Concerns mount about American children increasingly being taught that innate characteristics such as race and sex require them to be treated differently from one another throughout their lives. Combined with Marxist doctrines advocating government redistribution of people’s property, these ideas humiliate children and deprive them of initiative.
In part 3 of our exclusive interview, California author, education freedom advocate, and former teacher Rebecca Friedrichs (see biographical details below) identifies these radical teachings as just a piece of the puzzle and part of a much more insidious plot.
Heartland Daily News: Parents and the rest of the public have become aware of critical race theory (CRT), and we are seeing some states take action to prevent the teaching of CRT in government schools. What is the significance of CRT?
Friedrichs: CRT is a symptom of a much bigger problem, so I do not see CRT as the biggest problem. What most Americans don’t realize is over 100 years ago Marxist/Socialist/Communist people decided that they wanted to undermine the American free republic. They made it very clear. They told us they would take over without firing a shot.
In 1958, a book called The Naked Communist revealed the 45 goals of the Communist Party to undermine the American free republic. People were so alarmed when that book came out, those 45 goals were actually read into our Congressional Record in 1963. Congress was warned. When you look at these 45 goals, it’s very clear that they planned on infiltrating teacher associations.
In California, they passed what they call the California Healthy Youth Act. There’s nothing healthy about it. It’s pushing this radical sex. They literally wrote the law, and the teachers unions helped write it, that if teachers were unqualified to teach this [sex education], then the experts would be brought in.
Here’s what that means in real speech. Teachers like me say I’m not going to teach it; I won’t teach it; this is child abuse. Then they bring in Planned Parenthood, and now we have school districts all over the country who have contracts with Planned Parenthood, and they’ll come in and abuse your child every day, because this is their worldview. They think it’s OK to teach children these things.
Heartland Daily News: What is the overarching purpose of this radical sex education curriculum? Why is the Left so intent on sexualizing children?
Friedrichs: It’s not even about the curriculum: it’s about undermining the family. The masterminds behind this attack on our families knew that we would not all accept this easily, if they just suddenly brought it into our schools in the 1950s. There would be a major outcry, so they had to sneak it in.
So sometimes people think, oh, you’re a prude if you’re against sex ed, teaching the birds and the bees—but you have to understand the tactics. The reason they brought in sex ed was because the parents would accept that at first. Well, we’re just going to teach your kids about the biology. Parents could see that teaching that biology would be helpful to our children. Parents never realized that the real motivation was to eventually sexualize their children, and the Left plays the long game.
This is what Marxist, socialist, communist people do. They play a long game, and they sneak it in. They are bringing in something that none of us would like, so they have to do it in a conniving, covert manner.
Heartland Daily News: It’s about radically changing the people’s morals over time?
Friedrichs: Our [nation’s] founders said the only way to keep a free republic is with a well-educated and moral citizenry that can self-govern. I can’t emphasize this enough. Why are they sexualizing our children? Because they are trying to make them immoral. They are undermining the Judeo-Christian virtue that most parents are still teaching their children in this country.
I’ve been in teacher trainings where they use this. They say, “We’re the experts.” They do the same thing to little kids. They say, “We’re the experts, and your parents are old-fashioned.”
To the little kids they say, “When you were born, your parents didn’t know your gender, so they assigned you one. Someday you’ll figure out your gender, but your parents are old-fashioned. Don’t worry that they believe in two genders. They’re old-fashioned. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
They are purposely undermining a child’s trust in his or her own parent and the child’s trust in God, who said “I created you male and female.”
In part four of our exclusive interview, Friedrichs, who challenged the domination by the teachers unions before the Supreme Court’s groundbreaking Janus decision, documents her battle to free teachers from forced support of these unions.
Look for the upcoming documentary, Whose Children Are They?, in which Friedrichs and many other education experts share their insights and concerns about the current state of the American public school system.
Friedrichs taught in elementary schools for 28 years in southern California. After years of frustration with the California Teachers Union (CTA), she filed a lawsuit known as Friedrichs v. California Teachers’ Association, aimed at eliminating the forced unionization of teachers. The case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, which affirmed a lower-court decision against Friedrichs, because the court was deadlocked after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The goal of Friedrichs’ suit was accomplished two years later in the landmark case Janus v. AFSCME.
Friedrichs’ book, Standing up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of our Kids and Country, documents her battles with the unions and the details of the lawsuit. Friedrichs is a Prager U host, was a panel participant for the Fox Nation series The Miseducation of America, and is the producer for the upcoming documentary Whose Children Are They?, available in select theaters on March 14. Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, an organization working to “unite, educate, engage and empower parents, teachers, students and citizens in the fight to restore America’s schools and culture.”