Minnesota Democrats are pushing a bill that would require public schools to provide “climate justice instruction.”
The bill says this type of instruction “views the effects of climate change as interconnected with forms of oppression connecting climate change to social and economic justice issues.”
Under the bill, SF 476, the commissioner of education would be required to develop a “model program” by July 1, 2024. All school districts would then be required to implement a “climate justice education program” by the 2025-2026 school year.
This program must include content that is “scientifically accurate,” “inclusive of underrepresented students,” and “grounded in science and intersectionality,” the bill says.
Required topics would include “human activities causing climate change” and “climate change’s disproportionate effects on communities facing systemic oppression.”
A teachers union representative testified in favor of a bill to require "climate justice instruction" in Minnesota's public schools, calling climate change "the biggest threat mankind has ever faced." pic.twitter.com/fP0i8Zfwoh
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) February 21, 2023
The Minnesota School Boards Association, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, and the Association of Metropolitan School Districts submitted a joint letter to legislators opposing the bill.
“We appreciate the commitment to strengthening climate justice issues, however, any new statewide requirements added to the currently required credits creates scheduling challenges and reduces elective opportunities for students,” the letter says.
“Several bills have been introduced this session mandating courses and while the topics are all important, it puts students and families, especially within their senior year, in a position where choice is impacted,” it adds.
The letter also notes that “implementing new curriculum or educational programs is very costly.”
Dr. Michelle Garvey, a professor of environmental justice at the University of Minnesota, testified in favor of Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell’s bill during a Monday Senate Education Committee meeting.
“What happens when students are repeatedly taught the crisis that is climate change but not the opportunity that is climate justice?” she asked.
“I’ve observed debilitating doomism and anxiety about the future rather than activation toward solutions, the normalization of individualist, greenwashed consumer choices instead of the political action needed to accomplish broad, meaningful change, and the misconception that we’re all equally to blame rather than the truth: that climate has been privatized by a handful of corporate and global polluters,” the professor explained.
Republican Sen. Zach Duckworth said the bill “begins to blur the line on academic instruction and what could be determined by some to be political activism.”
The DFL-controlled committee passed the bill and referred it to the Senate Education Finance Committee for its next hearing.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
