The Crusade Against the Classroom

Photo via the Washington Post

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As the culture war between the Republican and Democrat political parties rages on, the fallout is having real effects. Education has played a massive role in this conflict, and has come under attack this past election cycle. A significant factor in Trump’s electoral support was his commitment to dismantling the Department of Education, a promise that resonated strongly with his voter base.

However, President Trump has plans to revamp federal education with a spiritual touch. As Trump stokes the fire of cultural conflict, public education has become the center of a fight over nationalism, religion, and civil rights. At the center of this is the Parents’ Rights Movement and its role in trying to make the classroom conservative again. With a history going as far back as the 1950s, the Parents’ Rights Movement has fought to limit sex education and ensure no “Communist teachings” infiltrate the public education system. Recently, however, the movement has directed its efforts towards limiting gender and race-related curricula.

Rightists have begun fighting what they consider “indoctrination” in classrooms. Trump’s administration has recently issued an executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which mainly orders schools to install a “patriotic” education and defends parental consent on curriculum. 

In an attempt to dismantle critical race theory and gender theory, this order revokes funding for any curriculum concerning equity, race, and gender. What a “patriotic” education actually is remains vague and undefined, although the order does mention that the concept of the “celebration of America’s greatness and history” in the classroom is “proper.” It further bans schools from allowing students to socially transition by using a different name or pronouns without their parents’ knowledge. 

This was inspired by the Parents’ Rights Movement and its demand for parental involvement and approval of what is taught to their children—these parents do not want their children to be taught what they personally may disagree with. This executive order satisfies their demand to end “liberal ideology” in schools and bring about a revival of old-fashioned American values.

This recent wave of parental calls for an end to indoctrination has resulted in an explicitly religious route, as Trump has publicly vowed to bring prayer back to schools. Despite the Supreme Court striking down prayer in public schools’ constitutionality more than 60 years ago, that does not seem to dismay Trump or the parents seeking a religious education for their children. 

Louisiana became the first state to require the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms, although a judge later blocked this law. In Oklahoma, the state superintendent stated that it was required for every classroom to display the Ten Commandments and incorporate the Bible into lesson plans. However, this has been met with multiple lawsuits claiming it is a violation of the First Amendment. Despite retaliation, these incorporations are part of the more significant trend of religious influence entering the classroom, and the support it often receives from certain parent and Christian groups shows a clear choice on what they prefer to have taught in the classroom. 

Trump has taken advantage of this religious affiliation by incorporating these niche educational issues into his campaign and running as the candidate for bringing children’s education back to its “glory.” 

With this new wave of religion in schools, the question of constitutionality begins to arise. The Supreme Court has recently agreed to weigh approval on the constitutionality of what would be the US’s first religious charter school that will receive public funds in Oklahoma. The Court heard similar arguments in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002) case, which upheld a school voucher program in Chicago that allowed parents to send their children to private religious schools on the government’s dime. In a few past rulings, the current Court has shown that they have no issue giving taxpayers’ money to religious entities.

This concerning trend of religion’s creeping influence in the public education system blurs the boundaries between the separation of church and state: it is part of a larger conservative movement incorporating religious themes and mandates into the public sector. With a Republican-controlled Presidency, Senate, House, and Judiciary, how this will progress and evolve over the next 4 years remains to be determined. For now, there is a flurry of lawsuits against these measures, and hopefully, the Court can settle these disputes in a constitutional manner. 

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This article was edited by Matthew Quirindongo and Nicole Sigismondi.