Hillsdale College and a Call for Violent Revolution in Service of Christian Nationalism
Hillsdale College and a Call for Violent Revolution in Service of Christian Nationalism
Larry Arnn expands influence as states continue adoption of history curriculum
I’m pleased to note that The Education Report has surpassed 1800 subscribers! Thank you! I’d love to start 2023 with more than 2000 readers. If you’re already a subscriber, please forward to friends you think would be interested. Also, take a moment to consider the subscription options - while The Education Report is offered free as a way to promote a vigorous defense of public schools, your paid subscription helps support my work. If you’re already a free subscriber, just click on the button below to become a paid supporter! I appreciate all of you who read, share, and support this work.
I’ve written quite a bit about Hillsdale College and their attempts to force a Christian Nationalist vision on America’s public schools. They do this through Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools AND through something they call the “1776 Curriculum.”
In a recent issue of Hillsdale’s newsletter - Imprimis - President Larry Arnn talks about the current “culture wars” and notes that the battle for public schools has “not yet” necessitated violence.
I have said and written many times that the political contest between parents and people who make an independent living, on the one hand, and the administrative state and all its mighty forces on the other, is the key political contest of our time. Today that seems truer than ever. The lines are clearly formed.
***
As long as our representative institutions work in response to the public will, there is thankfully no need for violence.
What does this mean? Does it mean that in states like Tennessee, where political pushback caused Hillsdale to pause its attempt to establish charter schools, violence may eventually be necessary?
Does it mean that as long as Hillsdale is allowed to insinuate its worldview by way of curriculum adoption, Christian Nationalists need not resort to violent overthrow of public schools?
A recent story out of Virginia indicates that Hillsdale’s curriculum may have found favor from that state’s Governor, Glenn Youngkin.
“The standards are full of overt political bias, outdated language to describe enslaved people and American Indians, highly subjective framing of American moralism and conservative ideals, coded racist overtures throughout, requirements for teachers to present histories of discrimination and racism as ‘balanced’ ‘without personal or political bias’, and restrictions on allowance of ‘teacher-created curriculum’, which is allowed in all other subject areas,” Dr. James J. Fedderman, VEA’s president, said in a statement.
Fedderman claimed that the draft appears to be taken largely from Hillsdale College’s “1776 Curriculum,”
It’s not exactly clear how Hillsdale plans to achieve Arnn’s end goal of a complete revision of history in a Christian Nationalist view - it is clear, though, that Arnn and his minions are working diligently across the country to make it a reality.
Arnn notes what he sees as the “real” problem:
But we do have children being turned against their country by being indoctrinated to look on its past
When children in public schools are given historical facts, they often raise uncomfortable questions, Arnn seems to suggest. The solution? Rewrite history in a way that allows the dominant groups to avoid uncomfortable questions.
Hillsdale is ready to rescue Christian Nationalists from pesky questions and challenges from young people learning the truth.
The irony here, of course, is that Arnn is positioning his movement as somehow outside the dominant power dynamic. As if white, Christian men have somehow been slighted in an accurate retelling of history.
If only we can convince schools to rewrite the history books, Arnn seems to be saying, we can hold on to our unfair and unwarranted advantage just a bit longer.