Glenn Youngkin's Rank Hypocrisy on Display

I first got very actively involved in politics roughly three decades ago due to my concerns over public school education - in Virginia Beach where my children attended public schools - and two of the main issues that motivated me were (i) the need for a full and accurate teaching of history including the good, the bad and the ugly, and (ii) racial equity in the school division's gifted and talented programs.  While progress was made in the latter issue through a program of testing all students rather than relying on teacher referrals.  This was accomplished through intense parental lobbying and combined efforts of the local NAACP and the gifted and talented parents association I lead at the time.  Making progress on improving the the public schools' history cirriculum has been more illusive and now Glenn Youngkin is striving to gut history of any mention of what Christofascists and white supremacists in the Virginia GOPbase deem "divisive."  Indeed, Youngkin appears to want history classes to be based on the "Lost Cause" and a Gone with the Wind version of history.  While references to LGBT individuals and history have not yet been explicitly mention, it's a safe bet that mention of gays will likewise be labeled "divisive." Making all of this worse is Youngkin's rank hypocrisy on education:  his children attend/attended expensive private schools where everything he is seeking to ban in public schools was taught.  Indeed, while on the board of one school, Youngkin approved the approach.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this hypocrisy.  Here are excerpts: 

Not only is Virginia’s new Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin banning the fictional menace of critical race theory from public schools, but he’s also turning the commonwealth into a little Stasi State. He’s setting up a tip line so parents can report to the government any school official they consider to be teaching something “divisive.”

“We’re asking for folks to send us reports,” he told a conservative radio host Monday, The Post reported. “We’re going to make sure we catalogue it all,” he added, “to make sure we’re rooting it out.”

The state’s deputizing of residents to act as informants will have the obvious effect of deterring even mentions of slavery or race [or LGBT history], which means Youngkin has imposed a de facto “memory law” whitewashing Virginia’s, and the country’s, deep and ongoing history of white supremacy [and homophobia].

Virginia’s new thought policing also includes overriding school districts’ decisions on face masks and firing the University of Virginia’s counsel, Tim Heaphy, who was on leave advising the House’s Jan. 6 committee.

Youngkin’s move on critical race theory also comes with an added dollop of hypocrisy. Public schools, including Virginia’s, don’t teach critical race theory, which was a little-known academic school of thought before the Fox News crowd misrepresented it as a threat to American children.

But do you know which schools do teach “divisive” concepts, including something resembling critical race theory? The private D.C. schools Youngkin had his children attend. And you know who was on the board of governors of one of those schools while it was beefing up its anti-racism policies? Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin, a professed fan of public school parents’ rights, exercised his own parental rights not to send his children to Virginia public schools but rather to National Cathedral School and St. Albans School, twin private all-girl and all-boy schools in D.C. under the auspices of the Episcopal Church.

National Cathedral’s website listed Youngkin as a member of its governing board from 2016 through 2019, and he was chair of its finance committee. To their credit, both National Cathedral and St. Albans were, during that time, leaders in developing anti-racism teachings, even before the murder of George Floyd heightened national awareness of systemic racism.

DEI — Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — has been a priority at National Cathedral for many years. The school has an extensive staff devoted to the initiative, as well as programming that includes affinity groups such as diversity forums, an equity board, an intersectionality council and a student diversity leadership conference. A National Cathedral strategic plan approved by the board in 2018 — during Youngkin’s tenure — “includes the mandate to ‘Advance an Inclusive Educational Environment, . . . . 

Among the other things National Cathedral has done: made time in the school schedule for “critical conversations around topics of race, anti-racism, social justice, and inclusion”; added courses such as “Black Lives in Literature” and “Courageous Dialogues”; developed new hiring protocols “as a result of our anti-bias work” and required diversity training for all staff members; and included in the school’s summer reading list books such as Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism.”

While Youngkin the governor declares that parents should report teachers who discuss “divisive” things, Youngkin the parent favored a place that believes that “as we hold conversations around honoring each student’s identity, history, and experiences, discomfort helps us to stretch and grow. Learning how to engage in difficult conversations, to listen respectfully, and to consider multiple perspectives are vital.” . . . St. Albans has undertaken similar anti-racism initiatives.

Youngkin’s own children were lucky to have attended schools that make its students grapple with uncomfortable and, yes, “divisive” issues. So why is he now using the powers of the state to intimidate teachers who would give Virginia’s public school students the same advantage?

The answer is easy:  Youngkin is a political whore pandering to Christofascists and white supremacists (the two groups are often one and the same).