Districts feel the heat after the Maine Republican Party advocates for a ban on critical race theory and discussion of gender in public school classrooms.
| Lana Cohen, Press Herald |
GRAY — About 50 people gathered in the fluorescent-lit basement of the Bible Believing Baptist Church late last month to hear a series of speakers warn about “the hyper-sexualization of school children” and “the left’s scorched-earth war against sacred sexuality.”
The chairman of the Gray Republican Committee welcomed the attendees, behind him a poster promoting the firing of a southern Maine superintendent and a photo of the event’s keynote speaker, outspoken far-right conservative Shawn McBreairty, standing next to conservative talk-show host Tucker Carlson. Resting on a table near the door was a petition to fire Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin.
“The left is determined to own our children because then they will own them as adults,” Chairman Peter Brown said. School mask mandates were not about protecting kids from COVID, he said. “It’s all about training children to submit to control.”
The nation’s culture wars are being fought in school board meetings and classrooms. And conservative attacks on teachers and lessons about race, gender identity and sexuality have become part of a Republican strategy that’s energizing voters frustrated with COVID protocols and fearful about what their children are being taught in school. Educators and students are caught in the crossfire.
Maine is no exception. Over the course of the school year, educators have faced criticism over reading lists, classroom posters, curriculum materials and discussion topics. And the clashes have intensified since the state Republican Party adopted a platform in April calling for a ban on critical race theory and discussion of gender in public school classrooms.
Last summer, Gardiner Area High School administrators scrapped an advanced placement English class summer reading list after parents complained the books on it – which covered topics including mass incarceration, anti-racism and the lynching of Emmett Till – would teach students critical race theory.
Over the past few weeks, Gorham Superintendent Heather Perry has faced multiple calls to resign over her response to a parent’s request that two educational posters about gender and sexuality be removed from a sixth-grade classroom.
In mid-May, a video intended to help teachers explain LGBT rights and other topics to kindergartners was removed from a Maine Department of Education website after the Republican Party featured it in an attack ad against Gov. Janet Mills.
The speakers at the event in Gray called for banning sex education in K-12 schools and teaching only abstinence, implored parents to immediately pull their children out of public school and claimed a large majority of Maine’s teachers can’t be trusted to do their jobs.
In addition to McBreairty and Brown, other speakers included Republican state Rep. Amy Bradstreet Arata and a representative from the Maine group Save Our Students, whose members say public schools are pushing students to transition to a different gender.
Some states have passed new laws blocking teachers from discussing many of the topics that are being scrutinized in Maine, including race, sexuality and gender and social emotional learning. Keep reading in the Press Herald or Sun Journal.
