Colleges are using MLK Day to push CRT & Dems' voting legislation
A number of colleges are hosting multi-day long celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.
Many individuals invited to speak at these events have advocated for Critical Race Theory or other fringe progressive causes in the past.
Some schools are even using MLK day to promote legislation being pushed by congressional Democrats.
A number of colleges and universities are inviting Critical Race Theorists and proponents of other forms of progressive racial politics to speak during events meant to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. day. One school is going so far as to ask students to “advocate” for both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Carol Anderson are among the public intellectuals who are slated to give talks either on MLK day or in the days following. Campus Reform compiled information from seven academic institutions that have invited progressive activists to their campuses for MLK day.
Dartmouth College, an Ivy-League school in New Hampshire, invited Robert S. Harvey to give the keynote speech for their series of MLK events. Harvey authored “Abolitionist Leadership in Schools: Undoing Systemic Injustice Through Communally Conscious Education”, a book aimed at teaching public school administrators about “recreating, restructuring, and reorienting” their labor to better serve “systemically-oppressed people.”
In a separate opinion piece, Harvey argued that COVID-19 provided an opportunity for “MLK’s Dream Of Universal Basic Income” to become reality.
Public universities are inviting liberal activists to give presentations in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
Western Washington University, for instance, will host Ibram X. Kendi, one professor often credited with popularizing Critical Race Theory, and will be holding events promoting the Democrat-sponsored election legislation currently being considered in Congress.
”WWU, along with our regional partners, encourages our community to honor the King family’s request to educate, advocate, and activate in support of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act currently before the U.S. Congress,” reads the WWU event description.
Critical Race Theorist Nikole Hannah-Jones will be giving a keynote speech at Northwestern University. Jones is known for her work with the New York Times’ 1619 Project. The 1619 project critically analyzed the history of the United States through the lens of racial oppression, and erroneously claimed that the nation was founded in order to maintain the institution of slavery. A number of historians have criticized Jones’ work, with one describing it as an “unbalanced, one-sided account” and another calling it “so wrong in so many ways”.
Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, is holding a panel featuring Emory University professor Carol Anderson as part of its observance of MLK’s legacy on Jan 27. The panel is titled “Building the Beloved Community: The Struggle for Justice in Our Time.”
Anderson has made a number of controversial claims about the history of racism in the United States during her time as an academic. She is the author of “White Rage,” which discusses “actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage.”
Emory University invited Bobby Seale, founding chairman of the Black Panther Party, to give its keynote address for the holiday. Seale was once accused of ordering the execution of another Black Panther and describes himself as having been inspired by Black nationalist thinker and racial separatist Malcolm X.
Jessica Lynn Stewart, an assistant professor in Emory’s Department of African American Studies said the school chose to invite Seale because “his iconic and dynamic legacy of community activism for social change can help us understand Martin Luther King’s continued fight for political inclusion alongside his evolving commitment to economic justice.”
Other universities inviting similar characters to their MLK-themed events include Vanderbilt and Villanova. Vanderbilt is going to have progressive poet and activist Nikky Finney give a speech and Villanova has designated past Green Party vice-presidential nominee and environmental activist Winona LaDuke as its keynote speaker.
Each institution named in this article was contacted by Campus Reform for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.
