The brand new requirements would require college students to “establish discrepancies in 2020 elections outcomes.”
The Oklahoma Board of Schooling has handed new curriculum requirements that require educators to show that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud or discrepancies — regardless of quite a few judicial rulings and audits indicating that the election was professional.
The brand new requirements had been inserted into the curriculum by State Superintendent Ryan Walters, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, shortly before the board voted on them earlier this month. No less than one member of the board took concern with the truth that the modifications to the curriculum had been launched effectively after the general public remark interval.
The curriculum now requires colleges to have highschool college students “establish discrepancies in 2020 elections outcomes by graphs and different data,” telling educators that college students ought to look at the supposed “safety dangers of mail-in balloting”; dumps of ballots; and the “halting of ballot-counting in choose cities.” The curriculum additionally states that educators ought to level to the election’s “unexpected file variety of voters” as an indication that one thing was amiss.
So far, all claims of fraud within the 2020 election have been thoroughly debunked, with quite a few courts throughout the nation ruling that such claims are totally without merit.
Regardless of this, the board nonetheless voted 5-1 in favor of the brand new curriculum. Ryan Deatherage, the lone member of the board to vote towards it, stated that Walters had rushed the method, even after Deatherage had requested a delay to think about the brand new modifications.
“I used to be dissatisfied that we had been misled. … I’m simply going to say that I used to be dissatisfied the way in which that was dealt with,” Deatherage said, including that he would discuss to the state legislature earlier than it considers passing the brand new requirements.
Walters insisted that his workplace’s modifications to the curriculum had been uncontroversial — in an announcement that additionally peddled unfounded conspiracy theories in regards to the media’s position within the election.
“We consider in giving the subsequent era the power to suppose for themselves somewhat than accepting radical positions on the election end result as it’s reported by the media,” Walters said in his statement.
The brand new curriculum also promotes other right-wing narratives, corresponding to definitively educating college students that COVID-19 got here from a lab in China — a idea that has not been proven to be true. It additionally promotes Christianity and Christian ideas all through. The brand new requirements are in line with Walters’s earlier Christian nationalist initiatives, corresponding to requiring every classroom in the state to have a copy of a Bible, an order that’s currently being challenged by Oklahoma residents as violating theirs and their kids’s First Modification rights.
In the meantime, Trump is constant to push the “large lie” that he was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election, regardless of all proof exhibiting in any other case. In a Truth Social post on Monday, for instance, Trump stated that he refused to do an interview with The Atlantic reporter Ashley Parker, baselessly alleging that she was “not able to doing a good and unbiased interview” as a result of “she doesn’t even know that I received the Presidency THREE instances.”
Trump has solely been victorious in two of his three presidential campaigns. Trump received in 2016 by securing the next Electoral School vote depend, regardless of dropping the favored vote to his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Trump ran however was defeated by former President Joe Biden. And in 2024, Trump defeated Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in each the Electoral School and common vote.
We’re not backing down within the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, impartial media organizations are confronted with pressing mandates: Inform the reality extra loudly than ever earlier than. Try this work whilst our commonplace modes of distribution (corresponding to social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Try this work whilst journalism and journalists face focused assaults, together with from the federal government itself. And do this work in neighborhood, by no means forgetting that we’re not shouting right into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to actual folks amid a life-threatening political local weather.
Our job is formidable, and it requires us to floor ourselves in our ideas, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying variety of company information organizations – both by means of want or greed – rush to implement new methods to additional monetize their content material, and others acquiesce to Trump’s needs, now could be a time for motion media-makers to double down on community-first fashions.
At Truthout, we’re reaffirming our commitments on this entrance: We received’t run advertisements or have a paywall as a result of we consider that everybody ought to have entry to data, and that entry ought to exist with out obstacles and freed from distractions from craven company pursuits. We acknowledge the implications for democracy when information-seekers click on a hyperlink solely to seek out the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a web page with dozens of invasive advertisements. The legal guidelines of capitalism dictate an never-ending enhance in monetization, and far of the media merely follows these legal guidelines. Truthout and plenty of of our friends are dedicating ourselves to following different paths – a dedication which feels important in a second when firms are evermore overtly embedded in authorities.
Over 80 % of Truthout‘s funding comes from small particular person donations from our neighborhood of readers, and the remaining 20 % comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a 3rd of our complete funds is supported by recurring month-to-month donors, lots of whom give as a result of they wish to assist us hold Truthout barrier-free for everybody.
You’ll be able to assist by giving at this time throughout our fundraiser. We’ve got 9 days so as to add 500 new month-to-month donors. Whether or not you may make a small month-to-month donation or a bigger present, Truthout solely works along with your help.
Source link