By Steve Bakke
I’ve been inclined to leave the topic of Tim Walz alone. I didn’t think I could add much value by commenting. He has far-left policy preferences on many things that others have analyzed, such as abortion policy, taxes, and immigration. And his performance following the death of George Floyd during the radical leftist anarchists’ “burn the city” incident has been heavily reported and debated.
Nevertheless, Democrats have depicted Governor Walz as a folksy small-town schoolteacher with moderate political policy preferences—a Mr. Nice Guy. Then I stumbled upon a reference to one of the Governor’s Minnesota state appointees that seems lost among all the political action. It was Tim Walz’s dangerous choice for Minnesota.
We all know that our education system can always be improved, and Walz is trying to make radical changes in Minnesota’s K-12. He appointed a person to manage this change, and that appointee had radical ideas.
Walz’s overhaul of the Minnesota education system includes a curriculum requirement for every grade in every school to include instruction in “Ethnic Studies.” I’m neither an automatic opponent nor supporter of that subject, so I needed more information. Brian Lozenski, Walz’s appointment to lead this reform, is a Minnesota Professor and a national leader in Ethnic Studies. OK, but I still wasn’t in a panic.
Last week, however, I was alerted by an article dated September 25th in National Review. Its author is Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The article’s title is “Walz education appointee calls for overthrow of the US.”
My first reaction was that maybe it’s just overly sensitive and speculative in its concern. But that wasn’t the case. Professor Lozenski comes with an interesting philosophy which he posted in a video way back in May of 2022. Why wasn’t this reported nationally before last week? Following is a quote from the video about critical race theory (CRT):
“The first tenet of critical race theory is that the United States as constructed is irreversibly racist. So if the nation-state as constructed is irreversibly racist, then it must be done with, it must be overthrown, right. And so we can’t be like, ‘Oh no, critical race theory is just about telling our stories and diversity.’ It’s not about that. It’s about overthrow. It’s insurgent. And we, we need to be, I think, more honest with that……You can’t be a critical race theorist and be pro-U.S. Okay, it is an anti-state theory that says, The United States needs to be deconstructed, period.” (emphasis added)
Lozenski said that the way CRT is being used in education isn’t honest about its real intention, which is the overthrow of the United States. Lozenski also published a book that enthusiastically supports the use of CRT in education. The book is titled “My Emancipation Don’t Fit Your Equation: Critical Enactments of Black Education in the U.S.”
The Professor’s version of ethnic studies in Minnesota is called “liberated ethnic studies.” His book shows that he supports what CRT can accomplish in a formal curriculum. It’s curious that it took Walz’s candidacy for VP to shake loose this obvious controversial nature of Lozenski’s appointment. And most important, it shines a light on the type of political and social philosophies and conditioning that Tim Walz actually believes in as the way forward. I’ll use a quote from the article by Stanley Kurtz to provide a conclusion:
“CRT isn’t about adding a bit of diversity to the same old educational practices, he’s saying. It’s about recognizing the ineradicably racist nature of both America and its schools – and working to overthrow and transform them both. The liberated-ethnic-studies movement that Lozenski is part of is filled with open supporters of CRT. This is the audience he’s addressing, not the mainstream media types who deny that CRT has anything to do with education. Lozenski is reminding CRT’s supporters that CRT is much more than a mere tool of standard education. Ultimately, it’s a revolutionary doctrine.
This is disturbing information. You can judge the implications for yourself. While the video has recently been taken down from the internet, Mr. Kurtz and others have copies, and it’s otherwise well documented.
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