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A new school year on the horizon, Democrats led by Gov. Gavin Newsom are crushing local boards that seek to remove gay and racial themes from textbooks, or “out” teens struggling with alternative identities.
Yet, Newsom and militant allies risk alienating centrist voters — not for the moral stance taken by these prominent Democrats, but for their intolerant tone and dictatorial politics, oddly resembling the far right’s methods for limiting dissent.
Take Newsom’s loud rebuke of the Temecula Valley school board this month, after its members voted to purge from textbooks mention of historical figures like Harvey Milk, the influential gay activist slain in San Francisco.
Temecula’s board president, Joseph Komrosky, falsely claimed that Milk was a “pedophile.” His allies say that Newsom is a “tyrant” who “forces his rule” upon local boards.
Rather than defuse the conflict and seek a remedy, California’s media-savvy governor chose to escalate the cultural skirmish, needling parents and civic leaders in this arid Riverside County exurb.
Newsom went on social media to call Komrosky “ignorant” — reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s fateful labeling as “a basket of deplorables” all who support Donald Trump. With additional shock and awe, Newsom fined little Temecula $1.5 million for their selective view of California history.
The governor continued to trash-talk the board’s majority who “have again proven they are more interested in breaking the law than doing their jobs of educating students.” Newsom’s polarizing rhetoric earned him days of headlines and ample television coverage.
Temecula’s board soon compromised, voting to adopt state textbooks last week, while setting aside contested lessons for further review. “We have a fiscal responsibility,” Komrosky said. “I cannot steer this district into more legalities [with the state].”
Rather than savoring his victory with grace, or reminding us why public schools must embrace all children, Newsom continued to attack Temecula’s civic leaders. “This is about extremists’ desire to control information … (to) whitewash history.”
Meanwhile, California’s schools chief, Tony Thurmond, proved he’s a quick learner when it comes to gaining publicity. He elbowed into a Chino Valley board meeting to oppose a quite frightening proposal that would require teachers to expose students who express transgender interests.
Thurmond— a sage Black leader who’s considering running to succeed Newsom as governor — was promptly shouted out of the chamber. But mission accomplished, scoring a Page 1 headline in the L.A. Times. The resolute Thurmond went on Twitter to say, “I don’t mind being thrown out of a board meeting by extremists.”
The dilemma facing Democrats is that Newsom’s left-leaning base may applaud his militancy, especially in light of President Joe Biden’s silence on these cultural schisms. Yet, moderate voters may find distasteful Newsom’s polarizing and opportunistic tactics.
Yes, progressives must labor to protect children from intolerance and cultural blinders. But inspiring leaders also seek to widen respect for and knowledge of diverse groups — to build a more civil society — rather than antagonizing those with whom they disagree.
Dismissing community discretion when it comes to raising our children — key to steering public education for three centuries — is a slippery slope as well. After all, it’s conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who purge school boards and college regents who don’t share his intolerant views.
Biden, for one, is pressing a more compassionate strategy, mediating local conflicts rather than exploiting cultural divisions, as he quietly deployed in a Georgia book-banning case last spring.
Forsyth County’s school board had removed several books exploring racial and sexual themes, including Toni Morrison’s, “The Bluest Eye.” The U.S. Department of Education warned that such censorship stigmatized certain students, then proceeded to hammer out an agreement under which the local board returned the books to library shelves.
Government concurred that families should be forthrightly advised of the contested content. Few headlines, little drama, while a potentially hostile climate for gay and lesbian students was averted.
Shrill political theater also runs against parents’ own sentiments. Nearly three-fifths prefer that educators limit transgender and sexual identity content in classrooms. At the same time, more than three-quarters say, “My child’s school does a good job keeping me informed about the curriculum, including potentially controversial topics,” according to an April 2022 national poll.
Newsom could win greater national repute by devising a strategy for lifting student learning, still lagging far behind two years after schools emerged from the pandemic. Let’s prioritize whether children are learning to read, not stoke divisions over what they are reading.
Democrats should accent public education’s historical role in bringing diverse children and ideas under the same roof — spotlighting the virtues of human variety, rather than blasting the other side. That’s not how hearts and minds are won. Progressives must articulate how humane and potent classrooms advance a more civil society, rather than using schools merely as playgrounds to divide us.
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Bruce Fuller, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, is the author of “When Schools Work: Pluralist Politics and Institutional Change in Los Angeles.”
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