A California school district required high school students to give presentations on “systems of oppression,” according to documents obtained by parental rights advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE).
The documents, which were shared exclusively with The Daily Wire, highlighted details of Alameda Unified School District’s ethnic studies curriculum, which required students to examine their privilege and discuss how it impacts the oppression of certain groups.
California’s Alameda Unified School District’s ethnic studies curriculum required students to assess their own level of privilege as they were taught Critical Race Theory and extreme gender theory. Students were given handouts including “My Relationship with Privilege and Oppression,” which purports to tell students “whether you are privileged or oppressed.” White, male, Christian students without a criminal record are singled out as the epitome of privilege.
The document lists 29 different identities and characteristics—including race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, religion and education level—that are used to determine one’s alleged level of privilege or marginalization. “Who am I as an intersectional human being,” it asks students. Another assignment, called “A Map of Myself,” asks students to audit their own identities, categorizing each as a “position of privilege or marginalization.”
“For each identity domain … consider if it puts you in a position of privilege or marginalization,” the assignment reads before asking students to list their race, ethnicity, biological sex, sexual orientation, and religion. Footnotes cite “anti-racist” author Robin DiAngelo and argue that “race is a socially constructed system.”
“Considering all your social identities listed in the table above, on a daily basis, which ones are you most aware or conscious of?” the assignment inquires before going on to ask what “the most negative or difficult” thing about that identity is.
Students taking the course, which is intended for high school freshmen, will learn about “power and oppression,” and about “who creates the master narrative and how that impacts the lived experiences of different groups,” by fostering the “understanding that laws& policies are not objective.”
Students are expected to “identify social systems that structure and perpetuate power, privilege, and oppression” and “identify how identities intersect to create power, privilege, and oppression.”
The syllabus looks at concepts such as “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” “microaggressions,” and “colonized mind.”
The course also features the popular “privilege walk,” which is used in educational, corporate, and governmental institutions. Students form a line and take steps forward or backward, depending on their answers to questions related to their privilege or oppression.
Those taking the course will also write essays on how left-wing groups organize for political action.
This course is similar to what is being used in the San Ramon School District. PDE obtained documents showing that the district not only uses critical race theory in the course, but also requires students to participate in activism.
The final project, included in Unit Six, is when students “experience the liberating process of praxis (turning theory into action).” This involves the student becoming “change agents within their immediate scope of influence in the community, requiring them to effectively research multiple perspectives, organize, and communicate, all within the umbrella of understanding how systemic oppression plays out for marginalized communities, and how dominant culture may or may not be aware of these issues.”
Students will choose a project topic “to address an issue in their community that is impacted by systemic oppressions, and will develop a concrete deliverable solution to disrupt the issue in a means by which they are able to do so.” This means the students will take concrete action to advocate for or against a specific cause that is covered in the course.
It appears that this coursework has become commonplace in California school districts, as efforts to infuse curriculum with leftist ideology persist.
