How Radical Activist Groups Get Anti-Israel Material Into Classrooms Across The Country | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Leif Le Mahieu.

    Radical activist groups are spreading a curriculum that trains kids to be activists and hate America through classrooms across the country, according to a report from Parents Defending Education (PDE), a group aimed at taking politics out of the classroom.

    In the just-released report, first shared with The Daily Wire, the education nonprofit highlights how two activist groups with links to school districts across the country put together a "critical media literacy" toolkit to guide educators when discussing the war between Israel and Hamas. The toolkit, created by the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies (CLES) and the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC), points educators to anti-American, pro-Palestinian, and anti-colonialist resources from a plethora of leftist organizations.

    The toolkit put out on November 27 says it is meant for teachers, families, and community organizers. According to PDE researchers, there are at least 18 school districts and one state education agency that have links to CLES, LESMCC, or individuals and groups affiliated with those organizations.

    PDE researcher Rhyen Staley told The Daily Wire that there could be more schools linked to the two groups, but that their materials would be making their way into the classroom.

    "We don't know the extent of how many schools these people are working in at the moment," he said. "This will be used in schools if it is not already. The people behind it are not good actors. They vehemently hate the United States."

    The CLES is an organization built on the principle of critiquing "empire and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, cis heteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society."

    The CLES and LESMCC toolkit starts by stating that the mainstream media is dominated by the "Israeli narrative."

    "As we watch and listen in horror as an unimaginable catastrophe catapults forward in Gaza, we are grieving. This is both difficult and critical because the mainstream media, as well as our local, state, and national governments, are almost completely dominated by the Israeli narrative, and any mention of Palestine, liberation, anti-zionism, occupation, or stopping the genocide is immediately marked as anti-semitic," the toolkit says.


    According to the toolkit, critical media literacy is supposed to focus on "indigenous peoples," "racially marginalized people," and "voices rooted in solidarity and collective liberation movements."

    Staley said the toolkit was thoroughly anti-Western civilization, and viewed the world from a lens of constant oppression. "They already set the mindset that they are oppressed by the Americans and the Israelis. That's how they do everything, that's their mindset," he said. "They're all oppressed and Western civilization is the oppressor and they're seeking liberation from Western values."

    After going through a list of questions about Palestinians and the media, the toolkit has an "action" section that asks, "Based on what you viewed, analyzed, and learned, what do you want to do to respond?" This action section is the point of the toolkit, Staley said, saying that the goal was to get students to be activists.

    The toolkit includes a long list of resources, guiding users to "discern which you believe would be appropriate for students and which are more appropriate for educators and adults."

    One of the resources is a petition that accuses Israel of genocide and urges people to call on their lawmakers to support a ceasefire. It also provides a script for people to use when reaching out to lawmakers. The script was provided by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a group that says it works to end "U.S. complicity in Israel's massive violence against the Palestinian people."

    Another resource shared from USCPR encourages people to "birddog your congressmember," organize a local ceasefire resolution, mobilize a "social media storm," and organize a "holiday disruption."

    Another resource shared is from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, better known as CAIR, and directs people on how to react when "your school or employer makes a biased statement about Israel and Palestine."

    In the curriculum section of the recommended resources, an article on how "Palestine is Ethnic Studies." One of the authors is Samia Shoman, an associate of the ethnic studies group Acosta Education Partnership.


    "Ethnic Studies pedagogy is anchored in critically analyzing global white supremacy, US imperialism, and colonialism, which includes what happened to and continues in the Arab world," the abstract of the article says.

    Other curriculum resources recommended come from pro-Palestinian organizations like Black Lives Matter at School, the Zinn Education Project, and the Teach Palestine Project.

    Slide shows designed for grades 7-12 and 9-12 from the LESMCC organization are also provided. The lesson plan for grades 7-12 encourages teachers to do a "land acknowledgement" for "US land Palestinian land." This is to be followed by an "ancestor acknowledgement."

    "They are training the kids mentally. They are training the kids that Israel was stolen by the Israelis. And the same in the U.S., how we Americans 'stole' the U.S.," Staley said of the land acknowledgement section.

    Other resources flagged in the toolkit are from the radical Abolitionist Teaching Network, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Librarians with Palestine, and Black for Palestine.

    PDE identified over a dozen school districts across the country that have been linked to the CLES, the LESMCC, or individuals affiliated with the organizations. Many of the schools listed by PDE are in California, where ethnic studies classes are mandated by the state.

    The PDE report listed 18 school districts that have links to CLES, LESMC, or groups or individuals affiliated with the organizations. Staley said that ethnic studies classes were sold as history and anthropology, but were effectively "neo-Marxist political programming."


    For example, Berkeley Public Schools have used resources from LESMCC in the past while Castro Valley Unified School District previously approved a contract with LESMC for ethnic studies training. Parvin Ahmadi, the superintendent of Castro Valley Unified School District, told The Daily Wire that she was "not aware of our district using this toolkit."

    LESMCC was also linked to drafts of proposed ethnic studies classes at Fresno Unified School District, an ethnic studies contract with Hayward Unified School District, Lynwood Unified School District,