State Denies Judge's Accusations of 'Un-Americanizing' School Curriculum
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
May 31, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A Michigan judge is accusing the state's Department of Education of censoring the words "America" and "American" from public schools. But the Department is denying any such move is afoot.Judge Michael Warren says the Michigan Department of Education has eliminated the words "America" and "American" from the state testing program and instructed those drafting curriculum content standards to remove the words as well. According to Warren, the department also issued a verbal directive to high-profile educators that they should instruct their teachers to stop using the words because they are "ethnocentric."
Warren, a former member of the state's Department of Education, says "well-intentioned but pernicious political correctness" is rolling around in that department. "I think we all agree that we're Americans in the United States and that we're the United States of America," he says. "There was the American Revolution, and the words 'America' and 'Americans' have a very special meaning for us as individuals and as a nation. The Department of Education didn't understand that."
In a May 24 press release, State Superintendent Michael Flanagan flatly denies Warren's allegations. Flanagan says no such edict has gone out to school teachers across Michigan, nor will one. In addition, if such a recommendation for curriculum change ever came across Flanagan's desk, it would "stopped in its tracks," says the department. He also told American Family Radio News that if the censorship has taken place, he will revise the current testing protocol to allow the words to be used.
Warren contends the Education Department is in a state of denial. He says Superintendent Flanagan is not aware of how much political correctness exists in "the bowels of the Department." The judge asserts that the Department has initiated a series of "different steps to eliminate the words America and American in the state level as well as in the local level."
"In other words," he says, "[there's a feeling] that Mexicans, because they're in the North American continent, are also Americans; and Canadians, because they're in the North American continent. And they also refer to South America, so apparently the Brazilians and the Belizeans are also Americans."
And while the Department acknowledges an "independent association of Social Studies educators has discussed the issue of official U.S. documents or titles," it says no recommendations for changes in curriculum have been submitted to Flanagan for his review.
"These are advisory groups," says the superintendent in the press statement. "The conversations and internal communications between members [of that independent association] have been misconstrued as Department of Education policy. This is not a [Department] policy, nor will it ever be our policy while I'm here. We are not seeking to do away with the terms 'America' or 'American' from classroom instruction. It's not going to happen."
Warren, however, says the alleged censorship was so "ludicrous and disgraceful" it needed to be exposed and stopped. And to counteract the alleged political correctness, the judge suggests the Department create an "American Freedom" curriculum to help educate K-12 children in understanding the principles of the nation's founding documents.
