The Same Parents Protesting Critical Race Theory Are Now Attacking Mental Health Programs

In a not shocking at all turn of events, the same parents of high school students who are protesting the paper tiger of critical race theory in schools are now focused on eliminating mental health programs.

NBC News: Groups this year have voiced opposition to suicide prevention programs, mental health coordinators and social emotional learning, claiming they are being used to indoctrinate students.

“You can’t expect just to teach kids arithmetic and reading and look at their test scores and expect them to be decent human beings,” Edmiston said. “I personally cannot understand why a parent would not want their children to have knowledge of what depression looks like, what anxiety looks like.”

But that’s what’s now being debated in communities across the country. As school districts struggle to address accusations that administrators are indoctrinating students in progressive ideas about race, gender and sexuality, the same parents and activists making the claims have begun targeting school initiatives centered on students’ mental health and emotional well-being.

In Carmel, Indiana, activists swarmed school board meetings this fall to demand that a district fire its mental health coordinator from what they said was a “dangerous, worthless” job. And in Fairfax County, Virginia, a national activist group condemned school officials for sending a survey to students that included questions like “During the past week, how often did you feel sad?”

Many of the school programs under attack fall under the umbrella of social emotional learning, or SEL, a teaching philosophy popularized in recent years that aims to help children manage their feelings and show empathy for others. Conservative groups argue that social emotional learning has become a “Trojan horse” for critical race theory, a separate academic concept that examines how systemic racism is embedded in society. They point to SEL lessons that encourage children to celebrate diversity, sometimes introducing students to conversations about race, gender and sexuality.

Activists have accused school districts of using the programs to ask children invasive questions — about their feelings, sexuality and the way race shapes their lives — as part of a ploy to “brainwash” them with liberal values and to trample parents’ rights. Groups across the country recently started circulating forms to get parents to opt their children out of surveys designed to measure whether students are struggling with their emotions or being bullied, describing the efforts as “data mining” and an invasion of privacy.

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