California educational leaders push CRT lessons that praise Marxist who looked up to Osama bin Laden
The curriculum asked kindergartners to say an Aztec chant as a 'cultural ritual' before introducing an ethnic studies lesson
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California public school leaders – including an elected school board member, senior administrators and ethnic studies teachers – are behind a "liberation" consulting agency whose curriculum glorifies communism, including one activist who expressed support for Osama bin Laden, according to a Friday report.
"These agendas can damage the United States internally by instilling hostile and inaccurate views of American democracy into school kids, erroneously portraying our democratic system as fundamentally racist, violent, and oppressive," the Institute for Liberal Values said in its report. It blasted the curriculum's "radical anti-American and anti-Western ideas."
Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) – used in numerous California districts – is being led by Oak Grove school board member – Dr. Taunya Jaco, San Lorenzo's assistant superintendent – Tracie Noriega, and Samia Shoman – who oversees curriculum at San Mateo Unified school district. Two public school ethnic studies educators – Guillermo Gomez and Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona – are also leaders at the consulting agency, according to its website.
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LESMCC was established to develop an ethnic studies programs for local school districts after the California State Board of Education mandated that all students learn about "historically marginalized peoples which are often untold in U.S. history courses."
The Institute for Liberal Values found the curriculum "glorifies militant Marxist ‘role models,'" such as "the leader of a paramilitary Marxist organization responsible for over 130 bombings in U.S. cities and Maoist activist Yuri Kochiyama."
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Kochiyama said, "I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire."
She made the remarks approximately two years after the Sept. 11th attacks by radical Islamic terrorists from al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and injured thousands of others.
Bin Laden, "who used bombings and bloodshed to advance his goals," openly declared war on the United States and believed that attacks on the U.S. and its citizens were both proper and necessary, according to the FBI.
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After he was assassinated, President Obama said, "Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and dignity."
Fox News Digital found that the curriculum lesson plans asked kindergartners to say an Aztec chant as a "cultural ritual" before introducing an ethnic studies lesson and facilitated students developing a "racialized interactional identity."
LESCMM will also solicit pledges from students to become activists for the issues presented.
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"[W]e not only engage students in understanding the various forms of oppression, but in developing critical consciousness," the pledge states.
LESMCC's website unabashedly maintains an explicit endorsement of critical race theory, and its concepts are embedded throughout its K-12 curriculum.
"There is an explicit commitment to social justice in Critical Race Theory, student engagement in systemic change requires them to embrace their racialized identity and their intersectional positionality," LSMCC said on its website.
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Intersectionality is a concept coined by a critical race theorist named Kimberlé Crenshaw. It holds that a person who is in various oppressed categories can be marginalized by multiple systems "simultaneously."
LESMCC goes onto provide a 3rd-grade lesson on a book "Julián Is a Mermaid" to teach kids about the intersecting oppressive systems.
The book "Julian is a Mermaid" is about a gender non-conforming boy who wants to become a mermaid. During the book, the boy repeatedly strips down to his underwear. Later, he puts on lipstick and dons a headdress.
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The "critical consciousness" begins by having students develop their "racialized intersectional identity" and to determine how their race fits into "systems of power and oppression."
The lesson plans state students should believe the following: "We understand and critique the relationship between white supremacy, racism, anti-Blackness… capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression."
Anthropocentristm regards humans holds that "human life has intrinsic value while other entities (including animals, plants, mineral resources, and so on) are resources that may justifiably be exploited for the benefit of humankind," according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
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Cisheteropatriarchya is a "system of power that centers cisgender, heterosexual men and masculinity at the top of a gender/sexual hierarchy," according to Indiana University Bloomington.
Before the lessons begin, students will be asked to do a "land acknowledgment" and a "cultural ritual."
One of the rituals asked students to say an Aztec chant, In Lak’ech, which has sparked controversies after critics said it was an ancient polytheistic prayer to the Aztec gods and had no place in schools.
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Marc Greendorfer of Zachor Legal said the California ethnic studies mandate caused districts to include curriculum that was "anything but educational. Instead, they are political indoctrination by extremists who are working to institutionalize bigotry and hate in education."
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Parents have already began speaking out about the "hateful" ethnic studies curriculum they are uncovering in their districts.
"Instead of teaching a divisive curriculum, why not teach American values like liberty? We are more alike than we are different," one parent said to oppose the adoption of a curriculum in the Carlsbad Unified School District.
LESCMM leaders did not immediately respond to a request for comment, including whether they are bringing the ideology expressed in the ethnic studies curriculum into their classrooms and districts.
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The Associated Press and Fox News' Joshua Nelson contributed to this report