Mitch McConnell Wants The 1619 Project Removed From The Federal Grants Programs

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants The 1619 Project removed from the federal grants programs.

In a letter sent to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, McConnell asked for the 1619 Project curriculum taken out from American schools. McConnell believes the program “re-orient” the view of American History “away from their intended purposes toward a politicized and divisive agenda.”

The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative by The New York Times that “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.” Black American journalist Nikole Hannah Jones created the project, and it now offers a curriculum for schools. The 1619 Project was named after the year when the first enslaved Black people came to Virginia. It’s currently being taught in several high schools and colleges across the country – more than 3,500 classrooms.

You know how we only get dang-near one chapter of Black American history in school, but the rest of the history book is about the contributions of white people? The 1619 Project is a movement dedicated to teaching a more elaborate and accurate telling of Black American history. And this isn’t the first time a Republican and white person has taken issue with the curriculum. Back in 2020, Donald Trump alluded to the 1619 Project being a “twisted web of lies” and said it made America out to be a “wicked and racist nation.”

However, Joe Biden’s education department has encouraged states and local schools to use the 1619 project in schools. Biden’s administration also offers grant programs as an incentive to use the project in their classrooms. And McConnell says he’s against it. 

“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 writes. “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.”