![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-16-at-10.41.55-AM.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Christopher F. Rufo | CJ<\/p>\n
An elementary school in Cupertino, California\u2014a Silicon Valley community with a median home price of $2.3 million\u2014recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their \u201cpower and privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on\u00a0whistleblower documents<\/a>\u00a0and parents familiar with the session, a third-grade teacher at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School began the lesson on \u201csocial identities\u201d during a math class. The teacher asked all students to create an \u201cidentity map,\u201d listing their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics. The teacher explained that the students live in a \u201cdominant culture\u201d of \u201cwhite, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],\u201d who, according to the lesson, \u201ccreated and maintained\u201d this culture in order \u201cto hold power and stay in power.\u201d<\/p>\n Next, reading from\u00a0This Book Is Antiracist<\/i>, the students learned that \u201cthose with privilege have power over others\u201d and that \u201cfolx who do not benefit from their social identities, who are in the subordinate culture, have little to no privilege and power.\u201d As an example, the reading states that \u201ca white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman.\u201d In some cases, because of the principle of intersectionality, \u201cthere are parts of us that hold some power and other parts that are oppressed,\u201d even within a single individual.<\/p>\n Following this discussion, the teacher had the students deconstruct their own intersectional identities and \u201ccircle the identities that hold power and privilege\u201d on their identity maps, ranking their traits according to the hierarchy. In a related assignment, the students were asked to write short essays describing which aspects of their identities \u201chold power and privilege\u201d and which do not. The students were expected to produce \u201cat least one full page of writing.\u201d As an example, the presentation included a short paragraph about transgenderism and nonbinary sexuality.<\/p>\n The lesson caused an immediate uproar among Meyerholz Elementary parents. \u201cWe were shocked,\u201d said one parent, who agreed to speak with me on condition of anonymity. \u201cThey were basically teaching racism to my eight-year-old.\u201d This parent, who is Asian-American, rallied a group of a half dozen families to protest the school\u2019s intersectionality curriculum. The group met with the school principal and demanded an end to the racially divisive instruction. After a tense meeting, the administration agreed to suspend the program. (When reached for comment, Jenn Lashier, the principal of Meyerholz Elementary, said that the training was not part of the \u201cformal curricula, but the process of daily learning facilitated by a certified teacher.\u201d)<\/p>\n The irony is that, despite being 94 percent nonwhite, Meyerholz Elementary is one of the most privileged schools in America. The median household income in Cupertino is $172,000, and nearly 80 percent of residents have a bachelor\u2019s degree or higher. At the school, where the majority of families are Asian-American, the students have exceptionally high rates of academic achievement and the school consistently ranks in the top 1 percent of all elementary schools statewide. In short, nobody at Meyerholz is oppressed, and the school\u2019s high-achieving parents know that teaching intersectionality instead of math is a waste of time\u2014and potentially dangerous.<\/p>\n One parent told me that critical race theory was reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. \u201c[It divides society between] the oppressor and the oppressed, and since these identities are inborn characteristics people cannot change, the only way to change it is via violent revolution,\u201d the parent said. \u201cGrowing up in China, I had learned it many times. The outcome is the family will be ripped apart; husband hates wife, children hate parents. I think it is already happening here.\u201d<\/p>\n The small fight at Meyerholz reflects a larger development: for the first time, Asian-Americans on the West Coast have become politically mobilized. In 2019, Asian-Americans ran a\u00a0successful initiative campaign<\/a>\u00a0against affirmative action in Washington State; in 2020, Asian-Americans ran a similar campaign in California, winning by an astonishing 57 percent to 43 percent margin. In both cases, they defended the principles of meritocracy, individual rights, and equality under the law\u2014and roundly defeated a super-coalition of the states\u2019 progressive politicians, activists, universities, media, and corporations.<\/p>\n The stakes are high for the Asian-American community. For progressives insisting on the narrative of \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d and \u201csystemic racism,\u201d Asian-Americans are the \u201cinconvenient minority\u201d: they significantly outperform all other racial groups, including whites, in terms of academic achievement, college admissions, household income, family stability, and other key measures. Affirmative action and other critical race theory-based programs would devastate their admissions to universities and harm their futures.<\/p>\n At Meyerholz Elementary, the Asian-American families are on high alert for critical race theory in the classroom. Since their initial victory, they have begun to consider campaigning against the school board. \u201cWe think some of our school board members are [critical race theory] activists and they must go,\u201d said one parent. The capture of our public institutions by progressives obsessed by race and privilege deserves opposition at every level. The parents of Cupertino have joined the fight.<\/p>\n This article is part of an ongoing series on critical race theory in American schools.<\/p>\n