Tom Cotton Introduces Bill to Prohibit Federal Funding for Schools Using ‘1619 Project’ Curriculum

[Nepperhan]

For all the folks who claimed that leftists promote censorship, Tom Cotton shows that the right knows how to channel the Scopes trial. What’s he frightened of?

" Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) introduced a law on Thursday that would prohibit federal funding for schools that incorporate curriculum from the New York Times ‘s “1619 Project .”

The 1619 Project, named after the year when colonists first brought slaves to the U.S., attempts to retell American history by emphasizing the importance of slavery in the country’s earliest years. However, historians have criticized the project for basic “factual errors” and a ” displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” (One example of such an error in the project is the assertion that the colonies revolted from British rule in order to preserve slavery.)

“The New York Times’s 1619 Project is a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded,” Cotton said in a statement. “Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage.”

The Times has announced plans to incorporate material from the project in public school curricula. Districts in several major cities including Chicago, Ill., and Washington, D.C., have adopted some of these materials.

Writer Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize in April for her lead essay for the project."

1619 Project: Tom Cotton Introduces Bill to Withold Federal Funding From Revisionist Curriculum | National Review

I think him prohibiting government funding from essays he doesn’t like sure sounds like a 1st amendment violation.

 

[WingedHussar]

The 1619 Project will still be free to spread their slanderous, anti-American bile. They just do not get my tax dollars to help them. No 1st Amendment issue here.

 

[Nepperhan]

The 1619 Project will still be free to spread their slanderous, anti-American bile.

Sorry, if the government chooses literary projects based on what it don’t like, the First Amendment is violated.

" The U.S. Supreme Court has set the stage for new battles about government funding for private religious schools. By ruling that state governments choosing to subsidize private education must offer equal treatment to religious and secular schools, at least in the context of vouchers and tax credits, the court has put in place new obstacles for advocates who say taxpayer money should never fund religious education — even indirectly.

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that a “no-aid” clause of the Montana Constitution — which bars even indirect government aid to a school “controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination” — violates the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution. According to the court, the no-aid clause of the Montana Constitution cannot prohibit indirect state funding for religious schools (e.g. through vouchers or tax credits) purely because of the schools’ religious “status.”"

 

[WingedHussar]

This does not deal with free exercise of religion, so not relevant.

 

[Nepperhan]

This does not deal with free exercise of religion, so not relevant.

That’s not legal reasoning. If the government cannot tailor funding based on religion, it surely cannot curb funding based on literature it disdains. You never heard of the Mapplethorpe controversy?

 

[JonNC]

For all the folks who claimed that leftists promote censorship, Tom Cotton shows that the right knows how to channel the Scopes trial. What’s he frightened of?

I think it could be used at the high school level. Pair it with “Birth of a Nation” as examples of racist hate propaganda.

Then show the 1776 Project as what real history is.

 

[PaulinVA]

“The New York Times’s 1619 Project is a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded,” Cotton said in a statement. “Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage.”

Sorry, but I can’t help but hear the narrator intone, “Senator Cotton prefers right wing garbage”.

 

[Victoria33]

The authors show that these assertions among others are demonstrably false, notwithstanding a very weak “rebuttal” by the Times editor (who, incidentally, did not publish the authors’ counter-rebuttal in the NYT).

The 1619 Project is quite literally teaching bunk history to children. There is absolutely no reason to give false information federal funding.

Well done, it is almost revisionism dreamt up by the NYT it sounds like.

 

[Zach]

Anti-white rubbish and slander (1619 project) from an anti-white newspaper (NYT) and an anti-white woman (Jones) promulgated by the anti-white mainstream media, the anti-white education system from grade school through college, and the anti-white entertainment industry (1619 project related films, tv programs and more on the way.)

 

[childinthefaith]

Sorry, if the government chooses literary projects based on what it don’t like, the First Amendment is violated.

I’m sorry, do you mean projects such as grammar? Or did you mean “on what it does not like”?

 

[Nepperhan]

The 1619 Project is quite literally teaching bunk history to children. There is absolutely no reason to give false information federal funding.

If the government bases an objection that it is inaccurate, only maybe. But if the government objects to the tone or politics, then no, that is an unconstitutional abridgement of freedom of expression.

This is an entirely different scenario than the Mapplethorpe controversy. That issue dealt with complaints of obscenity, whereas the 1619 project quite simply teaches incorrect information

The Mapplethorpe obscenity trial was Cincinnati but when Mapplethorpe was shown at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Giuliani almost swallowed his tongue.

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

This lady would like a word with you.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Smokey3]

I’d think Cotton would have a problem with taxpayer funding because it’s not honest.

Hannah-Jones acknowledged that she wasn’t writing history, but doing journalism. The NYT should pay for it if they want it in schools. Don’t worry, we’ll pay for it anyway.

1619 Project Creator Says Her Series Is 'Journalism​

Her Pulitzer was for journalism and was about as honest and political as Walter Duranty’s.

She was creating a narrative. That the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery is absurd.

The 1619 Project, named after the year when colonists first brought slaves to the U.S.

This bit you wrote is inaccurate. You were probably just writing quickly, I’m not assuming it was purposeful.

The colonists didn’t bring them to Jamestown. A Portuguese ship that was part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to Latin America was pirated by some Dutch who then brought it to Jamestown. The colonists did buy them, more likely as indentured servants.

When you say the first slaves you’re referring to Black slaves? The first Black slaves were brought to North America almost 100 years earlier by the Spanish, first in Florida and then Black slavery moved up into what became Georgia and South Carolina.

This earlier history is erased and too many people don’t know any better. Her point is to focus on the British colonies and the U.S. It’s another neo-Marxist attack on the U.S. More critical theory. There are honest histories about slavery and the U.S., hers just isn’t one of them.

 

[gam197]

The colonists didn’t bring them to Jamestown. A Portuguese ship that was part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to Latin America was pirated by some Dutch who then brought it to Jamestown. The colonists did buy them, more likely as indentured servants.

Jamestown was a failed colony and never survived. It was abandoned. Plymouth was not as it became Massachusetts Bay Colony. The pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620 so it is a bit strange or intentional that 1619 was chosen as the project name. Thousands came to Massachusetts and branched out. Florida was owned by Spain until much later in history so no slavery connection there.

Just rewite history and no one will question it.

 

[RhodesianSon]

The 1619 project is a joke

 

[Trader]

I think it could be used at the high school level. Pair it with “Birth of a Nation” as examples of racist hate propaganda.

Then show the 1776 Project as what real history is.

Yes, I believe that the remedy for hate speech is more speech. Let competent people judge for themselves what they believe. The danger in teaching the 1619 Project is that it will be the only side taught. That is indoctrination, not education.

 

[RhodesianSon]

Most people who are racist/anti Semitic/ whatever tend just to be projecting something they hate about themselves on to their target.

 

[RhodesianSon]

Had a guy in a unit I served with who absolutely hated the fact that he had to listen to the NCO who was black.

Came to find out his step dad was a black man and he blamed the breakup of his family on “black men stealing white women”. It would be comical if it weren’t so sad.

 

[JonNC]

Yes, I believe that the remedy for hate speech is more speech. Let competent people judge for themselves what they believe. The danger in teaching the 1619 Project is that it will be the only side taught. That is indoctrination, not education.

Already being done
As someone who has been in education for over a quarter of a century, the progressive education establishment does not tolerate differing points of view.

 

[FrankFletcher]

Had a guy in a unit I served with who absolutely hated the fact that he had to listen to the NCO who was black.

Came to find out his step dad was a black man and he blamed the breakup of his family on “black men stealing white women”. It would be comical if it weren’t so sad.

This kind of thing is more frequent than many like to admit. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that each of us falls prey to this kind of thinking. Someone pawns something and (of course) gets less than the object’s value, and blames the Jew, Arab, Hispanic, etc. pawnbroker. Someone experiences a high school teacher who’s a hard grader and has his GPA lowered as a result, and he blames middle-aged women because the teacher belongs to that group. Someone doesn’t get a promotion at work, blames his gay boss, and becomes suspicious of all gays as a result. I think it’s naive to believe any of us are immune to stereotyping.