US President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday warning funding for universities and schools that are “indoctrinating” students, calling on the Treasury Department to review their tax-exempt statuses.
“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” Trump said. “Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” Trump tweeted.
Trump has complained before about “radical” views being taught in schools. In his Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore on July 3, Trump blamed violence in cities with Democratic leaders on “indoctrination and bias in education, journalism and other cultural institutions.”
“Our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains,” Trump said.
“The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats, in every case, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions.”
“Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition,” he said.
Most private and public colleges and universities in the USA qualify for tax-exempt status. However, the Government criteria for tax exemption based on educational value says the process for determining if any ideological viewpoint is disqualifying for its status.
“Advocacy of a particular position or viewpoint may be educational if there is a sufficiently full and fair exposition of pertinent facts to permit an individual or the public to form an independent opinion or conclusion,” it says.
This week Fox News host Laura Ingraham said in a segment that liberals want schools to “indoctrinate” students, with a goal under a Biden administration of turning “your kids into hard-core activists by remaking education from top to bottom.” Trump frequently tweets about her show.
“Every subject, every extracurricular activity will be perverted to turn your kids into mini Ilhan Omars,” Ingraham said on her show Wednesday, referring to the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota. “Think about losing your child to the sort of whacked-out thinking that parents and alumni have allowed to dominate college campuses,” she continued.
In the USA, the violent George Iloyd protests have drawn ire from general public as Leftist universities were the epicenters of protests that have largely been aimed against the Trump administration.
The Washington Examiner explained, “Universities in particular have become epicenters of protest activity that has largely been aimed against the Trump administration and its allies. Efforts to ‘cancel’ or interrupt controversial speakers have become the norm as well as adding public pressure on leadership to comply with demands that meet students’ standards of inclusivity and personal needs.”
The report said, “Conservatives have long claimed that academia has been pushed to the left, and that trend has accelerated following the highly polarizing election of 2016. Trump and his conservative allies have accused universities of suppressing free speech toward students, staff, and visitors who don’t comply with left-wing ideology.”
The Examiner noted a year ago Trump issued an executive order to make federal funding contingent on commitment to free speech.
Last year, Trump also signed an executive order that threatened to withhold research-related funding to colleges and universities that do not uphold free speech on their campuses.
