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Project aims to foster ‘anti-racist classrooms and schools’
The University of California Santa Cruz is rolling out curriculum materials that encourage students to compare the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to the Ku Klux Klan.
Experts told The College Fix these sorts of curricula further damage an already fraught civic landscape.
The materials come from UC Santa Cruz’s “History & Civics Project,” a professional development program for K-12 teachers that aims to create “literate, knowledgeable, and engaged citizens,” according to its website.
One unit, titled “Historicizing Race & Whiteness,” aims to foster “anti-racist classrooms and schools” by teaching students about “structural and institutional racism,” according to the Daily Caller, which obtained exclusive documents from a review by watchdog group Defending Education.
It also recommends teachers read materials on “white fragility” and reparations.
“Another exercise titled ‘Contextualizing the Insurrection’ includes a photo of Klan members near the U.S. Capitol, and says that ‘comparing a KKK demonstration in Washington D.C. that occurred almost 100 years ago to the January 6th Insurrection should provide your students with some context for this event while also prompting them to ask some clarifying questions about both,’” the Daily Caller reported.
According to a 2017 report by the California Department of Education, the project operates under California’s “History Social Science Framework,” adopted by the State Board of Education in 2016.
The framework seeks to tell a “broader story that features the contributions of diverse peoples of all sorts to the story of California and the United States.”
The UC Santa Cruz program has assisted at least one California school district in developing an “ethnic studies” curriculum, which is mandatory for all high school graduates in the state. North Monterey County Unified paid $23,200 to UCSC between 2024 and 2025 for the collaboration, the Daily Caller reported.
But experts told The College Fix that leading students to prescribed political conclusions can be dangerous.
UC Santa Cruz’s History & Civics Project “presents a one-sided view of history intended to lead students to a certain political viewpoint,” said Paul Runko, senior director of strategic initiatives for Defending Education.
“Any program or curriculum that promotes ‘The 1619 Project’ as a legitimate historical text should be scrutinized,” he said.
Though the curriculum claims to prepare citizens, Runko believes it fails to achieve the goal of real civics education, which includes “the foundations of the American political system, the U.S. Constitution, and the core principles of our republican form of government.” These subjects are necessary for students to have well-formed opinions on civic issues, he said.
He added that “Political advocacy should have little to no role in K-12 schools, particularly when civics programs today encourage activism before students have a solid understanding of American government and constitutional principles.”
He also said such programs could further erode students’ already-fraught civic skills and competencies. Defending Education has published research showing that not even one-fourth of eighth graders in the U.S. performed at a proficient level on a 2022 civics assessment.
Similarly, Chance Layton, the director of communications for the National Association of Scholars, said such curricula “set a student up for failure.”
“They establish a narrative of a tribal rather than shared civic culture. It forces a worldview where race is deterministic. And it further encourages a culture of victimhood,” he said.
“Only after the facts are established can a student or classroom have a fruitful discussion,” Layton said.
The History & Civics Project did not respond to requests for comment on how the project integrates viewpoint diversity.
