3rd graders in Cupertino forced to deconstruct their racial identities, create identity maps and rank themselves according to their “power and privilege”

Incidents


In January of 2021, City Journal reported that a teacher at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School in San Jose, California recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”

According to whistleblower documents and parents familiar with what occurred, the teacher taught a lesson on “social identities” during a math class. The teacher asked all students to create an “identity map,” which required them them to list their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics. The teacher explained to students that they live in a “dominant culture” of “white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],” who, according to the lesson, “created and maintained” this culture in order “to hold power and stay in power.”

Students were then asked to deconstruct their own intersectional identities and “circle the identities that hold power and privilege” on their identity maps, ranking their traits based on the hierarchy the teacher had just explained to them. In a related assignment, students were asked to write short essays about the aspects of their identities that “hold power and privilege,” and which do not. The students were expected to produce “at least one full page of writing.” The presentation included a short paragraph about transgenderism and non-binary sexuality.

One parent, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Chris Rufo at City Journal, “they were basically teaching racism to my eight-year-old.” 

References

Woke Elementary City Journal, January 13, 2021

Elementary school teacher tells students to select their oppressive, privileged identities: report Fox News, January 14, 2021