Mitch McConnell Demands Removal of The 1619 Project From Federal Grant Programs

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is continuing his fight to take down the 1619 Project.

The Republican politician sent out a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona where he demanded the project’s removal from federal grant programs, Politico reports. The leader’s issue with the curriculum stems from the project’s focus on how slavery has impacted modern forms of racial injustice and systemic inequality.

McConnell feels The New York Times 1619 Project provides a “re-orient” view of American history “away from their intended purposes toward a politicized and divisive agenda,” CNN reports.

“Actual, trained, credentialed historians with diverse political views have debunked the project’s many factual and historical errors, such as the bizarre and inaccurate notion that preserving slavery was a primary driver of the American Revolution,” McConnell stated in the letter. “One renowned historian called the project ‘so wrong in so many ways.’ Citing this debunked advocacy confirms that your Proposed Priorities would not focus on critical thinking or accurate history, but on spoon-feeding students a slanted story.”

Like McConnell, many Republican figures have publicly expressed their opposition to the 1619 Project being added to the curriculum in public schools. First introduced in 2019 by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine, the long-form journalism project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative,” NY Times reports.

While Donald Trump proudly denounced the project during his administration and even threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that taught it, President Biden has proposed grant programs to schools that would incorporate tools like the 1619 Project into their lesson plans.

But if McConnell has his way, schools will start weeding out forms of incorporating the deemed liberal policy within the public school curriculum.

“Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil,” McConnell wrote.

Trump is probably happy to see McConnell continuing his work at attacking the 1619 Project. But, let’s see who has the final say in the matter.