US President Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to withdraw federal funding from any educational institution that teaches the controversial and widely debunked 1619 Project.
Department of Education is looking at this. If so, they will not be funded! https://t.co/dHsw6Y6Y3M
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2020
The 1619 project is a project spearheaded by The New York Times, and put forth as an alternative method of interpreting American history. The chief tenet of this project is that American history really started in the year 1619, which is considered to be the date of the arrival of the first slaves from Africa.
This project has been the cause of further division along political lines in American society. Indeed, one of the chief criticisms regarding the project is how divisive it has been.
This project has also come under fire from many prominent and authoritative historians for lacking historical accuracy. For example, according to the 1619 Project, the American Revolution occurred mainly to preserve slavery in the American continent.
US Senator Tom Cotton stated that he thought the project was “a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded.”
Cotton has also proposed a bill doing exactly what Trump just proposed: denying federal funding to any and all schools of any sort that use the 1619 Project as part of their curricula.
As of this writing, several school districts across the nation are using the 1619 Project, mainly in the larger cities. According to Fox News, the California Department of Education is reported to be currently implementing it as well.