Harvard is proving once again that it is no longer a bastion of academic rigor, but a glorified re-education camp. America’s oldest university is deputizing teachers to push fringe ideologies on the nation’s kids.
This fall, aspiring teachers can stroll through Harvard Yard to enroll in “Queering Education,” where they’ll sit through lectures on “practices, curricula, programs, and policies” to promote “gender and sexual identity development” for U.S. children and teens. They’ll dissect “the ‘hidden curriculum’ of heteronormativity and cisnormativity” in schools and learn how to shape “young people’s notions of gender and sexuality.” Future teachers will learn “why and how heteronormative schooling detrimentally impacts all students.”
The media swore that no one was pushing weird gender ideologies, critical race theory, or other radical philosophies in schools. Yet Harvard, arguably the most influential education school in the nation, has entire courses — and an initiative called QueerEd — dedicated to exactly that agenda.
Their course catalog is a progressive wish list: “Critical Race Theory in Education,” “Queer Nation: LGBTQ Protest, Politics, and Policy in the United States,” and “Emancipatory Inquiry: Listening, Learning, and Acting for Social Change.” That last one sounds tame, until you see from its description that it covers queer, feminist, and decolonial theories, plus walking methodologies and arts-based research.
Forget evidence-based scholarship. These future professors can finger-paint and walk their dogs for academic credit.
The numbers don’t lie. The words “equity” and “LGBTQ” appear 399 and 25 times in Harvard’s course catalog. “Literacy” shows up just 88 times, and “phonics” is nowhere to be found. Their priorities are clear — and they are not about educating children.
This ideological rot is not at all unique to Harvard. It’s the norm in teacher prep programs nationwide. The University of Wisconsin system has discussion circles reading “Anti-Racist Baby” and making Black Lives Matter friendship bracelets. The University of Florida fills its syllabi with such critical race theory icons as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gloria Ladson-Billings. Columbia has a course on “Exploring Gender and Sexuality in Everyday Curriculum Practices.” Some of the most assigned authors, like Paulo Freire and Gloria Watkins, are outright Marxists.
No wonder our schools are producing activists instead of educators.
Research confirms that teachers from these programs are no more effective than those trained through alternative routes or even career-switchers with no formal training in education.
If you’re wondering how schools went woke so fast, such teacher prep programs as these are ground zero, explicitly training teachers to indoctrinate the next generation.
This reality isn’t a secret. The former president of Columbia teachers college confirmed in 2006 that “The education our teachers receive today is determined more by ideology and personal predilection than the needs of our children.” Education Professor David Steiner admitted teacher prep programs are “intellectually barren” and more about shaping “the fundamental worldview of future teachers” than equipping them to educate anyone.
It is very tough to reform private institutions like Harvard — government oversight is limited. But there’s no reason public grants should fund this nonsense. Harvard’s Gender Equity Office and courses like “Queering Education” need to go for the university to regain any credibility.
For public institutions, solutions are much clearer: accrediting standards should demand training in classroom management and proven instructional methods, not ideological crusades. State laws can pull funding from programs rooted in radical ideologies. And if all else fails, follow the University of Chicago’s 1997 playbook and abolish these programs outright.
Policymakers cannot let this sham continue. Teachers deserve training that makes them effective, not indoctrinated. Students deserve teachers who prioritize learning over ideology. It’s time to pull the plug on this madness and get education back to basics.
Daniel Buck is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network, and a proud former English teacher.
