In Some Minnesota Schools, the Focus Is Reading, Writing, and Resistance

In the Twin Cities, schools play a key role in fostering a culture in which resistance and anti-authoritarianism thrive.

A Minneapolis charter school located near where 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed last week by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent is centered on social justice and has a long history of left-wing political activism, according to its website.

“We integrate social justice into every grade level, telling the stories of the people, not the people in power, and helping students understand history and their role in making the world a better place,” states the website for Southside Family Charter School.

The ongoing ICE protests coincide with a new statewide mandate requiring ethnic studies, which the state Department of Education defines as the study of ways in which “race and racism have been and continue to be social, cultural, and political forces, and the connection of race to the stratification of other groups.”

At about the time of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, several schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, took it upon themselves to require one high school semester of ethnic studies courses before it became a state mandate.

The ethnic studies offerings in the Minneapolis district currently include a course on race and identity, as well as classes in “culturally sustaining” African American, Chicanx/Latinx, American Indian, Asian American, Hmong, and Somali studies, according to its website.

Moreover, private schools and taxpayer-funded charters such as Southside attract families seeking more progressive social justice-related curricula than the public schools offer.

“Activist-bent parents chose the school knowing what they’re going to get,” said Katherine Kersten, a senior fellow at the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment think tank and policy center. “Kids are being told to study left-wing activism and view the activists as models to follow.”

Other Twin City-area schools that prioritize social justice beyond the level of traditional public schools include the St. Paul School of Northern Lights, the Angela Day School for Liberation and Progressive Education, and the Prairie Creek Community School.

Kersten said “identity and resistance” are two main pillars of the ethnic studies mandate. Approved instruction for stand-alone high school ethnic studies courses that must be implemented ahead of the fall semester—in addition to the embedded requirement for all other subject areas in K–12, as they are reviewed and then updated periodically—most likely include definitions and examples of identity and resistance, she said.

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality Studies developed a free curriculum for the state mandate endorsed by teachers unions and state officials. Its middle school instructional materials, “Protest Art & the Movement for Black Life,” require students to learn about the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement, create protest art “for a cause of their choice,” and “describe how mural artists transformed the landscape of Minneapolis during the 2020 Uprising,” according to the center’s webpage.

This kind of classroom rhetoric only emboldens anti-authoritarian sentiment in the community, even if protesters do not fully understand their cause, Kersten said.

“We’ve seen people crossing the line, and destruction of property, and our elected leaders are encouraging this—[saying] that authority figures are racist and that this resistance is noble,” she said. “To have the state working with and relying on some of the most extreme, self-interested activists to create standards is so egregious.”

Kersten’s organization is urging public school districts across Minnesota to consider less extreme instructional materials that are endorsed by nonpartisan academic institutions and still meet the state requirements, including 1776 Unites and the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, both of which oppose identity politics.

Center for the American Experiment recently presented its suggested instructional materials to the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the largest district in the state, and was greeted outside by a long line of protesters summoned from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Kersten said.

“Anyone who criticizes is automatically called a racist,” she said.

She also said that beyond a few parents who took advantage of a state law that allows them to opt their children out of instructional materials they find objectionable, there has been very little pushback against Minnesota’s ideological education movement.

“It’s so damaging to celebrate these events as a great civil rights statement,” she said. “It’s important for schools to push back and make the case for reasonable academic learning.”

In social media posts last week, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) called on the executive branch to revoke all federal funding to the Southside Family Charter School.

“This institution radicalizes students and pushes a left-wing agenda that demonizes ICE agents,” his Jan. 9 posts on Facebook and X read. “The federal government should not subsidize anti-American education.”

Southside Family Charter School, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s office, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts did not respond to requests for comment.