As the furor over Critical Race Theory continues to dominate local school board meetings from coast to coast, a group of conservative New Hampshire mothers has upped the ante.
The New Hampshire chapter of Moms for Liberty announced it will pay $500 to the first person to successfully catch a teacher breaking the state’s new Republican-supported law banning certain things it labels as Critical Race Theory.
“Students, parents, teachers, school staff … We want to know! We will pledge anonymity if you want,” the group tweeted. The group also is fundraising off the appeal and before Thanksgiving reported on Twitter that it had raised more than $1,300.
As of Nov. 28, the group had not reported anyone yet claiming the prize money.
Moms for Liberty is a national nonprofit organization that seeks to defend “parental rights at all levels of government.” It has multiple chapters across the nation. The $500 bounty appears to be a specific project of the New Hampshire chapter.
Nationwide and in New Hampshire, Moms for Liberty espouses a number of ultra-conservative political and social causes. The group opposes teaching in public schools about race and discrimination, opposes curricula related to LGBTQ rights, has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and adamantly opposed mask mandates.
The New Hampshire chapter’s Twitter site currently features a Hannukah greeting that proclaims: “Hanukkah celebrates a small group of joyful warriors standing up for their community against overwhelming odds. It’s a reminder that right makes might, never vice versa.”
The New Hampshire chapter recently retweeted a post from the Williamson County, Tenn., chapter that says: “When left says ‘white supremacist,’ they mean any American who believes in the Constitution.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has condemned the New Hampshire group’s $500 “bounty” to catch educators offering anti-racism training.
“It is bad enough that any state would seek to ban teaching about systemic anti-Black racism, but to offer a ‘bounty’ to ferret out those who seek to educate our nation’s youth about the harm caused by bigotry is beyond the pale,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.
New Hampshire is one of a handful of states that this year passed bills regulating the teaching of race and racial history in public schools — in response to a nationally manufactured outcry about the prevalence of Critical Race Theory, which is a graduate-level law school construct all public school administrators have denied is in their curricula.
The New Hampshire bill bans educators from teaching student’s particular teaching that:
- Any group is inherently superior or inferior to people of another identified group.
- Any group is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.
- Any group should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment.
- Any group should not treat members of other identified groups equally.
New Hampshire state government already created a website for people to file complaints against teachers accused of discrimination under the new law.
As the Thanksgiving break approached, parents riled up by a variety of national groups, such as Moms for Liberty, continued to attend school board meetings en masse to protest everything from mask mandates to teachers’ lesson plans to book titles in the school library.
Most of those involved in pressuring school board to conform to their individual will on social issues such as race, gender, sexuality and public health also identify as conservative evangelical Christians.
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Who’s behind the nationwide attacks on local school boards over Critical Race Theory?
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Organized foes of Critical Race Theory shouldn’t set the direction of our school district | Opinion by Ryon Price
