Biden Nominee Supports ‘Antiracist Therapy’ For White Teachers, Claimed Schools ‘Spirit Murder’ Black Students
Washington, DC – President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for Deputy Secretary of Education has promoted the concept that schools “spirit murder” black children and that white teachers should be required to participate in “antiracist therapy.”
Biden announced on Monday that he has selected San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Superintendent Cindy Marten to fill the role of Deputy Secretary of Education in his new administration, the Daily Wire reported.
Investigative reporter Christopher Rufo uncovered whistleblower documents provided by someone who attended a SDUSD district-wide training in August of 2020, which featured a keynote address from critical race theorist Bettina Love.
Love, who advocates racial segregation where children only receive instruction only from teachers of the same race, was hired by Marten to help teach district employees to “challenge the oppressive practices that live within the systems and structures of school organizations,” Rufo said.
“According to whistleblower documents, Martens personally introduced the speaker, Bettina Love, and praised her presentation about ‘spirit murder,’ ‘antiracist therapy,’ and ‘abolitionist teaching,’” Rufo tweeted on Monday. “Martens is one of the most radical superintendents in the country.”
Love asserted in a 2019 Education Week opinion piece that “misguided school educators” commit “physical and psychological attacks” on black and brown children that result in “spirit murdering.”
“What I am talking about is a slow death, a death of the spirit, a death that is built on racism and intended to reduce, humiliate, and destroy people of color,” Love wrote.
“School officials continue to misdiagnose the spirit murdering happening in their schools every day, even in a time when folks are screaming in the streets that Black Lives Matter, demanding immigration rights, calling to end police brutality, standing up to Islamophobia and transphobia, and demanding racial justice,” she declared. “When schools mirror our society’s hate, educational justice becomes out of our reach.”
According to the whistleblower, Love launched into her presentation by telling district employees that “racism runs deep” in the U.S., and that only black people “know who America really is,” Rufo said.
Roundtable with Dr. Bettina Love: How do we make our schools anti-racist? August 13 https://t.co/2RlffPKWSM#Edjustice@BLoveSoulPower pic.twitter.com/zSJ0HRCAfq
— Educators for Antiracism (@EdAntiRacism) June 29, 2020
She rounded out her keynote speech at the SDUSD training by telling teachers that “whites are directly responsible for the plight of ‘dark children,’” Rufo said.
“White educators must take responsibility” because they have benefited from “white supremacy culture,” Love added.
“Whiteness reproduces poverty, failing schools, high unemployment, school closings, and trauma for people of color,” she said, according to Rufo.
Marten was named superintendent of the SDUSD in 2013, and has worked in the education field for 32 years, KNSD reported.
She said in a statement on Monday that she is “honored” to serve in Biden’s administration.
“I will be leaving my post as your Superintendent, following confirmation by the United States Senate,” Marten said, according to KNSD.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) San Diego Chair Katrina Hasan Hamilton criticized Marten’s nomination and noted that black SDUSD students are expelled and suspended more often than other students in the district, KNSD reported.
“It’s just concerning that the district has a track record of these expulsions and suspensions as early as kindergarten, and [President-elect Biden] takes that superintendent and makes them the deputy superintendent of schools across the nation,” Hamilton said. “That, we have an issue with that at the NAACP.”
President Donald Trump critical race theory trainings for federal employees to a screeching halt in 2020, when he issued an executive order ordering federal agencies to “cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars” to fund such programming, National Review reported at the time.
Trainings that reference “white privilege” were also banned by the order, according to the New York Post.
The President referred to the trainings as “divisive, un-America propaganda,” and directed the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue guidance on implementation of his executive order.
“It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date ‘training’ government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,” OMB Director Russell Vought wrote in a memo addressing the executive order, according to Real Clear Politics.
“For example, according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that ‘virtually all White people contribute to racism’ or where they are required to say that they ‘benefit from racism,’” Vought noted.
The OMB director said that such trainings “engenders division and resentment within the federal workforce,” Real Clear Politics reported.
“We cannot accept our employees receiving training that seeks to undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce,” Vought added.
The memo, which was sent out to all federal agencies, directed them to identify any areas where funding had been allocated for trainings involving white privilege or critical race theory, including any trainings that implied that “any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil” or that the U.S. “is an inherently racist or evil country,” according to Real Clear Politics.
“The President has a proven track record of standing for those whose voice has long been ignored and who have failed to benefit from all our country has to offer, and he intends to continue to support all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed,” Vought wrote. “The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.”
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