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Performers Protest Name Change at Kennedy Center by Cancelling

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2025 //
5

Trump’s brazen appropriation of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was shocking. Its board has been bipartisan since its opening more than fifty years ago. Trump fired the board members named by Biden, replaced them with his loyal allies, named himself chairman of the board, then was shocked, shocked, when the board decided to put his name on the Center, now the Donald J. Trump & John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The logo was designed before the vote.

The name-change was disrespectful of President Kennedy and typically self-aggrandizing for Trump.

The Center was first conceived as a “national cultural center” in 1955 during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1964, Congress named the Center as a living tribute to the assassinated President Kennedy, who was a lover of the arts and who helped raise money for the new Center. Only Congress can change its name.

It opened on September 9, 1971, with Leonard Bernstein’s controversial MASS, commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Read its history here. The MASS was both anti-war and anti-establishment and was a mixture of styles and genres.

In Trump’s many years as a resident of New York City, he never showed any interest in the arts.

Two performers who were scheduled to appear at the Kennedy Center recently canceled their appearances. (Many others had previously canceled after Trump’s takeover, including the blockbuster show HAMILTON, which was supposed to run from March 3 to April 26, 2026.)

One was Chuck Redd, a musician, who had been host of the Center’s annual Christmas Eve Jazz Concert for nearly two decades. Redd objected to the name change and canceled his appearance, which canceled the event as well.

Richard Grennell, Trump’s choice to be president of the Center, sent a letter to Redd informing him that the Center would be suing him for $1 million.

Adele M. Stan wrote in The New Republic:

The grounds for the suit aren’t entirely clear. The thing is, the Kennedy Center lost zero dollars due to Redd’s cancellation; it was a free concert. The only people who lost money due to vibrophonist’s protest were Redd and likely the musicians who were scheduled to perform with him. And, of course, one could argue that Redd’s move actually saved the Kennedy Center money, on staff and heating and the like.

But that didn’t stop Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell from either lying about that or displaying ignorance in his letter threatening Redd: “Your dismal ticket sales and lack of donor support, combined with your last-minute cancellation has cost us considerably,” Grenell wrote to Redd in an undated letter released on December 26. “This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt.”

How one has “dismal ticket sales” for a free concert is never explained. However, the Washington Post reports that sales for tickets that cost actual money, such as those for the National Symphony Orchestra or the ballet, have plummeted since Grenell took over the Kennedy Center, reaching their lowest levels since the pandemic.

A second performer who took umbrage at the politicization of the Kennedy Center was a country singer from Mobile, Alabama, named Kristy Lee.

You may or may not have heard of her (count me among the not), but she sure nailed it.

The Daily Beast reported:

The artist who pulled out of a performance at the Kennedy Center after Donald Trump slapped his name on the storied arts institution is being lauded by fans for her decision.

Kristy Lee, a folk singer from Mobile, Alabama, told fans in a statement that she couldn’t “sleep at night” if she went through with her performance at the former John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which was scheduled for Jan. 14.

“When American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else’s ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night,” Lee shared with her 42,000 Facebook followers on Monday.

As of publication, the independent folk singer received nearly 300,000 likes on her Facebook post, compared to her 42,000 followers. 

Her cancellation came after the White House announced Thursday that the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts would be renamed to include Trump’s name following a vote by the venue’s board, which is now stacked with MAGA loyalists.

“I won’t lie to you, canceling shows hurts. This is how I keep the lights on,” the independent artist wrote. “But losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck.”

After Lee made headlines for pulling out of the show, she said she was flooded with messages of support—and even monetary donations. The singer later announced she would perform a live show from home in response to the outpouring of love.”I believe in the power of truth, and I believe in the power of people,” Lee wrote on Facebook. Chad Edwards/Courtesy of Kristy Lee/Chad Edwards 

“I want to thank everyone who’s reached out, and especially those who sent a surprise Venmo,” she wrote. “That kind of kindness keeps gas in the tank and songs on the road, and I don’t take it lightly.”

A spokesperson for Lee told The Daily Beast that the singer cited “institutional integrity” as her primary reason for canceling her performance at the venue, where ticket sales have reportedly plummeted since Trump’s takeover.

“As an artist, Kristy believes publicly funded cultural spaces must remain free from political capture, self-promotion, or ideological pressure,” the spokesperson said, adding that her decision was not directed at any patrons, staff, or artists at the Center. 

“Performing under these circumstances would conflict with the values of artistic freedom, public trust, and constitutional principles that the Kennedy Center was created to uphold.”

Trump set his sights on the Center months ago and has repeatedly suggested, both in speeches and on social media, that it be renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center. The board now includes White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, second lady Usha Vance, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, and Allison Lutnick, the wife of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

A source told CNN that Trump phoned into Thursday’s board meeting ahead of the vote. A day later, the president’s name was swiftly and conspicuously added to the building, which now reads: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.

Redd and Lee are the latest to cancel. Ticket sales have plummeted since Trump took control of the Kennedy Center in February.

The Washington Post reported:

In the weeks after the February board changes, at least 20 productions were canceled or postponed, with names such as comedian and actor Issa Rae pulling out of planned performances at the center, and musical artist Ben Folds and opera singer Renée Fleming saying they were stepping down as artistic advisers.

Categories Accountability, Art, Censorship, Trump

Dan Rather: Why CBS Censored Story About Inhumane Conditions in Terror Prison

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2025 //
7

Dan Rather, legendary newsman, spent decades at CBS. Now, in retirement, he continues to have good sources at the network. In his blog “Steady,” he explains the back story of the censorship of the “60 Minutes” expose of inhumane conditions at the prison in El Salvador to which the Trump administration sent alleged terrorists.

He titled this piece “One Courageous Correspondent.”

CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi is walking the walk.

What she has done for journalism in the last two days is about as important, and courageous as it gets. With her cherished journalistic institution threatened, and her career on the line, Alfonsi is sounding the alarm that “60 Minutes” is sliding further into an increasingly irretrievable and dark place.

The Steady team spoke to sources inside the broadcast today to find out exactly what happened when the new CBS News boss, Bari Weiss, spiked a highly promoted piece at the last minute.

On background, we learned that Alfonsi and producer Oriana Zill de Granados had for months been working on a story about the Trump administration’s illegal deportations of Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

They interviewed former inmates about the brutal and torturous conditions inside the notorious prison. This is the place where Trump sent hundreds of Venezuelans he alleged were terrorists with gang ties. Human Rights Watch found that the 252 men were subject to “arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.”

As part of the reporting, they repeatedly asked the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department for comment, but received no response. That is no surprise since this story would be another black mark on Trump’s draconian immigration agenda.

Last Thursday, after the story had been fully fact-checked and legally vetted by CBS lawyers and its Standards and Practices team, the piece was screened for a fifth and final time for CBS News executives. Weiss was supposed to attend but did not.

She did, however, screen the story several hours later. At 11:50 p.m. Thursday, Weiss emailed the broadcast’s executive producer, Tanya Simon, outlining a few issues she had with the piece that she called “incredibly powerful.”

On Friday morning, Alfonsi made several changes to the script to address Weiss’s concerns, believed it was ready for air, and recorded her in-studio introduction 

The listing of Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” pieces was released, which included Alfonsi’s “Inside CECOT.” Promos began to air, including on social media. The “Inside CECOT” clip on Instagram quickly racked up 4 million views, significantly more than usual.

But by Saturday morning, something changed. In an unprecedented move, Weiss reached out to Simon again. Her biggest issue now was the lack of response from the Trump administration. It was the first time she raised this concern.

“I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record,” Weiss wrote. She even provided phone numbers for Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration policies, and border czar Tom Homan.

Not long after, Weiss killed the story, though promos kept running and the piece was still listed as airing.

Late on Sunday afternoon, just three hours before air time, “60 Minutes” posted an editor’s note on social media: “The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast.”

Within two hours, Alfonsi sent an email to her fellow correspondents and the production team that worked on the piece. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met — is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” she wrote.

She continued, “Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”

Alfonsi then addressed Weiss’s issue with the administration’s decision not to respond. “Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”

Alfonsi is the definition of courage. Kudos to her for speaking truth to power. The hard-won reputation of America’s most trusted television news program, and a big-time money maker for Paramount, is suddenly on the line.

During the CBS News morning editorial call on Monday, Weiss defended her decision. “I held a ‘60 Minutes’ story because it was not ready… We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera.”

Nothing happens in a vacuum in Trump World. The killing of the CECOT piece is no exception.

In August, David Ellison, the scion of Oracle founder and Trump supporter Larry Ellison, purchased CBS parent company Paramount. The acquisition by Ellison’s Skydance needed administration approval, which Trump’s regulators signed off on to the deep-pocketed Ellisons.

They signed off only after CBS agreed to settle a specious lawsuit in which Trump accused the network of deceitfully editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the presidential campaign.

As per usual, Trump’s warm and fuzzy feelings toward his sycophants was fleeting.

“For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover,’ than they have ever treated me before,” Trump posted on social media last week.

Friday night, at a rally in North Carolina, Trump said, “I love the new owners of CBS. Something happens to them, though. ‘60 Minutes’ has treated me worse under the new ownership… they just keep hitting me, it’s crazy.”

How Trump feels about the Ellisons is especially important right now as Paramount Skydance attempts a hostile takeover of another media giant, Warner Bros. Discovery. And once again, the Ellisons, who have been major donors to Trump, need governmental approval.

The president’s hatred of the revered news magazine seems to have been rekindled by a recent Lesley Stahl interview with the president’s newest nemesis, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Right after that interview aired, he posted, “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP. Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”

Not coincidentally, “Bari Weiss got personally involved,” with stories about politics after the Greene interview, a “60 Minutes” insider told CNN.

This brings us back to Alfonsi’s piece, which had the unfortunate luck of being scheduled to air the evening before David Ellison upped his bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Staying in Trump’s good graces is, well, paramount at the moment.

The day Skydance bought Paramount was a dark day for CBS News and journalism as a whole. When Weiss, with no television reporting or news production experience, was installed as CBS News editor-in-chief, my heart sank again.

If the Trump administration doesn’t want to comment, they won’t, and didn’t. It happens dozens of times a day, every day to every journalist trying to cover this facts-adverse administration. No amount of wishing, or asking, or begging will make it happen. Weiss’s knee-jerk reaction was just an excuse. 

The day has been filled with talk of journalists walking away from “60 Minutes.” As one insider told us, we have got nothing left but our integrity.

What happened to Alfonsi’s piece is no less hard to take even though anyone could see it coming. The barbarians are no longer at the gate. They have breached the walls and are now running the show.

Categories Billionaires, Censorship, Media

Censored “60 Minutes” Program Posted on Reddit

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2025 //
7

As has been widely reported, CBS’ “60 Minutes” announced that it would release a program about the notorious prison in El Salvador– CECOT–where the U.S. sent migrant prisoners, who were allegedly hardened criminals, “the worst of the worst.”

The program interviews released prisoners, who describe torture, beatings, and inhumane conditions that would never be permitted in U.S. prisons. It also reviewed records and concluded that few of those sent to CECOT were hardened criminals or terrorists.

Bari Weiss, the editor-in/chief of CBS News, stopped the release of the segment because no one in the Trump administration agreed to respond to it. Critics said that if that was legitimate grounds for blocking a story, the Trump administration could block all critical coverage by refusing to comment.

After CBS was sold to the Ellison billionaires, David Ellison hired Bari Weiss to be editor-in-chief and bought her website “The Free Press” for $150 million. Weiss has no experience in the broadcast industry.

Apparently the show aired in Canada, where a viewer copied it and posted it on Reddit.

Here is the link on Reddit. Decide for yourself whether Weiss was right to stop the show until someone from the Trump administration commented.

“Go to ProgressiveHQr/ProgressiveHQ13h agoCrystalVibes52

The 60 minutes interview that was not aired in the US was aired and recorded in Canada and posted on YouTube. It has since been taken down. No worries though, I screen recorded it.“

See it before it is taken down.

It was originally posted on YouTube but was taken down.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Trump

We Will Never Learn What Is in the Epstein Files

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2025 //
7

Many powerful people have a vested interest in making sure that the public never sees what and who is in the Epstein files. Democrats, Republicans, powerful corporate leaders. They prefer to keep the files under lock and key.

But didn’t Congress just pass a law requiring the release of those files? Didn’t Trump sign the legislation? Even though no legislation was needed, because Trump always had the power to release the files.

Ethan Faulkner, who blogs at Substack as the “Common Sense Rebels,” says that the files that are released will be carefully redacted and curated. Most, he writes, will never be released. Who used Epstein’s services? The names the public wants to know will be blacked out.

He writes:

Everyone imagines a government cover-up as a team of men in suits throwing files into a furnace.

That’s fiction.
The real cover-up is boring. It’s procedural. It’s legal.
And it works.
The United States doesn’t destroy evidence. It manufactures delays.
It fabricates uncertainty.
It deploys exemptions instead of fire.
The truth isn’t burned.
It’s redacted.
And the machinery that performs this ritual — the system that is right now digesting the Epstein files — is something I’m calling:
The Redaction Engine.
Once you understand this machine, the Transparency Act stops looking like a win and starts looking like a transmission belt feeding secrets into a shredder that no one touches by hand.

  1. The Architecture of Obscurity
    FOIA was sold as a “Right to Know” law.
    What Congress actually built is a filtration system — and one that agencies quickly learned how to weaponize.
    Inside the FOIA framework sits a set of exemptions that function like hardware components in an industrial shredder. The Redaction Engine uses them as gears.
    According to the technical audit in The Redaction Engine: National Security Information Control Architectures , the most powerful of these gears are:
    Exemption 1 — The National Security Black Hole
    Everything “classified” stays sealed.
    But classification isn’t an objective fact — it’s a prediction.
    The law only requires a “reasonable expectation” of harm.
    Speculation becomes legal justification.
    Courts almost never challenge it. They review whether the stamp was applied correctly — not whether the classification itself is absurd. That is not oversight. That is choreography.
    Exemption 3 — The Files That Don’t Exist
    This one is an entire legal universe.
    Statutes like the CIA Information Act let agencies designate “Operational Files” that don’t even have to be searched. They can legally pretend an entire category of documents has left the physical plane.
    The public can’t request what the government asserts is not real.
    Exemption 5 — The “Embarrassment Privilege”
    The “Deliberative Process” clause was meant to protect drafts and brainstorming.
    Instead, agencies use it to hide:

*evidence of wrongdoing

*internal dissent

*contradictory analysis

-*early warnings that were ignored

It’s the single most abused exemption in the system.
And then there’s the Mosaic Theory.
This is the government’s favorite intellectual cheat code.
It says:
Even harmless information must be hidden, because it might complete a larger secret picture.
Meaning they can withhold anything, because everything is theoretically meaningful.
This is the neural network of the Redaction Engine.
A legal philosophy that transforms silence into law.

2. The “Active Investigation” Loophole

If the national-security exemptions are the shield, Exemption 7(A) is the sword.
This single exemption — explained in The Active Investigation Shield in Federal Information Law — is the most devastating transparency-killer in the entire system.
It says the government can withhold any record if releasing it could reasonably be expected to interfere with an enforcement proceeding.
Notice that phrase again:
Could. Reasonably. Be expected.
Before 1986, the government had to prove disclosure would interfere.
Then Congress changed one word —
and agencies gained the power to hide anything under the logic of “maybe.”

This birthed the most sinister creature in federal information law:


3. The Zombie Investigation.

An investigation that:

*is technically open

*is not being actively worked

*has no timeline

*and can remain “pending” for decades

Jimmy Hoffa’s file?

Withheld for twenty years because “new leads could theoretically emerge.”

This is not oversight.

This is a loophole weaponized into a vault.

Once an investigation is declared “active,” the Redaction Engine locks the file indefinitely.

At this point, open the link and read the rest for yourselves!

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Corruption, Fraud, Scandal

Trump Moves to Shut Down US Department of Education

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2025 //
11

Trump said he would close the Department of Education, and he’s well on the way to closing a Congressionally-authorized Department without asking Congress for permission.

He and wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon have decided that the Department is responsible for stagnant test scores. Nothing could be stupider but what would one expect from people who look with contempt on education. Especially public schools.

I cannot explain their thinking but know this: Trump wants to destroy research into science and medicine. He wants to control the curriculum and to ban teaching about race, ethnicity and gender.

As Forrest Gump’s mother taught him: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Michael C. Bender of The New York Times wrote:

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday an aggressive plan to continue dismantling the Education Department, ending the agency’s role in supporting academics at elementary and high schools and in expanding access to college.

Those responsibilities will instead be largely taken over by the Labor Department.

Additional changes include moving a child care grant program for college students and foreign medical school accreditation to the Health and Human Services Department, and transferring Fulbright programs and international education grants to the State Department. The Interior Department will take over the Indian Education Office.

Shifting duties away from the Education Department aligns with President Trump’s goal of eventually closing the agency, a move opposed by teachers’ unions and student rights groups and one that can only be accomplished with an act of Congress.

Less clear was how moving programs to other agencies aligned with Mr. Trump’s reason for closing the Education Department, which he has said was to give states more power in shaping school policies. A senior official at the Education Department said the changes would streamline bureaucracy so that “at the end of the day, it means more dollars to the classroom.”

“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement, adding that the changes were an attempt to “refocus education on students, families and schools.”

The plan drew some immediate blowback from Republicans, including Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who said in a statement that the “department’s core offices are not discretionary functions.”

“They are foundational,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. “They safeguard civil rights, expand opportunity, and ensure that every child, in every community, has the chance to learn, grow and succeed on equal footing.”

Kevin Carey, the vice president for education and work at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said the changes were “wasteful, wrong and illegal.”

“Secretary McMahon is creating a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that will waste millions of taxpayer dollars by outsourcing vital programs to other agencies,” Mr. Carey said. “It’s like paying a contractor double to mow your lawn and then claiming you’ve cut the home maintenance budget. It makes no sense.”

Administration officials have pointed to the recent federal shutdown to justify the moves, noting that schools remained open and students continued to be taught despite nearly all of the Education Department’s staff having been furloughed.

The department has posted several social media memes making such a point. In an X post last week, the department announced that federal workers were returning to the office, adding, “But let’s be honest: did you really miss us at all?”

Liz Huston, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was committed to shrinking the agency “while still ensuring efficient delivery of funds and essential programs.”

“The Democrat shutdown made one thing unmistakably clear: Students and teachers don’t need Washington bureaucrats micromanaging their classrooms,” Ms. Huston said.

Republicans in charge of the House and Senate in Washington have signaled little enthusiasm for voting on a bill to close the department, which was created by an act of Congress in 1979.

Mr. Trump has also shown little interest in collaborating with Congress in his bid to reshape the federal government, and his administration has continued to seek ways to diminish the Education Department.

“We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Mr. Trump said in March after signing an executive orderthat directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start razing the department.

Ms. McMahon’s first act after joining Mr. Trump’s cabinet this year was to instruct the department’s staff to prepare for its “final mission” of shuttering the agency. The following week, Ms. McMahon fired 1,315 of those workers.

The layoffs decimated the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which was created to enforce Congress’s promise of equal educational opportunity for all students, and eliminated the agency’s research armdedicated to tracking U.S. student achievement, which for many students is at three-decade lows.

In July, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for mass layoffs at the department, the administration moved adult education, family literacy programs and career and technical education to the Labor Department.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Health, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Pennsylvania: Democrats Sweep School Board Races, Ousting Extremists

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2025 //
11

In Pennsylvania school board races, extremists who provoked battles over culture war issues were ousted. One winner said that parents looked forward to the days when school board meetings were “boring,” not divisive.

Pittsburgh’s NPR station WESA reported:

A slate of Democratic candidates won four seats on the Pine-Richland school board last night and unseated one incumbent with ties to a statewide movement of conservative education leaders.

The sweep capped an Election Day marked by Democratic victories in school board races statewide.

Pine-Richland electee Randy Augustine and his peers on the Together for PR slate won over voters with slogans like “excellence over extremism.”

“School board positions are theoretically supposed to be non-partisan, non-political positions,” Augustine said. “A number of the school board members were trying to push a political agenda, focusing on culture war issues, not focusing on the students.”

The Republican-led school board initiated policies that gave board members the final say over which books were included in school libraries and challenged books with LGBTQ characters. The district’s teachers union issued a vote of no confidence in the majority of school board members this spring.

“ It was becoming toxic, and the turmoil, I think, was spreading,” said fellow Together for PR winner Melissa Vecchi. “People just wanted to see it back to boring.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Democrats, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Parent Groups, Pennsylvania

Join a “NO KINGS” Rally Tomorrow

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2025 //
18

Tomorrow, millions of people will join #NO KINGS rallies across the country to protest the egregious actions of the Trump administration.

Find your nearest rally here.

The Trump administration, enabled by complicit Republicans in Congress, has betrayed our Constitution repeatedly.

Such as, sending troops to peaceful cities, against the wishes of their elected officials.

Allowing masked ICE agents to snatch people from their homes, their workplaces, and the streets without a warrant.

Allowing ICE agents to use unnecessary force.

Taking “the power of the purse” away from Congress, whose Republican majority has willingly abandoned its Constitutional role.

Establishing tariffs based on Trump’s whims, not only disrupting the global economic order, but hurting American farmers and increasing inflation for all Americans.

Enriching himself and his family by making real estate deals with foreign powers, selling crypto to receive tribute of billions of dollars, selling Trump merchandise, and accepting a gift of a $400 million jet plane from a foreign power (an act forbidden as an emolument by the Constitution).

Politicizing the Justice Departnent as a personal Trump vendetta campaign against those his enemies.

Purging veteran career civil servants who won’t bend their knee to Trump.

Twisting civil rights enforcement to be the opposite of the law’s intent. Instead of protecting people of color and other minorities who have suffered from generations of discrimination, civil rights protection now applies to whites, who allegedly suffer whenever any institution tries to help minorities advance (DEI).

Firing any government lawyers who were assigned to investigate his criminal activities.

The list goes on and on.

Trump acts as if he is a king. The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by six conservatives, have granted him “absolute immunity” from prosecution for anything he does as President. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution allows this grant of royal power.

And that is why we must show to express the wishes of the people: NO KINGS!

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

John Thompson on Hanna Rosin’s Podcasts about Oklahoma Education, Part II

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2025 //
8

In part two of Hannah Rosin’s podcast about former Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, Walters consistently responded to criticisms of his actions by calling them lies. My take on podcast part one is here.

And spoiler alert! Rosin closes with recent headline-grabbing stories about Walters, setting the stage for his latest assault on public education.

First, in August it was learned that his ideology test for teachers started with: “What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?”

Second, Walters ordered all public schools to observe a moment of silence in honor of the death of Charlie Kirk. Now, the “State Department of Education says it’s investigating claims that some districts did not comply.”

Third, “Walters announced a plan to create chapters of Turning Point USA—the conservative organization co-founded by Kirk—at every Oklahoma high school.”

And, Walters, who has resigned as Superintendent, is now the CEO of the Teachers Freedom Alliance, which is part of the Freedom Foundation, a “far-right, anti-labor union think tank.”

So, it is not surprising that Walters responded to Rosin’s questions by attacking teachers’ unions which he said, “have been one of the most negative forces in recent American history. I’ve never seen anything like it—the ideology they’ve pushed on kids. It’s unfathomable to me that they did that.”

Rosin and Walters started part two with a discussion about his new curriculum, that has been paused by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which has “dozens of references to Christianity,” and “an instruction to high-school history students to identify discrepancies in the 2020 election.

Walters then described the 2020 election as “one of the most controversial, the most controversial election in American history.

Rosin pushed back, citing Walters’ mandate to “Identify discrepancies in election results,” which, of course, challenges the true facts about the election.

Rosin then brought up the controversy where board members saw nude pictures on TV during the board meeting.

Walters’ replied, “they’re outrageous liars.”

He then claimed that the board members brought up that “whole concoction” in order to stop the approval of “a new private school that has American values … [they] tried to hijack the board. They tried to hijack the agenda, the vote, everything else.”

Walters’ also attacked “radical gender ideology.”

Walters’ curriculum also focused on identifying “the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab and the economic and social effects of state and local lockdowns.”

Rosin then interviewed a teacher who in 2016 told his majority Latino students something he would never say now:  “’I would never vote for something that would bring harm to you.’” Which, he said, put his students at ease.”

The teacher is now debating about whether he can post a picture of John Lewis, with the quote, “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up.”

Rosin again spoke with Summer Boismier who lost her license due to having The Fault in Our Stars, The Hate U Give, and the Twilight saga among the 500 books in her classroom. Boismier has “applied to more than 300 positions—with zero offers.” She now calls herself “educational kryptonite”

In conclusion, Walters says:

I went to war with a group that has an unlimited amount of money, nearly an unlimited amount of political power, that had bought off so many elected officials, that have bought off so many different interest groups. And we took on an education establishment of administrators, school-board associations, teachers’ unions.

Now he leads Teacher Freedom Alliance, which is a part of the Freedom Foundation which claims to be:

More than a think tank. We’re more than an action tank. We’re a battle tank that’s battering the entrenched power of left-wing government union bosses who represent a permanent lobby for bigger government, higher taxes, and radical social agendas.

Walters claims he’ll lead the war for:

Educators’ real freedom, freedom from the liberal, woke agenda that has corrupted public education. We will arm teachers with the tools, support, and freedom they need, without forcing them to give up their values

By the way, there are about 4 million teachers in the U.S. And when I last checked the Teacher Freedom web site, they proclaimed that they represented 2,748 teachers, presumably, in the nation. Now I can’t find their numbers on the site. So, I wonder whether Walters’ army is up to the task of defeating public school educators and their norms.

And, at least according to the Tulsa World, Walters is being replaced by Lindel Fields, a retired CareerTech administrator, who it is hoped will “calm the waters.”

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Extremism, Oklahoma

John Thompson Reviews Hanna Rosin’s Report on the Education Mess in Oklahoma: Part 1

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2025 //
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John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, listened to a two-part podcast about Oklahoma education by Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic. He reports on what he heard, based on his in-depth knowledge of politics and education in his state.

John Thompson writes:

Introducing her first podcast on Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, the Atlantic’s Hannah Rosin notes the long history of public schools being attacked for cultural and political reasons. Then, she recalls:

What’s been happening to American public schools lately is different: more coordinated, more creative, and blanketing the nation. Pressure on what kids learn and read is coming from national parents’ movements, the White House, the Supreme Court.

Rosin further explains that Ryan Walters “has pushed the line further than most.”

Walters recently announced an ideology test for new teachers moving to Oklahoma from “places like California and New York.” And, although the Oklahoma Supreme Court has issued a temporary stay on Walters’ standards, he’s “tried to overhaul the curriculum, adding dozens of references to Christianity and the Bible and making students ‘identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results.’”

The first of two podcasts review how Walters has “already succeeded in helping create a new template for what public schools can be.” Part two will go even deeper into how “Walters and a larger conservative movement seem to be trying to redefine public schools as only for an approved type.” As he said, “If you’re going to come into our state … don’t come in with these blue-state values.”

Rosin starts with Walters’ “Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism,” and his claim, “For too long in this country, we’ve seen the radical left attack individuals’ religious liberty in our schools. We will not tolerate that in Oklahoma.” He said this in a video sent to school administrators who were supposed to play it for every student and every parent.

This mandate, however, is the opposite of his approach when he was an award-winning “woke” middle school teacher. Rosin interviewed two of Walters students, Shane and Starla, about his “parodies,” that were called, “little roasts.”

Shane, a male conservative, compared Walters’ “little roasts,” such as “Teardrops on My Scantron,” to those of Jimmy Kimmel.  

Starla, a lesbian. said of her teacher, “He was woke! (Laughs.) He was a woke teacher.” And she praised his teaching about the civil rights movement.

Rosin reported that today’s Ryan Walters is “unrecognizable” in comparison to the teacher they knew.  And, “Shane compared it to how you’d feel about your dad if he remarried a woman you didn’t like.”

In 2022 , when running for State Superintendent, pornography was Walters’ issue. He strongly supported HB 1775, which was a de facto ban on Critical Race Theory. It forbid teaching things like, “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Walters’ top target was a high school teacher, Summer Boismier,  who, in response, covered her bookshelves with butcher paper. But she also posted a QR code for a Brooklyn library, which had books that Walters said were pornography.  Boismier resigned, but Walters successfully asked the Oklahoma State Board of Education to revoke her teaching certificate. He said, “There is no place for a teacher with a liberal political agenda in the classroom. Ms. Boismier’s providing access to banned and pornographic material to students is unacceptable and we must ensure she doesn’t go to another district and do the same thing.”

After being labeled a pedophile, Boismier started to get serious threats. Then the Libs of TikTok started a campaign against alleged gay teachers who were supposedly “groomers,” prompting bomb threats.

Then, as Rosin explained, “state Democrats called for an impeachment probe, and Walters leaned in harder.” For instance, Walters ramped up his campaign against teachers unions who he called a “terrorist organization.”

Walters also claimed that a “civil war” was being fought in our schools.

Rosin reported on how Walters gained a lot of attention “when he said teachers could cover the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, where white Tulsans slaughtered hundreds of Black people, but they should not, quote, ‘say that the skin color determined it.””

Then, “Walters accused the media of twisting his words. He said that “kids should never be made to feel bad or told they are inferior based on the color of their skin.”

In 2024, Rosin recalled,  Walters “directed all Oklahoma public schools to teach the Bible. And in an appearance on Fox News, Walters talked about displaying the Ten Commandments.” He claimed, “What we’ve seen in America are the Democrats, the teachers’ unions have driven God out of schools, and Americans, Oklahomans, President Trump want God back in the classroom.”

Trump responded on Truth Social, “Great job by Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters on FoxNews [sic] last night. Strong, decisive, and knows his ‘stuff.’” And, “I LOVE OKLAHOMA!”

There was pushback when it was learned that “one of the few Bibles that met Walters’ criteria is the “God Bless the USA Bible.” It was “endorsed by Lee Greenwood and President Trump. It sells for $59.99.”

As the first part of the podcast came to an end, it reviewed Walters’ recent setbacks.

The U.S. Supreme Court  stopped Oklahoma’s plan for  the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school. The Oklahoma Supreme Court has paused the Bible plan. And the special test by Prager U. for teachers from California, New York, and other “woke” states, faces legal challenges.

And Walters was lambasted after sexually explicit images of naked women were seen on a screen inside his office.

Part two will give Walters a chance to tell his side of the story. Rosin previews his response by quoting him: “Yeah, they’re outrageous liars.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Education Industry, Education Reform, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Oklahoma

The Trump Cabal’s “Compact” to Stamp Out Academic Freedom

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2025 //
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Our reader Christine Langhoff discovered an excellent analysis of the “compact” that the Trump administration has offered to several universities. A “compact” usually refers to an equitable agreement between two parties. The Trump “compact” is a harsh threat: sign or die.

Christine writes:

Here’s UCLA Law professor Joseph Fishkin on the so-called compact the administration want universities to accept.

Any lawyer—really, any careful reader—who makes it through even the first paragraph of the document can see that this is incorrect. The “compact” is quite explicit: Universities that do not sign on to this thing thereby “elect[] to forego federal benefits.” What benefits? Well, that same first paragraph lists quite a few specific “benefits”: “(i) access to student loans, grant programs, and federal contracts; (ii) funding for research directly or indirectly; (iii) approval of student and other visas in connection with university matriculation and instruction; and (iv) preferential treatment under the tax code,” which means 501(c)(3) status. This compact is a “reward” in exactly the same sense that it is “rewarding” to purchase protection from the Mafia. The compact is an open, explicit threat.

It nonetheless does represent a tactical shift on the part of the Trump Administration. The Trump team’s goal has not changed. They want an unprecedented—and flagrantly unconstitutional—degree of government oversight and control over American universities. So far they are having some trouble obtaining it. Their initial strategy, to roll up the sector from the top, starting with Harvard, through bespoke negotiated dealmaking with individual schools, has turned out to be slower going—and I suspect, simply more labor-intensive—than I am guessing they expected. (I use the rollup metaphor to evoke how a monopolist takes over a sector by buying out one firm after another, gaining more leverage over holdouts as they go. So far it has not worked.) Meanwhile, federal district courts have dealt a series of significant blows to the government’s ability to, for example, arbitrarily withdraw federal scientific research grants. So the administration is pivoting to a new tactic, which seems to be to roll up the higher ed sector from what you might call the upper middle. Instead of starting at the very top with the high-stakes confrontation with Harvard and working their way down, the new tactical approach is to start with whichever prestigious schools seem likeliest—for various reasons—to be amenable to the government’s overtures. It is no accident that many of the schools May Mailman’s team first approached about this “compact” have interim presidents, who are inherently weak, sometimes because a prior president was successfully forced out through political agitation by the right.

https://balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-art-of-replacing-law-with-deal.html

Categories Academic Freedom, Censorship, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Higher Education, Trump
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