Lately there’s been much hand-wringing punditry about the education “culture wars,” with the mainstream media blaming right-wing extremists for heated fights over social studies, school boards, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), library books, and what-have-you. But what if right-wing extremism is mostly a figment of the mainstream media’s collective imagination? And what if it’s actually those enlightened pundits who are fueling the fights?
Education coverage often seems bent on ignoring or caricaturing conservative concerns, signaling to readers that the Right’s complaints are ignorant or insincere. This predictably frustrates the Right, ramping up populist outrage. And round and round we go.
Consider this winter’s AP African-American-history clash. When Florida governor Ron DeSantis objected to the politicized and polemical elements of the pilot course, major media portrayed him as a scheming, censorious bigot. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin accused him of mounting a “full-blown white supremacist” attack on “fact-based history.” The New York Times featured the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund declaring that “Florida is at the forefront of a nationwide campaign to silence Black voices” and “erase” black history.