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Sparks flew at the Assembly Education Committee this week when Assemblyman Corey Jackson (D-Riverside) made the case for his bill, AB 1078. In his opening remarks, Jackson said his legislation was necessary to respond to the “book banning” campaign being waged by “white Christian nationalists” in California.
“AB 1078 is a bill that intends to combat the national Christian white supremacist movement which aims to ban books, school curriculum, and even more in our schools,” Jackson told Committee members.
“We’re really talking about the radicalization of the Christian faith to quite frankly draw upon people’s angers, economic angst … and drawing upon people’s biases to really achieve and use that anger to achieve a political objective,” he said.
In reality, Jackson is referring to the ordinary parents who — across racial, economic and religious demographics — oppose graphic, sexualized content and politicized race-based curricula being pushed in K-12 schools to indoctrinate kids.
Jackson’s bill, as initially proposed, seeks to eliminate the local control of elected school boards and to push parents out of the education equation. Jackson’s legislation would mandate that California’s 944 school boards receive approval from Sacramento bureaucrats at the state Board of Education before removing any offensive materials from classrooms or school libraries, or “ceasing to teach any curriculum.”
The “book banning” mantra — repeated dutifully by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the mainstream media — is the next phase of the teachers unions’ earlier attempt to brand parents as “domestic terrorists” for speaking out against extended school closures during the pandemic.
In a stinging response to Jackson at this week’s hearing, Lance Christensen, CPC’s Vice President of Education Policy and Government Affairs, addressed the Assembly Education Committee this way:
“It’s shocking to have an author of a bill make such inflammatory commentary on those that would oppose this bill in good faith. I hope that the Committee and the Chair will take them to advisement.
Ad hominem attacks on those who oppose radical indoctrination doesn’t mean we’re all white Christian nationalists. … What’s more stunning is that there’s a confusion here … about the curation of books versus banning books. Schools aren’t banning books; they’re just simply not the Library of Congress. They don’t have every single text available to every single school and every single student ….
… So a parent who is opposed to radical, pornographic or other material shouldn’t be called a white Christian nationalist ….
… I hope, Chair, there will be some correction here about the professional demeanor of having an intelligent conversation … We oppose AB 1078.”
Take a couple of minutes to watch both Assemblyman Jackson’s comments and Lance Christensen’s response here.
AB 1078 is part of what Jackson calls his “anti-racism” legislation package. During his remarks, Jackson accused California parents of trying to “whitewash history” as justification for his bill.
As Lance Christensen explains, “We can have an adult conversation about California’s history — whether it be Chinese workers treated as second class citizens in the 1879 state constitution, Japanese internment camps during World War II, entire neighborhoods redlined to keep Black Californians in subservient conditions or the severe mistreatment of Native Americans — but this bill is not that.”
“The proponents of AB 1078 are eager to confuse the thoughtful curation of books that add to the educational value of K-12 schools’ curriculum with ‘book banning’ because they want to hide what they are really pushing in schools from parents,” Christensen said.
It’s the unions’ go-to PR trick: distraction. Teachers’ unions are losing badly in the court of public opinion so they’ve set a phony fire to get everyone to focus on it (book banning!) — hoping no one will notice what they are introducing in schools (porn and Marxism!).
The good news? AB 1078 was heavily amended by the Assembly Education Committee Chair before it was passed out of committee, so Jackson’s attack on school board autonomy has been reduced to “a working group” that will publish “guidance” for school board members on these issues.
The bad news is that the guidance will undoubtedly be used as a hammer to knock school board members into submission, so it’s still critical that this legislation be soundly defeated.
School board members, parents, teachers and concerned citizens should contact their local legislators and ask them to vote “No” on AB 1078. You can email your legislator using CPC’s Take Action tool here.
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