President Trump announced Thursday that he was working to restore “patriotic education” to schools with a national commission to encourage schools to teach children a positive version of American history as he railed against what he said were liberal attacks on the country’s legacy.
His speech at the White House Conference on American History included passages denouncing critical race theory (and its inclusion in federal diversity training programs) and the New York Times’s 1619 Project on slavery as “toxic propaganda.”
Instead, he announced, he was establishing the 1776 Commission to redress the balance.
“It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding,” he said.
It marked the president’s latest foray into the country’s culture wars after a summer marked by unrest over police brutality and demonstrations against statues and other monuments to divisive figures.
Trump has sought to rally his core supporters around a law and order message ahead of a November election, and he has promised to protect American history from opponents who say the country is structurally racist.
“Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character,” he said,
Trump said national unity required an understanding of the country’s shared identity, and he dismissed versions that sought to project slavery and racism as foundational aspects of U.S. history.
“Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda — an ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together,” he said.
Trump has already announced that the Department of Education would stop federal funding to California schools if they adopted a curriculum based on the 1619 Project, which was originally developed by the New York Times. The project places slavery and the contributions of black people at the heart of the country’s story.
He has also instructed federal agencies to end diversity training that includes topics such as white privilege and critical race theory, which examines racial disparity and power structures as a way of explaining society.
On Thursday, he said that it was a divisive form of indoctrination.
“Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse — in the truest sense of those words,” he said.
Instead, he called on the country to embrace Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision and to not judge each other by skin color.
“The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans,” he said. “That is why it is so urgent that we finally restore patriotic education to our schools.”
