Combatting moms for liberty misinformation- 2022 midterm series #1/4
10/27/22
SAGE is starting a series on the concept of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and how terms like Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are being lumped together by local extremists in their coordinated nationwide assault on the public school system. We will explore the origins of this made up issue and how it has become the platform for Hartland’s ‘Clean Slate’ which is a slate of four school board candidates running on the platform “Education Not Indoctrination.” We will also dive into the made up controversy that is being created in our community by the special interests group ‘Moms For Liberty’ which is working closely with this Clean Slate. Moms For Liberty is helping turn local school board races into heated partisan fights via hidden corporate and well funded political sponsors with high profile GOP connections.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a way of seeing and understanding how racial inequality was intentionally created and how it continues to be reproduced in our society. At this point, most people know that CRT is a graduate level theory/course that is not taught in the K-12 curriculum. Yet, opponents of CRT have reconstructed its meaning to frame it as "reverse racism" and “cult indoctrination'' — as the conservative activist Christopher Rufo has labeled it. Rufo is the sole architect behind the CRT related fear-mongering attacks and has publicly been clear about his role in this.
Rufo admitted he understands CRT is a graduate-level theory/course, but that he intentionally wanted to make people feel anything related to Black Lives Matter, diversity, equality, and inclusion are all connected and something to be feared. This is where we started seeing CRT being linked to Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Rufo saw how powerful that message was and understood that groups like Moms for Liberty could be useful in leveraging local school boards to flex political power.
Moms for Liberty, which has a stronghold in Livingston County and works closely with the Clean Slate, has carefully crafted its image to appear as though they are a grassroots movement of concerned parents under the guise that their "parental rights” are being usurped. In reality, they have hidden corporate and extremely well funded political sponsors, as well as high-profile GOP connections. Indeed, some of their funding includes money from political entities involved in waging partisan fights. Dark money is behind school board conflicts that are taking place across the country. The Mom’s For Liberty Guide on How To Combat CRT in Your Community states “A new national PAC has been formed, called the 1776 Project PAC, that is seeking to fund school board candidates that will oppose CRT.” (Pg. 30). This PAC has raised $3 million to advocate for conservative school board candidates nationally this year! (More info on this to come in post #2 later today).
Who is funding Moms For Liberty and for how much are questions I’ve tried to find answers to. We don’t know all the details yet because they are so new that their tax filings aren’t yet available (update! An article just came out with some information on this, will dive into this deeper in the next post). What we do know is that two of Moms for Liberty’s National Summit sponsors from July were, 1. Leadership Institute and, 2. Heritage Foundation, both of which are critical members of the ‘Council for National Policy’ which is a secretive network of right wing billionaires and Christian fundamentalist leaders that underwrites and coordinates right wing politics.
One of the founders of Moms for Liberty is Bridget Ziegler, whose husband, Christian Ziegler, is vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party and owner of a political marketing firm. He boasts that Moms for Liberty will provide crucial ground support for re-electing Florida governor Ron DeSantis (a likely 2024 presidential candidate). Christian Ziegler told the Washington Post last year, “I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party, and it was a heavy lift to get that demographic, but now, Moms for Liberty has done it for me.” Moms For Liberty is very much a GOP venture with supporters that include influential Republican strategists on its leadership team and major right-wing think tanks that support them both financially and with expertise.
“By all indications, what Moms for Liberty is most concerned about is winning the midterm elections. . . With the midterms looming, what better way to get parents to show up to vote than by convincing them that leftist school boards are grooming children…” https://newrepublic.com/article/166373/moms-liberty-schools-nightmare-midterms
So how is SEL getting dragged into this?
On the public ‘Glenn Gogoleski for Hartland Schools’ FaceBook page there’s a post from 10/19 where Gogoleski, who is a member of the Clean Slate, says that “Currently, there are several leftist organizations looking to use SEL as an entry point for their mission. . . THIS is THE problem with SEL in the hands of those that wish to impart their political beliefs on students. Not every teacher does this, but enough do.”
The Clean slate’s blog goes after teachers further by stating SEL is “administered by those with a social/political agenda.” According to the Clean Slate’s website “The unfortunate thing is that many confuse SEL with CRT, but in the game of progressive semantics, CRT and SEL are not synonymous. And cleverly, many school systems, such as Hartland and others in Livingston County, can deny they teach CRT, while wholly embracing the concepts of SEL and incorporating these into everyday curriculum.”
Despite the Clean Slate insisting that “SEL is THE new way to teach” the fact is that SEL is a decades-old teaching concept that, in order to learn, students need to know how to manage themselves and get along with others. A student solving a hard math problem, for example, might use all these “soft skills” to recognize and deal with their frustration and ask another student or a teacher for help.
Think of any situation that happens in a school, and social-emotional skills probably come into play. All academics also have a social-emotional component. It's impossible to tease them apart because you can't have academics if you don't have social-emotional learning.
Although its core concepts have been around nearly as long as public education itself, social-emotional learning is emerging as the latest lightning rod in the battles over what gets taught in schools nationwide. Locally, the Clean Slate insists that SEL is indoctrinating kids claiming that it “is teaching kids WHAT to think - not HOW.” In the last two years, NPR found evidence of disputes specifically concerning SEL in at least 25 states. Conservative activists have been calling calling SEL a "Trojan horse" for both CRT and transgender advocacy. They have even referred to SEL as a "new variant of the "CRT-virus."
Mom’s For Liberty states that SEL “is the opportunity to turn impressionable students into leftist activists” with “one of the purposes being to reform society.” According to the Clean Slate’s website “Concepts and derivatives based on Critical Race Theory such as 'Social Emotional Learning' (SEL) and 'Diversity, Equity and Inclusion' (DEI) are continually being used in classrooms everywhere, and Hartland is no exception. The Hartland Consolidated School district does not lie in a bubble that will protect our children from these racist and socialist teachings.”
In another rant The Clean Slate states, “The church of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI promotes the division of students, makes many children angry, self-loathing, or confused as in the case of biracial children, and holds open the divide of the past.”
They then go on to cite a dead link as evidence to this nonsense. The Clean Slate’s website quotes a Federalist article in describing what they feel is” the underlying motives for pushing SEL in our schools. Essentially, SEL can be manipulated into an effective tool for progressive indoctrination, liberal/progressive racial guilt, and a way to widen the gap of parental influence over our children.”
In what is being dubbed as “The Great Parent Revolt of 2021” education across America is under a full blown attack in what extremists describe as “a battle against the radical tide of educators and federal education bureaucrats who are working to rewrite American history.”
What it comes down to is that they don’t trust administrators, school board members, and teachers to have the same shared values that they have. The outrage over CRT/SEL is rooted in a deep mistrust. Because of this mistrust, are we even thinking that this is about CRT anymore or is it something else altogether? The conversation is clearly about parents' values and distrust of the schools.
The clean state says that “Schools across the country are under attack by an increasing effort of disconnecting students from parental influence and authority. . . Parental respect and authority are being undermined by political and philosophical agendas making such key warm, fuzzy buzzwords such as 'diversity, equity and inclusion' the ultimate source for moral guidance.”
The debate is going to continue and, as Forbes points out, “it's not a debate about CRT. It’s a debate about parents’ roles in school, about trusting teachers and schools, about school’s role in society, about how to deal with race and racism (or how not to deal), about how schools can best support all their students (or not), about which books to put in libraries, about how to bring children up to be their best selves, and, unfortunately, about how to use fear and anger to drive clicks, views, and votes.
It would be helpful for all of these important discussions if we talked about what we’re actually talking about instead of continuing to throw around a term that has been, for the general public, emptied of all real meaning.”
