President Donald Trump announced his signing of the “1776 Commission” on Monday to promote patriotic education.
“Just signed an order to establish the 1776 Commission. We will stop the radical indoctrination of our students, and restore PATRIOTIC EDUCATION to our schools!” Trump tweeted.
Just signed an order to establish the 1776 Commission. We will stop the radical indoctrination of our students, and restore PATRIOTIC EDUCATION to our schools!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2020
In Trump’s executive order published by the White House, it says the commission’s purpose is to help young generations better understand the history and founding principles of the nation.
“The recent attacks on our founding have highlighted America’s history related to race,” the executive order stated. “These one-sided and divisive accounts too often ignore or fail to properly honor and recollect the great legacy of the American national experience ‑- our country’s valiant and successful effort to shake off the curse of slavery and to use the lessons of that struggle to guide our work toward equal rights for all citizens in the present.”
The order points to heroes such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. who led American movements against slavery and for civil rights.
“As these heroes demonstrated, the path to a renewed and confident national unity is through a rediscovery of a shared identity rooted in our founding principles. A loss of national confidence in these principles would place rising generations in jeopardy of a crippling self-doubt that could cause them to abandon faith in the common story that binds us to one another across our differences,” the order said.
The order also states, “it is necessary to provide America’s young people access to what is genuinely inspiring and unifying in our history, as well as to the lessons imparted by the American experience of overcoming great national challenges. This is what makes possible the informed and honest patriotism that is essential for a successful republic.”
Trump first announced the 1776 Commission on Sept. 17, which coincided with Constitution Day to celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.
Trump explained his decision to form the patriotic education commission as a pushback on the teaching of critical race theory in U.S. universities and institutions.
During his announcement, Trump had said, “This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families.”
