A Rhode Island English teacher has been called upon to attend a "pre-disciplinary administrative hearing" after she exposed her school district's "radicalized" critical race theory (CRT) curriculum. Ramona Bessinger first made headlines in July when she described her school district's "radicalized curriculum" as one that "created racial tensions among students and staff where none existed before."
Bessinger explained that the new CRT program in the Rhode Island school district was based on Marxist cultural ideology and was "the most racially divisive, hateful, and in large part, historically inaccurate curriculums I have ever seen in my teaching career," Breitbart reported.
In a story she wrote for Legal Insurrection, Bessinger recounted the moment she received her new teaching assignments for the 2021-2022 academic year and how she was taken aback when she found out that she was "pulled" from teaching one of her English classes and "assigned to teach using CNN news sources, as well as Time for Kids, in a course structured to rely on racialized articles that separate children by the color of their skin."
Bessinger lamented how "everything in school now is about race" and how "much of the bias focus was on race." During an orientation, teachers were ordered to join a "privilege walk" in which they were to share their personal bias and personal trauma and share this with the kids. She refused to participate in the activity, but noted that teachers were told that "discussions around justifiable violence towards white people should be taught to children of color."
Bessinger, who spoke out on social media about her opposition to CRT, then received "multiple emails" from the principal of the school over her social media posts. She recounted how she was "grilled...for almost an hour" about the content on her social media posts and how the principal said he would "monitor" all her social media because they were "bothered" by her "posts exposing the harmful racialized curriculum, books and projects."
Towards the end of September, Bessinger's union representative informed her that teachers at her school had circulated a petition about her. She was then served a public records request seeking the petition against her by Judicial Watch. The Rhode Island English teacher lamented that the school administration and the union were "well aware of this retaliation and hostility as it was happening," but believed that the union would not support her or protect her rights. She then decided to formally file an internal complaint about the "retaliation and hostile work environment."
Parents, teachers, and concerned members of the community who oppose critical race theory curriculum are increasingly being vilified by those who are for CRT. Just last week, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote a letter to the Biden administration asking for federal protection against parents, teachers, and members of the community who are against CRT, describing them as "domestic terrorists." The Justice Department swiftly heeded their request, calling upon the FBI to establish a committee to ensure all "threats" are contained, despite no evidence of such "threats."
