When NBC’s Disinformation on Academic Transparency

 Unfortunately, even as corporate media inveighs against “disinformation,” it appears to be mounting a disinformation campaign against academic transparency.

 A recent NBC News article on academic transparency provides an instructive case study. Its title: “They fought critical race theory. Lawmakers in about a dozen states have introduced bills to promote academic transparency. In theory, such transparency would provide them with a massive informational subsidy – providing an almost endless stream of facts that the public is keenly interested in. This is the sort of thing that competent editors are paid to prune out.
 But teachers, their unions, and free speech advocates say the proposals would excessively scrutinize daily classwork and would lead teachers to pre-emptively poll potentially contentious materials to avoid drawing criticism. Very much like President Trump’s go-to line: “Many people are saying!”

 Consider the phrase: “potent strategic move to expose and root out progressive ideas.” Although the NBC News piece is peppered with situational hyperlinks, none is provided to support this characterization. But once again, this description is a caricature of the stated concerns of these elected officials. It sure does make Republicans sound racist, doesn’t it? A characterization accurately summarizing Republicans’ argument would have read: “Republican governors and lawmakers have sought to limit the spread of an ideology they believe demeans and sometimes demonizes children based on the color of their skin.”

 The governors of Arizona, Florida, and Iowa, who have previously raised concerns about how teachers discuss racism’s impact on politics and society, called for curriculum transparency laws in speeches to their legislatures this month.
 Again, raising concerns about “how teachers discuss racism’s impact” makes Republicans sound racist. By tradition and spirit, they should be in favor of government transparency. Most notably, the ACLU – an organization historically dedicated to ensuring government transparency – has come out in force against this (as well as most everything else it once stood for).

 But the reactionary response from the mainstream – or rather corporate – media has been the most telling. As someone who watches this debate closely, I can’t even recall any anonymous right-wing Twitter account articulating anything to this effect, much less any public intellectual or politician. Now they’re focusing on curriculum transparency.” The “they” frames the view that conservatives and Republicans constitute the “other.”

 As state legislatures kick into gear this month, Republican governors and lawmakers who have fought to limit discussions of race in public schools are lining up to support a new aim: curriculum transparency.

 The phrase “fought to limit discussions of race” is a telling one. In an era when public schools are increasingly incorporating the discriminatory tenets of Critical Race Theory into all aspects of pedagogy, this is true now more than ever.

 In discussions leading to the publication of a Heritage Foundation coalition letter advocating for academic transparency,  some  signatories wondered: How could the left-liberal establishment manage to oppose this? In recent weeks, we’ve got the answers. The rationale is simple and compelling: parents deserve to know what their children are being taught in school. They have, rather, rejected the redefinition of “racism,” which declares that every aspect of American civilization is – and will always inherently be – “systemically racist.” When journalists buy into this culturally Marxist redefinition, then all Republican resistance to Critical Race Theory becomes, for them, a defense of “racism.”
 Some conservative activists say the effort – which has come under fire from Democrats, teachers, and civil liberties advocates – is a potent strategic move to expose and root out progressive ideas from schools.

 Note the passive voice: “which has come under fire.” Back when journalists read Stunk & White’s Elements of Style, they were categorically cautioned against using passive voice. It seems to suggest that there is a campaign to scrub mention of Woodrow Wilson or John Maynard Keynes from history textbooks. It could make some sense if journalists are so politically illiterate as not to recognize the important philosophical distinctions between, say, Theodore Roosevelt and Robin Di Angelo. But passive voice can serve a useful function for partisan journalism: expressing an editorial opinion in someone else’s voice. But the lack of citation suggests a self-conscious ideological willfulness to this characterization. Parents and legislators have already started campaigns to remove books dealing with race and gender, citing passages they find obscene, after they found out that the books were available in school libraries and classrooms.