The Duluth Public Schools superintendent recently applauded a group that bullied two local venues into canceling an anti-critical race theory event by calling the sponsors of the event “racists” and “white supremacists.”
The Center of the American Experiment is currently touring the state with their “Raise Our Standards” tour, which aims to teach citizens about the “leftist, anti-America agenda” of critical race theory.
The Duluth stop of the tour was canceled when two venues were bullied into calling off the American Experiment’s event.
Classie Dudley, president of the NAACP’s Duluth chapter, posted a video in which she called on the Northland Country Club to refuse to host the tour, which she deemed “overt racism” and “nothing other than an act of hate speech.”
“The Northland Country Club is letting them conduct their racism in their venue,” Dudley proclaimed.
The intimidation worked, and the country club said they wouldn’t allow the American Experiment to hold the event in their space. The NAACP continued to harass a second venue, a downtown Holiday Inn, which then refused to host the conservative think tank.
Following this, Duluth Superintendent John Magas said he does not support the beliefs of the American Experiment and is proud of Duluth’s “community” for voicing their concerns about the tour coming to their city. He also said the tour spreads “misinformation.”
“I think that the response the community has shown — that they’re not very excited about people coming in and spreading misinformation — I think that shows resilience and strength and focus on equity as a community,” Magas said in an interview with CBS 3 Duluth.
The Center of the American Experiment responded by calling for Magas’ termination.
“The man in charge of educating 7,300 children just taught them an important lesson: the best way to oppose a point of view is to bully the venue to cancel the event. Forget about research, logic, argument, the First Amendment — just flood the banquet hall with threatening phone calls,” the group said.
The American Experiment also challenged Magas to cite any misinformation presented during the tour.
“There has been a robust discussion at each of the stops so far, with critics engaging the panelists, raising good-faith objections and leaving everyone in the room more enlightened (which is the point of a free exchange of ideas),” the American Experiment said, pointing out that this is also part of Duluth schools’ professed values.
One of the district’s goals is to include “all voices in our community — inside and outside our schools, all ages and backgrounds — [which] makes our schools strong and successful.”
The Raise Our Standards tour has turned out over a hundred people at each of its stops thus far. The Moorhead stop of the tour attracted a group of left-wing protesters and ended with one woman being detained by police as she tried to physically stop the event from happening.
The Center of the American Experiment plans to reschedule the Duluth event whenever they can “find a venue with the courage to host it in the face of hostility from a tiny minority,” wrote John Hinderaker, president of the American Experiment.
Rose Williams
Rose Williams is an assistant editor for Alpha News.
