WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Brad Finstad (MN-01) sent a letter to the Minnesota Department of Education Commissioner Willie Jett highlighting concerns regarding the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Learning for Justice program and related social frameworks being integrated into Rochester Public Schools. According to the Rochester Public School District’s board documents, Social Studies curriculum has been informed by Learning for Justice, raising questions about how the frameworks may be incorporated into classroom instruction.
“Our public schools in Rochester, and across the country, serve families from diverse political, religious, and cultural backgrounds,” said Rep. Finstad. “Public school should be politically neutral, but instead the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice program is able to integrate far-left content and materials into our K-12 schools.”
Finstad continued, “Parents and communities should have trust in their children’s public school curriculum. I’m calling on the Minnesota Department of Education to provide transparency and clear accounting of SPLC’s influence on the educational experience of our Rochester students.”
Background:
- For years, Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) education program called Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has been able to integrate its far-left content and materials into K-12 schools throughout the country.
- While Learning for Justice produces some content that appears neutral, the sum of its work promotes far-left ideologies and viewpoints that push a leftwing agenda. For example, the organization’s Social Justice Standards includes an entire domain focused on teaching the youngest of learners to engage in “action” or activism for social justice causes.
- Defending Education published a report detailing how an SPLC education program called Learning for Justice has been integrated into K-12 lesson plans and materials in 224 school districts in 43 states, plus Washington, D.C. According to the watchdog, the program reinforces “far-left cultural and political ideologies,” including “Black Lives Matter, gender ideology and queer theory, white privilege, white supremacy, whiteness, and transgenderism.”
- The report reveals that SPLC’s website and documents can be found on school district webpages, in teacher professional development and trainings, classroom lessons, district-wide curricula, Social Emotional Learning, social justice standards, and district antiracism and equity policies and resources.
- SPLC’s Learning for Justice program, which the report says is focused on “education for liberation,” encourages the implementation of a set of anchor standards and “age-appropriate learning outcomes” divided into the domains of identity, diversity, justice and action.
- SPLC was indicted in April on federal fraud charges from a years-long alleged covert paid informant program that Justice Department officials said allocated millions of dollars in donations to a network of informants affiliated with or closely tied to white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
