Critics and supporters were able to let their voices be heard at a hearing held Friday at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum over the state’s proposed new social studies standards that critics say incorporate critical race theory.
Opponents of the new standards say they will add critical race theory to what students are taught. This doctrine teaches that race is a social construct and that racism is embedded in the nation’s legal systems and policies.
The Mississippi Department of Education put the proposed change on the Secretary of State’s website on December 16 as required by the state’s Administrative Procedures Act. There wasn’t a hearing originally scheduled on the topic, but enough requests by concerned citizens compelled MDE by law to hold a hearing.
Sixty-six speakers (not all of whom showed up) signed up for three minutes in front of the near capacity crowd at Sparkman Auditorium.
One subject of controversy was the group — the National Council for the Social Studies — that provided some of the primary sources for the new social studies standards. On its website, this non-profit advocacy group supports the teaching of critical race theory and other left-leaning views of history and social studies topics.
Some supported the changes to the social studies standards.
“How can student actually learn to resolve issues without learning about our past issues?” said former teacher Kathy Bryant. “We cannot heal as a nation if we don’t cover those things that have happened in the past.”
She also said that citizenship education and social justice education needed to be embedded in the curriculum to teach students how to be productive citizens.
Many of the critics who spoke Friday were particularly distressed that students would be taught that the nation’s founding documents, the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, were no longer important and were relics of an earlier, less enlightened time.
“Over the last two decades, it has been my experience with studying teaching and observing outcomes from No Child Left Behind (federal education act passed in 2001), Common Core and now the proposed standards that there is a slow, methodical and subversive indoctrination of children to look upon our founding documents as antiquated and less enlightened when held up to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Michael Mitchell, a Ridgeland native and former teacher in Shelby County, Tennessee.
He said these standards represented a 70-year, socialistic attempt to override the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is listed as part of the standards for U.S. History in both 6th grade and at the high school level.
The author of a bill that would prohibit the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools and the state’s public universities and community colleges also spoke during the hearing. State Sen. Michael McClendon, R-Hernando, is the author of Senate Bill 2113, a bill that was passed on a 32-2 vote after black senators walked out in protest before the vote.
The bill, which has been transmitted to the House, forbids the teaching that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior or that individuals should be adversely treated based on those same criteria.
“If you don’t believe the state is thinking about this, just go out there and look at the different car tags here in the parking lot,” McClendon said. “We are not changing history. We are not saying we cannot teach what history has been in Mississippi. The only way we grow in the future is to tell our children this is where we were and this is where we are going.”
Not all the criticism of the standards was based on racial issues.
Brian McMurray, the business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 903 in Gulfport, told the state Board of Education that the omission of the impact of unions on history and the opportunities for young people to apprentice for a lucrative trade could possibly turn them off to what could be a life-changing career.
