AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
- Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp wants schools to stop teaching critical race theory in classrooms.
- “This divisive, anti-American agenda has no place in Georgia classrooms,” Kemp said.
- His remarks are the latest in a push by Republican lawmakers to curtail the teaching of critical race theory.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday called for all public schools in the state to stop teaching critical race theory.
In a letter dated May 20, Kemp urged the Georgia State Board of Education “to take immediate steps to ensure that Critical Race Theory and its dangerous ideology do not take root in our state standards or curriculum.”
“This divisive, anti-American agenda has no place in Georgia classrooms,” Kemp tweeted.
-Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) May 20, 2021
He said in his letter that he wants Georgia schools to “focus on our goal of providing the highest quality education to every child in Georgia, without partisan bias or political influence.”
“Education in Georgia should reflect our fundamental values as a state and nation – freedom, equality, and the God-given potential of each individual,” he continued in his letter.
Kemp’s letter marks the latest push by Republican lawmakers to limit the study of critical race theory in the country.
Last month, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to encourage public schools to strip from their curricula projects that he claims promote “revisionism” of US history.
In a letter dated April 29, McConnell and 38 other Senate Republicans specifically referenced the New York Times’ 1619 Project, created to mark the date enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to American soil. The project’s goal to is place “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”
McConnell said the 1619 Project and other programs strive to “reorient” US history “away from their intended purposes toward a politicized and divisive agenda.”
“Actual, trained, credentialed historians with diverse political views have debunked the project’s many factual and historical errors, such as the bizarre and inaccurate notion that preserving slavery was a primary driver of the American Revolution,” the letter says.
Some states have begun to implement the project in their curriculum. But the Education Department has not directly told public schools to use or incorporate it. Usually, school curriculum falls at the discretion of state governments rather than any federal agency.
But under President Joe Biden, the Education Department has floated the possibility of offering grants to schools that include the 1619 Project and similar materials in their learning plans.
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