Teachers from a Missouri school district discussed how to sneak teaching about “the concept of White Privilege” past conservative parents during a seminar with a critical race theory advocate, who suggested avoiding that kind of “terminology.”
“I don’t advertise to my students when I’m teaching U.S. history that sometimes I would consider myself the anti-U.S. history teacher,” one teacher said during the question-and-answer period of the presentation by Dr. LaGarrett King, an associate professor at the University of Missouri.
“One of the challenges we run into is we’re in a highly conservative county. We are in the middle of Trump country here and any time in my career when we’ve attempted with staff, attempted with kids, attempted with families to even touch on the concept of white privilege, we get incredible amounts of pushback,” another teacher complained.
“Do we have to use that particular verbiage, or can we use other terminology to kind of get through that?” King responded. “If it’s something where you have to not utilize verbiage of white privilege, or whatever the case may be, then don’t use the verbiage,” he added. (RELATED: NAACP Official Who Wished Death On CRT Opponents Resigns From Virginia PTA)
King also said, “If somebody wanted to do that at the University of Missouri and rename our undergrad program or something like that ‘Teaching Social Justice’ or something like that, I’m like, ‘Do we really have to call it ‘teaching social justice?’ because all we’re doing is bringing attention to ourselves.”
Part of a presentation given by Dr. LaGarrett King in September 2020 to teachers.
“Just ‘social studies,’ and we teach it through a social-justice lens,” King added.
The Francis Howell School District is adding two elective courses, one on black history, the other on black literature, with the district’s board of education voting to approve the offerings July 15. Two public online seminars were held, one on October 20, 2020, the other on April 26, 2021, according to district spokeswoman Jennifer Jolls.
Critical race theory holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.
Screenshot from a presentation given by Dr. LaGarrett King in September 2020.
“While we support the work and many of Dr. King’s contributions, we vehemently disagree with any suggestions that teachers or staff hide the work we’re doing from parents and taxpayers,” Jolls told the Daily Caller.
“We sent a letter to our community (staff, families and other stakeholders) last week that makes clear the District’s position on concealing or misrepresenting curriculum,” Jolls added.
“Though concealing information from parents has not been an issue in FHSD and we do not expect it to be an issue in the future, all curriculum teams will be provided with explicit instructions to maintain transparency during the entire course development process,” Jolls also told the Daily Caller. (RELATED: Students Were Told Not To Tell Their Parents About A Fourth Grade ‘Equity Survey’)
During the online presentation to teachers, Dr. King declared, “Our official history/social studies curriculum is political and racist,” during the online presentation, adding “July 4, 1776 means nothing to black people.”
“While Dr. King described courses that way, we have not described our curriculum as such,” Jolls told the Daily Caller when asked about King’s declaration. The Daily Caller also received a letter dated July 22, 2021, from the school district to the community in which similar statements were made.