ Replaces Citizenship with Partisanship”
• Thomas K. Lindsay and Lucy Meckler, “Action Civics,” “New Civics,” “Civic Engagement,” and “Project-Based Civics”: Advances in Civic Education?
• Sam Merrick and Samantha Hedges, “Critical Theory or Common Humanity? The Case for a Liberal Approach to Social Studies Education”
• National Association of Scholars, “The Challenge from Action Civics”
• National Association of Scholars, “Critical Race Theory”
• Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, “A Beginner’s Curriculum on Critical Race Theory”
• Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody
• David Randall, Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics
• Christopher Rufo, Critical Race Theory Briefing Book
• Thomas St. Thomas, “Is Critical Race Theory Racist?”
• Daniel Subotnik, “What’s Wrong With Critical Race Theory: Reopening the Case for Middle Class Values”
• Carol Swain, “Critical race theory’s toxic, destructive impact on America”