Editor's Note: This article was originally published under the name "John David," the former pseudonym of NAS Communications & Research Associate David Acevedo. To learn more about why David no longer writes under this name, click here.
CounterCurrent: Week of 1/12
Generation Citizen (GC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to “empowering young people to become engaged and effective citizens.” GC discerns an alarming lack of political engagement among American youth, a trend the NAS identifies as well, and seeks to ameliorate it through quality civics education. So far so good. The problem is that GC does not teach civics as most know it, but so-called “action civics.” Their programs center on community activism, youth organizing, and identity politics, all at the expense of a traditional civics education. What is otherwise a noble goal of making responsible citizens becomes sullied through an unambiguous bias toward leftist theories of social change.
GC has eight “action civics hubs” stationed across the country, as well as affiliates in Canada, Ireland, and Pakistan. Their latest work brings them to Oklahoma, as per their December announcement of a new partnership with the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE). In a statement by CEO Scott Warren titled “Why Oklahoma?,” Warren cites a desire “expand to more diverse geographies,” which is to say inland, red states (GC has also recently expanded into Central Texas). This is not the political olive branch it may appear to be, as the fundamentally-leftist core of the GC curriculum does not change based on location. Rather, the expansion is quite simply a push to expose as many American students as possible to progressive propaganda, the latest victims being the huddled, unlearned masses of Oklahoma.
In this week’s featured article, NAS Research Director David Randall breaks down the inner workings of Generation Citizen’s programming and places it within the broader New Civics movement. He argues that “Generation Citizen is a social justice organization using civics education as a Trojan Horse to take over Oklahoma’s K-12 school system. It can, should, and must be banished from Oklahoma’s schools…” Randall also provides his reform recommendations for Oklahoman lawmakers and citizens.
The New Civics movement is but one part of the yet broader Social Justice Education movement, a nationwide scourge that will infect every corner of American education if we allow it. Academic freedom must be protected from these ever-encroaching threats.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by Communications & Research Associate David Acevedo. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
