U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has joined the culture war. He and 37 other Republican colleagues will send a letter to the secretary of education Friday (April 30) urging the department to abandon its proposed priorities for invoking Project 1619.
According to a Politico Playbook exclusive, the Biden administration has proposed updating the U.S. history curriculum to more fully address the consequences of slavery and highlight the contributions of black Americans. The proposal specifically mentions the “1619 Project. The “1619 Project” is being launched by The New York Times Magazine in 2019. The project proposes that American history begins with the arrival of the first African slaves in the North American colonies in 1619. For 400 years after that, it was black Americans who struggled to achieve the founding ideals of the United States – freedom and equality.
Many historians have criticized the content of the 1619 Project as being inaccurate. Among the criticisms is that the American Revolution was not fought for independence from Britain, but to preserve slavery.
According to the letter, obtained by Politico Playbook, McConnell and other Republican senators said the letter was sent to the Department of Education to express their serious concerns about the department’s efforts to reorient its bipartisan “American History and Civics Education” program toward “political education. “program to a “politicized and divisive agenda.”
“This is the time to strengthen the teaching of civics and U.S. history in schools. Instead, your proposed priorities double down on pretty slogans and propaganda that are divisive, radical and historically implausible. For example, your proposed priorities welcome the New York Times’ ‘Project 1619.’ This campaign to ‘reshape American history to understand 1619 as the true founding of the United States’ is notorious for placing unfounded propaganda over historical accuracy.” The lawmakers said in their letter.
“Americans do not need or want their tax dollars shifting from promoting the principles that unite our nation to promoting radical ideologies designed to divide us.” They said.
They also said American families are not asking schools to teach their children such divisive and absurd views, and voters did not vote for that. Americans never wanted “our children to be taught that ‘our country is inherently evil.
The lawmakers also said that many historians with credentials and diverse political views have debunked many of the program’s factual and historical errors, such as the bizarre and inaccurate notion that the main driving force behind the American Revolution was the preservation of slavery, as stated in the “1619 Project. One prominent historian called the project “wrong in many respects.
The legislators added that citing such debunked propaganda confirms that the Department of Education’s proposed priorities would not focus on critical thinking or accurate history, but rather on instilling a tendentious narrative in students.
“Young Americans deserve a rigorous understanding of civics education and American history. They need to understand our successes and failures.” The lawmakers said.
“We ask that you withdraw these proposed priorities and instead focus on civic education and American history programs that will empower future generations to continue to make our country the greatest force for good in human history.” They said.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Texas) has previously said that Project 1619 is a “racially divisive, revisionist historical narrative that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded.
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