Supplementary: #MagazineUSTheNewYorkerPaigeWilliams "In September, 2020--four months after the murder of George Floyd, two months before the Presidential election, and a month into Williamson County Schools' use of Wit & Wisdom--Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, appeared on Tucker Carlson's show, on Fox News, and called critical race theory 'an existential threat to the United States.' Rufo capitalized on the fact that, given C.R.T.'s academic provenance, few Americans had heard of the concept. He argued that liberal educators, under the bland banner of 'diversity,' were manipulating students into thinking of America not as a vibrant champion of democracy but as a shameful embodiment of white supremacy.
(As he framed things, there were no in-between positions.) Rufo later called C.R.T. 'the perfect villain'--a term that 'connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American views.'
Rufo found a receptive ear in President Donald Trump, who was already ranting about 'The 1619 Project,' the collection of Times Magazine essays in which slavery is placed at the heart of the nation's founding. On Twitter, Trump had warned that the Department of Education would defund any school whose classroom taught material from the project. Trump conferred with Rufo and banned federal agencies from conducting 'un-American propaganda training sessions' involving 'critical race theory' or 'white privilege.' Trump said that Black Lives Matter protests were proliferating not because of anger over police abuses but because of 'decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools.' Establishing a '1776 Commission,' he urged 'patriotic moms and dads' to demand that schools stop feeding children 'hateful lies about this country.' (The American Historical Association condemned the Administration's eventual '1776 Report,' highlighting its many inaccuracies and arguing that it attempted to airbrush history and 'elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.')
Nearly nine hundred school districts nationwide were soon targeted by anti- C.R.T. campaigns, many of which adopted language that closely echoed Trump's order not to teach material that made others 'feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.' In some red states, the vague wording was enshrined as law. Republicans filed what became known as 'anti-C.R.T.' bills; they were seemingly cut and pasted from templates, with similarly phrased references to such terms as 'divisive concepts' and 'indoctrination.'
Williamson County Schools was uneventfully wrapping up its first term with Wit & Wisdom when, in early December, 2020, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which generates model legislation for right-leaning lawmakers, hosted a Webinar about 'reclaiming education and the American dream.' A representative of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, warned that elements of a 'Black Lives Matter curriculum' were 'now in our schools.' Rufo--correctly predicting that Joe Biden, then the President- elect, would abolish Trump's executive order--urged state legislators and governors to take up the fight.
Continuing the agitation wasn't just an act of fealty to Trump; it was cunning politics. The fear that C.R.T. would cause children to become fixated on race has resonated with enough voters to help tip important elections. Last November, Glenn Youngkin, a candidate for the governorship of Virginia, won an upset victory after repeatedly warning that the 'curriculum has gone haywire'--and promising to sign an executive order banning C.R.T. from schools. Jatia Wrighten, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Washington Post that Youngkin had 'activated white women to vote in a very specific way that they feel like is protecting their children.'
Days after the alec Webinar on 'reclaiming education,' three women in Florida filed incorporation papers for Moms for Liberty, Inc., later declaring that their 'sole purpose' was to 'fight for parental rights' to choose what sort of education was best for their kids. One of the organization's founders, Tina Descovich--who had recently lost reëlection to the school board of Brevard County, Florida, after opposing pandemic safety protocols--soon appeared on Rush Limbaugh's show. Declaring plans to 'start with school boards and move on from there,' she said of like-minded parents, 'It sounds a little melodramatic, but there is evil working against us on a daily basis.' maga media--'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' Breitbart--showcased Moms for Liberty. Media Matters, the liberal watchdog, argued that influential right-wing media figures were essentially 'recruiting their eager audience' for the Moms' campaign.
Moms for Liberty, which is sometimes referred to as M4L or MFL, is so new that it is hard to parse, from public documents, what its leaders are getting paid. (The founders say that the chairs of local chapters are volunteers.) The group describes itself as a 'grassroots' organization, yet its instant absorption by the conservative mediasphere has led some critics to suspect it of being an Astroturf group--an operation secretly funded by moneyed interests. Moms for Liberty registered with the I.R.S. as the kind of social-welfare nonprofit that can accept unlimited dark money."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/the-right-wing-mothers-fuelling-the-school-board-wars
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