University Professors Refusing to Teach Founding History – with Virginia Foxx: In this world of indoctrination, professors of higher education are refusing to teach the truth of America’s founding. Instead, critical race theory, socialism and woke ideologies are infiltrating education. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, leader of the Education Committee in Congress, is our guest today to fill us in on the abysmal state of colleges and universities. Think hard before sending your young person to university, and weigh your options. What options are there, and what can be done. Tune in today for the answers!

Air Date: 06/6/2023

Guest:Virginia Foxx

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

 

Transcription:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders. We’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And we’re going to dive right in. Alrighty, David and Tim, we’ve got Congresswoman Virginia Foxx going to join us later in the program from North Carolina. We’re going to be talking about education. And actually, David, I mean, this is what got you started on WallBuilders was looking at prayer being removed from schools and why the culture was going the wrong direction, once we changed education in that way. So you’ve been in the battle for education and standards at the state level, you know, setting the standards for social studies and other subjects and all that for decades now. I think more people are awake to it than ever, you know, you’ve been involved longer than I have. But it seems like this is the newest, you know, the strongest wake up call as people watched what was going on at their local schools, so maybe we have a better chance than ever to improve education in America.

David Barton
You know, way back years ago, Rick, you mentioned that we got involved early. One of the early statements that I read that was attributed to Abraham Lincoln, he said, the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government the next. And so even 20 years ago, as we saw things start turning in wrong directions, we were saying it’s education, we got get schools under control, we got to fix it. And parents said, well, it’s not my schools, it’s not my kids. It’s not that going on. And then, I guess it was 15 years ago, we saw that about… it was almost half of those who were going to Christian universities were renouncing their faith to Christian university, and around 80% to 90% were doing it at secular university. We’re saying, guys, it’s education. And even 15 years ago, that was not a big resonating kind of thing. But now, as parents have found that this is not just a news story in somebody else’s state, in somebody else’s city, this is in my backyard, this is in my school district, it’s got my kids. My kids weren’t telling me because they didn’t know it was bad, because they’re being taught by the teachers, that is good. Yhey didn’t come home, making [an] issue out of it. Now, parents are getting involved. And we’ve seen this for about the last three years. A lot of this came out with COVID, obviously, and then 1619 Project kind of piles on it. And then critical race theory. But the critical race theory has been taught for 20-25 years at the university level, we’re just now learning about it and finding out how to fight it. And so it’s interesting to me that his parents are getting engaged, and even last week we were talking about…

Rick Green
Hey, wait David, one quick point on that, because you just said critical race theory- 25 years, most everybody’s just now realizing that, but that might help people understand why a lot of these, a whole generation was taught this Marxist concept. And so that’s why there’s so many people that left the faith when they went to college over the last 20-25 years. So I just… I didn’t want… you mentioned that very quickly. I want people to let that seep in a little bit. Think about that. It’s been being taught at the university level for that long, which means you’ve got an entire generation of adults. Why do you think these woke corporations are doing what they’re doing right now? All right, go ahead, brother. Sorry about that.

David Barton
We’re going back to some lessons from the country here. When you see the fruit on a tree, it was planted a long time before that fruit appeared. When you see the corn on the cob, it was planted weeks before you saw it. And what we’re seeing now, critical race theory, It didn’t just appear. It was planted years and years ago. And we had professors teaching 25 years ago, now their students are the professors teaching to this generation, but it’s on steroids, now. Each generation gets it a little stronger than the previous generation, because they add their own beliefs to it. So with all of that going, and we were talking even last week about how that we’re seeing now, parents really rise up in so many areas and take the local school boards back. And, you know, we went through a lot of the cities where that’s happening, and it’s good stuff. Taking the school boards back, one of the things that we said even on air two, three years ago, we saw these laws start getting passed. Even in Texas, we passed an anti CRT kind of law. They said Yeah, but you know what, they’re just going to call it something else and keep teaching it, because this is what they believe. Teachers will say, oh, no, no, that’s not a critical race theory. We’re just teaching American history. And we’re just teaching this as… Well, they’ll call it anything. There was recently, a group of superintendents and leaders of Education who got together over in the Dallas area. And somebody actually managed to tape what they were doing. And these superintendents and principals sitting around said, yeah, state law says we can’t teach critical race theory, but we do it anyway. We call it something else. And yeah, Mat Krause, the state represented said, you can’t have these 800 books in your library and state agreed, but we’ve got them in there anyway, we just call it something else, and they were going through about how that they just keep the stuff going. And it’s their philosophy. So they’re going to impart their philosophy, which is why Jesus said in Luke 6:40, every student, when he’s fully trained, will be like his teacher. It doesn’t matter what laws you pass if you don’t change the personnel, if you don’t change the people that are in there. And so one of the things that states have done in addition to saying, hey, no critical race theory, no, whatever. We’re going back to teaching the basics. And so you got these laws that are coming out saying, in our state, if you get state funds, you’re going to teach the Constitution. Rick 20 years ago, you had that celebrate freedom law that says, hey, on constitution week, you got to teach the declaration, the Constitution, all these principles, and they will or won’t based on whether they personally agree with that, not because it’s law, you know, they’ll do what they want. But Jesus said, whatever the teacher is, that’s what they’re going to make the student into. And so this law was passed in North Carolina that said, hey, any public school in North Carolina at any school, they get state funds, you’re going to teach the Constitution, and yet 700 professors at the University of North Carolina, which is a state funded university, funded by the state of North Carolina, 700 professors said, well, we’re not teaching the Constitution. You can pass any law you want to, but we’re not going to teach the Constitution. And so with something, and that’s… by the way, that is a… first question I had is 700 professors at the University of North Carolina? How many professors do you have at the University of North Carolina? That sounds like enough professors for four or five colleges. But they had 700 say that. And so what do you do? But see, this is an indication, doesn’t matter what laws you pass if you don’t get the right personnel in there. And so looking at this, I’ve seen recently, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx out in North Carolina, she has over the Higher Education Committee and the Education Committee in Congress. And man, she has been fighting this stuff tooth and nail and doing a great job. She’s a great warrior on it. So we thought it’d be fun to get Virginia on to talk about this issue. And what’s going on with higher education right now in America and the fight she’s having to get these really crazy things in schools.

Rick Green
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, our special guest, today folks. Stay with us, we’ll be right back on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. After the final victory at Yorktown the Continental Army awaited the outcome of peace negotiations with Great Britain. Pastor Israel Evans, a chaplain in the army, proposed to George Washington that they build a structure where church services can be held during the months of waiting. Washington approved the plan and urges officers to ensure that the soldiers attend that service. Pastor Evans further knew if we were to secure the liberties they had fought for, sound education would be crucial. He declared, “€œEvery parent and every friend to the freedom of his country ought to be attentive to the improvement of our youth and the principles of freedom and good government. And then the people will stand fast in their liberty for a long time.”€ Our schools today need to return to teaching the principles of freedom and good government in order for America to survive and prosper. For more information about Pastor Israel Evans and other colonial Patriots go to WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. We’ve got Congresswoman Virginia Foxx with us. Thanks so much for joining us, Congresswoman.

Virginia Foxx
Thank you very much, Rick, for having me.

Rick Green
Well, we were shocked to see this objection from all these professors at UNC, about teaching America’s founding documents, you know, it seems like that would be at the core of anything we teach in America, but they seem to think it was, quote-unquote, absurd. And David said, man, call Virginia and asked her what she thinks about this. So thank you for coming on and telling us a little bit about where you think we are with higher education and why such an objection would be there for our founding documents?

Virginia Foxx
Well, it’s really interesting to me, because as somebody who taught at the university level for 15 years, and of course, spent a lot of years in school, working through an undergraduate degree, a masters and a doctorate, I always thought that reading original source material was the best way to go.

Thouht that was a good idea, huh?

In fact, that’s what I always told my students. They’d come in asking me questions about something, an article, they’d read about a document, and I would always say to them, go read the original source. That is the best way to do things. And I still tell interns we have in the office, I do it myself, I always believe that’s the best way. When I was a legislator, and I would hear from my constituents about legislation that had passed before me, that I didn’t know about, I’d always go to the source of the legislation and look at it, to see what it meant. And if you… let me use another example, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has just overturned a rule put out by the EPA, on waters of the US that’s been very, very controversial over the years, and guess what the Supreme Court always does. It goes back to the original legislation. And not only that, it goes to committee reports, I believe. Whenever we file a piece of legislation, Rick, we file a committee report with it to say, this is the legislation, but here’s the thinking that went into this legislation. And the Supreme Court also goes back to the Federalist Papers to say, well, what were they saying about what was in those documents? So not only should we be reading the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, all these documents, we also should be reading The Federalist Papers, shouldn’t we also?

Rick Green
That’s so good, because it really gets you inside their heads to say, okay, this is what they meant. You know, if you bring something forward to today, and try to interpret it just in the way we use those words, today, you’re not necessarily going to get what they actually meant, you can only get what they meant by looking at their other writings outside of it as well. It’s just good scholarship.

Virginia Foxx
And you know, what I find really, really interesting, to show you the arrogance, the absolute arrogance of these people is, here’s a quote, my understanding is from them, is they claim that requiring college students to take a course on American history, quote, substitutes ideological force feeding, for the intellectual expertise of the faculty. Give me a break!

Rick Green
In other words, they know better, and we should only listen to them not look at other sources, let alone our Founding Fathers of the United States.

Virginia Foxx
Exactly. That is hubris of the worst kind. That’s right. Listen to us, not, you know, don’t believe your lying eyes. Or another way to say it that some people understand, others, look at this shiny ball over here. Never mind the man behind the curtain. Look at the shiny ball over here. So I mean, all of this is just absolute arrogance on the part of the professors. And the best thing we can ever do in students learning is to go to the original sources. It’s true. I was reading over the weekend, some information about how drug companies are buying off the research that’s done on drugs. And the fact that drug companies won’t allow the original material on the studies to be released. They claim it as… documents that they own, and they won’t let that go out. Anytime people are trying to hide something. We ought to pay attention.

Rick Green
Oh, that’s good. That’s so good. I mean, that’s exactly the right thing. And it’s also causing people, when you do that, people lose faith in… I mean, whether it’s the universities at this point, people saying, I’m tired of handing my kids my money over to these indoctrination camps like this, where they don’t want to read the founding documents or losing faith in the corporations or the government or any of those areas where they’re hiding these things from us. So what… you know, you’re dealing with this, you’re right in the middle of it with the subcommittee on higher education. What are the discussions like with you and your colleagues with regard to this and the lack of, I mean, frankly, the the destruction of the university system with the way that they’re acting right now?

Virginia Foxx
Well, my approach to this is to encourage people to look for alternatives. Definitely look for alternatives to many of the colleges and universities that are out there. But our hope is to put out… we want a very strong scorecard out there for students and parents, so they can evaluate the colleges and universities, how much does it cost? How many students are graduating? And all those kinds of things, but also to look at the statements on free speech, for example, how are the universities handling speech? We know that there are many, many, many that try to deprive students of free speech and their own faculty of free speech. And we’ve seen lots of examples of that. But parents and students are becoming wiser than they used to be. They basically would go to an institution because of it have a great reputation. I do have to tell you, Rick, one of the most discouraging things I learned several years ago, is that about 60% of students will choose their college or university based on the weather on the day that he or she visited, and on how nice the admissions counselor was to them.

Rick Green
Wow! Oh, you just depressed me. Thanks a lot. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Virginia Foxx
But we do want people to be able to check out the colleges and universities as to what their return on investment is.

Rick Green
Yeah. And I’m seeing positive on that. I’m seeing few, you know, a lot of the students that come through our program, Patriot Academy, and are planning to go to our one year program on campus, we’re saying do this, instead of going to… wasting five years get $100,000 – $200,000 in debt and get a degree, two thirds of people don’t even use? You know, they go into a different field. I mean, I think you’re right, I think parents are waking up. I think people are waking up. And I’m not saying there’s never a reason to go. But, you know, we got a lot of people going through, you know, college indoctrination, and it really wasn’t necessary at all

Virginia Foxx
Right. No, I want people to be lifelong learners, I want them to learn. And we can do that now, because we’re in the most wonderful time ever, in many ways, for education, because we have so many choices. Students, and when I’m talking about students, I’m not just talking about 18 to 24 year olds, anybody that wants to improve his or her knowledge, can do it very, very easily on the internet, and lots of ways to do it. So we’re at a wonderful time in our country, when people can pick and choose how they get their education. And they don’t have to go to a bricks and mortar school. In fact, more and more people are choosing not to go, you know, college enrollment’s way down. And that’s a good sign in our country, in my opinion. So that, again, people are voting with their feet. The best thing that came out of COVID, in my opinion, was the exposing of how bad our educational structures and education delivery systems are both for K-12, as well as post secondary. And, and that’s so good that that has happened. And now people are saying, look, I don’t have to get $80,000 in debt, and go to a brick and mortar school. I can, again, get the skills I need. It all should be predicated on skills, and then I can continue my education. I talk about my husband all the time. He’s 80 years old, Rick, and anytime he wants to do something he gets on the internet, he figures out how to do it. Or if he wants to learn about things he gets on the internet. So he’s got a bachelor’s degree in political science, a year toward a masters, but he’s a lifelong learner.

Rick Green
Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more, I am excited about this real revolution in education that’s taking place, the increase in other options, like you said, looking at other ways to do this, and even like you’re saying, you can go to the internet and learn from the best of the best. You can get in all kinds of courses. And then we’ve got 25,000 constitution coaches across the country that are getting people together, not only learning, you know, going through a course on their own, they’re actually getting… building community, they’re coming together in their living rooms or at their church or wherever, and learning together. That’s exciting. I mean, that’s a really good sign that we can turn this thing around. But man, if everybody just stayed in the government programs, then you’re lockstep, it’s cookie cutter, everybody’s getting the same thing. It’s easy to indoctrinate, that’s what we got to get away from. This competition and options are… is a really good sign.

Virginia Foxx
Right, we do of course, have to strengthen what’s happening in civics and history classes, at the elementary level too, Rick. We got an abominable situation when the findings from NAPE, the National Assessment of Education Progress, showed that 87% of eighth graders have only a basic or below basic knowledge of American history. And only 2 out of 10 of those students are proficient in civics. I mean, you see every once in a while on TV, you know, one of these reporters goes out and interviews young people like, who fought civil the war? Or who was the civil war between? Who led America in the Revolutionary War? They know nothing. They know absolutely nothing about these events. Probably most people can’t tell you who the Vice President is. A lot of them can tell you the President these days, but not the Vice President, or much of anything else about our country. They certainly don’t know the three branches of government. They don’t know the basics.

Rick Green
Yeah, that… no, and that comes right back to where we started with why studying the founding documents are so important. I passed a bill when I was a state rep here in Texas that, you know, you got to have every kid studying the declaration and the Constitution every single year. So they’re learning, learning, learning, continuing, like you said, building those lifelong learning skills. And we need to be doing more of that all across the country. They need to know those truths. And without civics I mean, really… lack of civics and civic ignorance, that’s where bad government grows and you’re right on man, we’ve got to do better on that and…

Virginia Foxx
That’s right. Well, anytime I’m asked to go speak to a class, whether it’s second grade, or through high school or in college, it take pocket copies of the Constitution with me. And I start out by saying… and I liked the one that has the wording of the original Constitution on it, where it shows, We the People larger than the rest of the print. And I point out to them, those three words are the most important words outside the Bible, because it sets the stage for the government that we have in this country. We are the government, and the government belongs to us. We get what we deserve. And so I explain, we’re in charge, and they can’t blame somebody else.

Rick Green
Amen. Amen. Well, you continue to be a champion for us, Congresswoman. Thank you. God bless you. We really appreciate you coming on. And I look forward to the next time.

Virginia Foxx
Well, I hope you’ll invite me again soon. I’m happy to be with you all. And I appreciate so much what WallBuilders does in educating people and when Dave’s at the Capitol, taking groups around, I do my best to help with that. But I always let the pastors get as close as possible, and I sort of stay in the background. But I always pick up a few nuggets.

Rick Green
No, you’re wonderful. I got to do one with you one time when David couldn’t make it and I did the tour and you were our sponsor. And we just… we’re so thankful for you doing that for us. It’s… glad that you guys took over the house so we can get back in the Capitol and do these tours again and bring pastors and kids so thank y’all for…

Virginia Foxx
The house is open again, and that’s one of the great things… I was speaking on the floor, today, and the gallery was full of people. And I spoke to them. We recessed as soon as… right after I spoke, and I spoke to them from down on the floor. And one year, you know, remember, we brought people in onto the floor every day, during the month of August. And that was a thrilling thing to do.

Rick Green
I love it. It’s the people’s house, right? People building.

Virginia Foxx
It is the people’s house.

Rick Green
Amen. Well, God bless you, always a privilege and an honor just to get the lock shields with you for a few minutes and educate folks on these things. So thanks for coming on. Look forward to the next time.

Virginia Foxx
Thank you, Rick. I look forward to it too. Take care. Blessings on you.

Rick Green
Thank you so much. Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton
Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out of statement, Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story. Starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America, not as the story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out WallBuilders.com , The American Story.

Rick Green
We’re back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Virginia Foxx for joining us as well and fighting for these big changes in education that need to happen. As you were saying earlier, David, we desperately need to get back these principles from the Declaration and the Constitution. So for these professors to push back against that is the very solution that’s absolutely needed. And Tim, I think most people are, they’re saying if I can’t get the good stuff at the public school, I’m going elsewhere. And that’s like Virginia saying we need more options. And more and more parents are making that choice.

Tim Barton
They are and fortunately, it’s something that we are seeing a growing trend, where so many universities, they have a decline in enrollment. And obviously, there’s a lot of universities very concerned about this. They should be. But it’s also worth noting that most universities are not nearly as concerned with educating individuals as they are with running a business. Universities have very much become a business. And as long as the consumer is content to continue to pay them money and send their students there to receive these crazy levels of indoctrination, they feel no pressure to change. Or Dad, as you mentioned, even before the interview, and unfortunately, there’s some times when laws are passed, like we did in the state of Texas, and we said hey, we shouldn’t have pornographic material in school libraries for children to be able to access. That’s totally inappropriate. We should not be teaching certain content in classrooms without parental consent and approval, that’s totally inappropriate. And then you had all kinds of leaders from different schools say, well, we understand that’s what the law says. But we’re just going to… we’re going to change the name of what we do so we can keep doing it. This is where you have a major philosophical difference. And unfortunately, a lot of parents have not recognized This distinction between the academic perspective and the parental perspective. And it really has not been until kind of more of the COVID era that a lot of parents have begun to realize there is such a distinct difference between the philosophy of what parents have in raising their kids and the philosophy of what’s happening in education. It’s something that we should be able to see across the board. As we have seen some of what’s happened with Targets, some of what Disney has done. We’ve seen some of these organizations now showing some of their woke colors and individuals finally, Americans finally, are beginning to realize and recognize this on different levels. Again, it’s great news and great information. But even this conversation today, it should be a major highlight warning call for most parents when it comes to education. Don’t think that we just need to continue to send our kids to college. Most kids that go to college, they go to college, just thinking this is the next step and they try to figure out what they’re going to do with their life once they get to college. The reality is, we ought to be teaching our kids, you need to pray about it, see were God’s leading. What’s God called you to do? What what passions do you have? We need to find our purpose and only go to college if it makes sense and us fulfilling what God has called us to do. But College in and of itself is not a great institution any more. There’s some good universities, but the majority of them are not. And we need to be awakened to the reality of the situation we are now in when it comes to academic institutions.

Rick Green
That’s it for today, folks. Check out our website at WallBuilders.com for more radio programs and more information. We appreciate you listening to WallBuilders.