The controversial founder of the 1619 Project, which helped propel the issue of critical race theory to the forefront of political deb...
The controversial founder of the 1619 Project, which helped propel the issue of critical race theory to the forefront of political debate, said that parents shouldn't decide what's being taught in schools and claimed she is 'not a professional educator' despite being a tenured professor.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for writing the 1619 project for the New York Times in 2019, defended her work that's been turned into a curriculum for schools, and blamed 'a right-wing propaganda campaign' for creating the wedge issue that helped sway the outcome of the governor's race in Virginia this year.
'I don't really understand this idea that parents should decide what's being taught. I'm not a professional educator,' Hannah-Jones said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.
'I don't have a degree in social studies or science. We send our children to school because we want them to be taught by people who have an expertise in the subject area. And that is not my job,' she added.
Her 1619 project, which offers a view of American history that says the US was founded upon racism and that 1619 - the year the first slave ships arrived from Africa - should be viewed as the true founding of America, helped her land a tenured position at Howard University.
1619 Project founder Nikole Hannah-Jones told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that parents shouldn't influence decisions made on schools' curriculums across the country, while also saying that she is 'not a professional educator'
Hannah-Jones, who founded the 1619 Project, is joining Howard University's Cathy Hughes School of Communications as a tenured faculty member after rejecting tenure from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The fury over CRT helped underdog Republican Glenn Youngkin upset Democratic insider Terry McAuliffe in November. Youngkin pledged to ban CRT, seizing on the discontent of parents who had grown agitated after the Loudon County school board announced a $6million 'equity-training' program that parents associated with CRT.
Advocates say its teaching is necessary to underline how deeply racism pervades society, but critics say it is divisive and paints everyone as a victim or oppressor, with multiple Virginia school board meetings making headlines after parents were filmed clashing with staff over the decision to teach it, noticeably in Loudon County.
'When the governor or the candidate said that he didn't think parents should be deciding what's being taught in school, he was panned for that. But that's just the fact,' the former New York Times journalist said.
'This is why we send our children to school and don't homeschool, because these are the professional educators who have the expertise to teach social studies, to teach history, to teach science, to teach literature. And I think we should leave that to the educators.'
She also told Fox News that 'professional K-12 educators, not parents, are the experts in what to teach, including those educating my own child.'
Virginia Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin has vowed to ban critical race theory from schools with parents fed up with the state's woke school boards who don't want their children to be taught that they're bad or good depending on their race
Prior to his defeat, Democratic contender Terry McAuliffe held similar views to Hannah-Jones, telling parents not to influence what schools taught their children
Over the summer, Howard University confirmed that Hannah-Jones would be joining the Cathy Hughes School of Communications as a tenured faculty member, serving as the newly created Knight Chair in Race and Journalism.
She will also create the Center for Journalism and Democracy, which will train and support aspiring reporters in investigative skills and analytical expertise.
Her decision to join the historically black college came after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill debated against offering her tenureship before finally relenting under threat of a lawsuit.
'Look what it took to get tenure,' she told CBS This Morning.
'This was a position that since the 1980s came with tenure. The Knight chairs are designed for professional journalists when working in the field, to come into academia. Every other chair before me, who also happened to be white, received that position with tenure.
'To only have that vote occur on the last possible day, at the last possible moment after threat of legal action, after weeks of protests, after it became a national scandal, it's just not something I want anymore.'
Opponents of the academic doctrine known as Critical Race Theory protest outside of the Loudoun County School Board headquarters, in Ashburn, Virginia, U.S. June 22, 2021
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