GOP Lawmakers Push to Ban Woke Curriculum in Public Schools
By Insider NJ |
March 27, 2025, 3:18 pm | in
Caucus Room
Donald Trump’s decisive victory in November and executive orders signed his first two days in office sparked an abandonment of diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs by higher education institutions and companies soon after, for financial rather than ideological reasons. However, a coalition of blue state attorneys general including New Jersey’s Matt Platkin have called Trump’s order “toothless” and guided public K-12 schools to continue DEI instruction and programs unless the law changes.
Greg McGuckin and Paul Kanitra want the law changed. The assemblymen on Monday introduced legislation (A5560) to repeal the 2021 law that requires diversity and inclusion instruction in schools. That law requires school districts to incorporate instruction on diversity and inclusion “in an appropriate place in the curriculum,” with a particular focus on unconscious bias; for example, all white people are racist and all Black people are victims.
“DEI is not appropriate in any part of our children’s curriculum. It is nothing more than rebranded Marxist ideology that destroys people, relationships and communities, and in schools, wrecks merit-based rewards and an ambition to excel,” McGuckin (R-Ocean) said. “True diversity, equity and inclusion leads to free associations which foster innovation and progress. The leftist DEI being forced in our schools does not. It is garbage and needs to go.”
In the 2010s, schools across the country started implementing DEI content into curriculum. According to Pew Research in 2023, about 30% of districts nationwide cited such content—lessons on systemic racism and LGBTQ+ history—as important in their mission statements, with Democrat-leaning districts skewing higher. Under the previous administration, federal grants and guidance encouraged that content.
However, by mid-2024, at least 23 states including Texas and Florida, had enacted laws restricting DEI instruction. As per President Trump’s executive orders on Jan. 20 and 21, 2025, institutions that receive federal funding must dismantle DEI programs or risk losing funding. The U.S. Department of Education recently established a portal where parents, students and community members could report “illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning.” A joint letter dated March 5, 2025, from 15 attorneys general argued those executive orders have no impact on existing law.
McGuckin and Kanitra pointed to the fallout from Gov. Phil Murphy’s Covid school closures—among the longest in the nation—that caused significant drops in test scores in English language learning, math and science. Students have yet to reach proficiency levels last seen in 2019, before closures.
“It boggles my mind why ‘the experts’ think telling students their skin color determines their success or failure is true or helpful. They are either stupid or evil, or maybe brilliant, because the experts pushing this stuff are quite wealthy I hear,” Kanitra (R-Ocean). “But I’m a practical guy and I’d love our New Jersey schools to be great again, and they can do that by getting back to basics. Get the social experimentation out of our classrooms.”
