Blue States Diverted Billions of COVID Relief Dollars to Teach CRT In Public Schools: Report

Numerous blue states are reportedly using billions of dollars from the Democrats' $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan passed last spring to teach the core tenets of critical race theory in public schools. Included in the legislation was the $122 billion Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund. Fox News reported based on research it verified from One Nation that multiple states, including California, New York and Illinois, are using some of those funds to implement "antiracism" training . Ibram X Kendi -- CRT proponent and author of the book "How to Be an Antiracist," said , “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” The nonprofit advocacy group One Nation determined that over $46 billion of American Rescue Plan funds in 13 states have been allocated to implement CRT . The White House told Fox Business in February 2021 before the ARP passed that the COVID education funding would provide schools "with the resources they need to safely reopen and fully serve their students." Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said at the time, "This is one moment in which it’s very clear that public policy is quite literally a matter of life and death," adding that the ARP would provide billions for K-12 schools to "ensure students, teachers and staff stay safe and healthy and to address learning loss." Soon after President Joe Biden signed the ARP into law in March 2021, the U.S. Department of Education declared the ESSER (COVID) funds would also go toward addressing "inequities." The DOE said localities could use the taxpayer money to "implement the CDC's recommended prevention and mitigation strategies for K-12 schools, meet student and educators' social, emotional, and mental health needs, invest in strategies to address lost instructional time, and boldly address inequities exacerbated by the pandemic." The department approved a plan by California to use ESSER dollars to “increase educator training and resources” in subjects such as “anti-bias strategies,” “environmental literacy,” “ethnic studies,” and “LGBTQ+ cultural competency,” according to Fox News. New York's approved plan included social-emotional learning to "support the work of anti-racism and anti-bias." Meanwhile, the DOE gave a thumbs-up to an Illinois reopening plan that provided school districts with training on topics like "anti-racism" and equity. One Nation president Steven Law told Fox News that the ARP was a "massive bait-and-switch" used to indoctrinate children. "It turns out Biden’s so-called American Rescue Plan was a multitrillion-dollar progressive shopping list, a massive bait-and-switch for life-saving COVID aid," he said. "Indoctrinating children to judge themselves and one another based on the color of their skin is wrong and has nothing to do with fighting COVID or getting our economy back on track." Nicole Neily, founder of Parents Defending Education, shares these concerns. "Many of us thought [COVID eduction funding] was going to be used for masks, for air purifiers to keep our schools open," she told Fox News Thursday. "Terms like social and emotional learning sound great," she added. "Of course, we want our children to be emotionally aware, but we look at actually what these programs are in practice, these are trojan horses for critical race theory." [embed]https://youtu.be/DQdVLzRl6m4[/embed] The DOE denied that it is pushing states to use ARP money to fund CRT instruction, saying these are local decisions. "The Department is not encouraging the use of American Rescue Plan funds to teach CRT—and any claim to the contrary is patently false," a statement provided to Fox News read. "The Department believes politicians should stay out of the curriculum decisions that are best made at the local level, in engagement with parents, families, and local school communities." This article appeared originally on The Western Journal .

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