Supporting material in a lawsuit by two Missouri teachers shows their school district’s required training program, which is labeled as “anti- racist ,” is actually hateful, radical, and, by any reasonable definition , racist to its core.

Henderson, et. Al. v. School District of Springfield is a case wherein the teachers allege their speech was unconstitutionally compelled. At the district court level, an Obama-appointed judge ruled against the teachers on summary judgment and even ordered that they pay attorneys' fees. The case is being appealed , and its prospects in the 8th Circuit are much better.

Let’s focus not on First Amendment law but on the underlying dispute about teacher training. Because the required training material, in this case, is genuinely appalling.

Consider the slideshow that was part of the “Fall District-Wide Equity Training.” It begins with this gratuitous “land acknowledgment,” to wit: “As we begin our training, we want to acknowledge and honor the Native and Indigenous Peoples whose land we currently gather on. ... In doing social justice work, it is important we acknowledge the dark history and violence against Native and Indigenous People across the world.”

Moving on, the “guiding principles” of the training include directives to “lean into your discomfort” and to “speak YOUR truth and from YOUR lived experiences.” But the rest of the training rejects as flat-out wrong anybody’s “truth” that doesn’t place racial and sexual “identity” as a primary, controlling element of human interactions. Teachers who disagreed were told in no uncertain terms, in front of colleagues, that they were wrong.

The “overview” of the training says its first goal is to “learn about oppression, white supremacy, and systemic racism,” followed by the goal of “identity development and understanding.”

Slide 16 is where the anti-American bilge begins.

Rather than merely including slavery and Jim Crow racism as part of the curriculum, it insists that “in the United States, systems of oppression (like systemic racism) are woven into the very foundation of American culture, society, and laws [my emphasis added]. Examples of systems of oppression include sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, ageism, and anti-Semitism. Society’s institutions, such as government, education [emphasis in the original], and culture, all contribute or reinforce the oppression of marginalized social groups while elevating dominant social groups.”

A later slide laments the “dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with ‘whiteness’….” A video on “systemic racism” pushes a debatable “history” followed by a call to “support systemic changes” such as “reform [the] criminal justice system.”

This is followed by a slide proclaiming that “white supremacy captures the all-encompassing centrality [my emphasis] and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white…. For sociologists, white supremacy is a highly descriptive term for the culture we live in; a culture which positions white people and all that is associated with them (whiteness) as ideal.” Another video puts a large part of the blame for white supremacy on the “scientific revolution.”

Another slide says that “covert white supremacy” includes (among other examples) “colorblindness,” “English-only initiatives,” “white silence,” “cultural appropriation,” “white savior complex,” and “calling the police on black people.” (It doesn’t say what to do if a black person has actually committed a crime.)

The training then advocates active “anti-racism,” which it defines as “the work of actively opposing racism by advocating for changes in political, economic, and social life. ... To fight against systemic racism means to buck norms.” And “The most important thing to reiterate here is that we will actively oppose racism by advocating for change. There is a proactive element in place.”

Oh — and “staff at every level must be willing to be uncomfortable in their struggle for black students,” while “principals must clearly and consistently communicate the anti-racist vision for their school.”

Administrators sent emails to teachers before the training saying, “It will never be possible for us to be colorblind, and we shouldn’t ever want to be,” and says staff should begin the work of “reparation.”

Again, this training was mandatory. Written directives say that if teachers do not attend, “they will be docked pay.” Later mandatory computer “modules” endorse the Black Lives Matter movement, along with protests that make people “a little uneasy” — like, you know, violent riots. And so outrageously on.

This entire training exercise is not just wrongheaded but nauseating on two levels. First, the content itself is divisive and, frankly, just plain offensive. The whole idea of “whiteness” is, by definition, racist. The notions that racism has been not just an element of American history but “woven into the very foundation” of this nation, that “white supremacy” has an “all-encompassing centrality” in our culture, and that colorblindness actually equals racism, are all radical and abhorrently fallacious.

At a more basic level, though, public schools have no business pushing politicized narratives and political activism toward particular goals (as opposed to just generally promoting civic engagement). Teachers have no business straying from their subjects to take on “social justice work.” It is not a school’s job to “advocat[e] for changes in political, economic, and social life” — especially when schools nationwide are doing a pathetic job just of teaching reading, math, science, and basic elements of civics.

Imagine if teachers began instructing students that they should become political activists to completely “upend the welfare state” in pursuit of pure free-market economics, or to agitate for increased defense spending to oust evil authoritarians throughout the world. The same people pushing this racialist garbage would yell bloody murder against the politicization of public schools. And they would be right to do so — not because of the specific content being taught, but because it’s wrong to politicize public elementary and secondary schools, period.

This stricture against politicized schools should be particularly strong where parents are given no choice of which public school their children will attend. The government has no right to conscript children, against their parents’ wills, into political indoctrination centers.

Here’s hoping the two Missouri teachers win their First Amendment lawsuit .

Legal victory or not, however, they deserve credit for highlighting just how pernicious, just how poisonous, and how flat-out racist today’s misnamed “anti-racism” trainings are. The trainings must be not merely repurposed but eradicated, razed, with not a remaining trace.