Tim Walz’s K-12 ed appointee: U.S. ‘irreversibly racist,’ ‘must be overthrown’
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz may have acknowledged during Tuesday night’s debate that he’s just a “knucklehead,” but his “radical overhaul” of K-12 education in…
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz may have acknowledged during Tuesday night’s debate that he’s just a “knucklehead,” but his “radical overhaul” of K-12 education in Minnesota suggests he’s more of a “hard-core left-winger.”
That’s what John Hinderaker, president of the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, wrote last week, drawing special attention to Walz’s appointment of Brian Lozenski to the committee charged with creating the “implementation framework” of the state’s ethnic studies curriculum.
“Ethnic Studies means anti-American, anti-free enterprise, anti-Semitic, racist propaganda,” Hinderaker explained, pointing out that Lozenski, associate professor of urban and multicultural education at Macalester College in Saint Paul, is the “national leader on Ethnic Studies,” and, therefore, the “de facto leader of Minnesota’s Ethnic Studies Working Group.”
“Walz knew what he was getting when he put Lozenski in charge of overhauling Minnesota’s K-12 education,” Hinderaker observed. “His track record is as far left as you can get.”
The author refers his readers to education policy analyst Stanley Kurtz, who recently uncovered a now-deleted YouTube video Lozenski posted on May 27, 2022, in which the professor calls for the overthrow of the United States government.
In a column last week at National Review, Kurtz noted Lozenski’s video, called “Education in the Blacklight: Fugitivity, Abolition, and Accommodation,” featured his criticism not only of opponents of Critical Race Theory (CRT), but also its champions.
In the video, Lozenski says the implications of CRT demand the overthrow of the country, according to Kurtz:
“And we’re also sometimes lying on ourselves,” Lozenski says, “when people say like, ‘Oh, we can … we use critical race theory in school.’ We don’t use critical race theory in school. 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 divers[ity].’ 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. Right. Like that’s, you know, and so I think, I think it’s an interesting argument there. And that’s why I’m a critical race theorist. [laughs].”
Kurtz explains: “In context, Lozenski is chastising supporters of CRT for not being more honest in public debate about the radical nature of their theory,” adding, Lozenski believes CRT is “about recognizing the ineradicably racist nature of both America and its schools – and working to overthrow and transform them both.”
In another column last week at the American Experiment, policy fellow Catrin Wigfall observed the rollout of the Minnesota Ethnic Studies framework is moving slowly, apparently with no release of a draft or public comment period prior to October 31 – the statutory deadline to submit a final product.
Kurtz suspects it’s strategic in light of the Nov. 5 election, given that Lozenski’s radical views could undermine the Harris campaign’s attempt to portray Walz as a moderate.
“Walz has had many warnings and plenty of opportunities to pull back from the extremism of liberated ethnic studies – as Gavin Newsom has pulled back in California,” Kurtz noted, adding that it isn’t hard to understand “why publication of an implementation framework would be politically explosive for Walz.”
“This is what Minnesota kids will be taught in school if Tim Walz’s administration isn’t stopped,” Hinderaker concurs. “And this is what kids may be taught in schools across the United States if Tim Walz becomes vice president. We are dealing here with a degree of radicalism that is unprecedented in our political history: a total rejection of free enterprise, of democracy, of any concept of racial equality, and finally, a call for the overthrow of our government and the destruction of our country.”
Having reviewed the extreme political ideology behind Minnesota’s proposed standards in the past, Kurtz is confident that “Lozenski’s extremism is entirely consistent with the tone and tenor of the standards themselves, which, with the support of Governor Walz, Lozenski and his allies have largely shaped.
“The extremist product of Walz’s education policy is sure to be revealed by an implementation framework that explains the radical concepts in the standards. That, I believe, is why Walz and his people are withholding the framework from the public.”