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It’s Not Just Billie Eilish, Students Get Indoctrinated About ‘Stolen Land’ in Schools  

Billie Eilish. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Paul Runko is the senior director of Strategic Initiatives, K-12 Programs for Defending Education. Paul has many years of experience in media as well as in education. He is the father of two.

At this year’s Grammy awards, pop artist Billie Eilish made national headlines not for her music, but for a political statement wrapped in an award acceptance speech.

After thanking her supporters and fellow artists, she added, “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but, that no one is illegal on stolen land.” 

This comment echoed two familiar positions of modern, progressive left-wing ideology: first, that the United States should allow unrestricted immigration and, second, that Americans are living on land illegitimately taken from Native Americans.

While it may be tempting to dismiss such rhetoric as another example of celebrity activism at an awards show, doing so would miss a more troubling reality. The idea that America is fundamentally “stolen land” is not confined to award show stages, it has become increasingly embedded into the schools that teach America’s children. 

In 2024, Defending Education released a report revealing that 155 school districts, representing more than 2.7 million students have adopted so-called “land acknowledgments.”

These are formal statements intended to recognize Indigenous or Native peoples as the original inhabitants or stewards of the land a school district, staff, and students occupy. 

On the surface, land acknowledgments may appear benign or even respectful.

In practice, however, they function as a form of virtue signaling by institutions and leadership. Students are often asked or told to recite these statements, seeding the belief in young students’ minds that they occupy “stolen land” that is morally illegitimate and does not rightfully belong to the United States, but Indigenous tribes. 

Consider the land acknowledgment used by Frances C. Richmond Middle School in Hanover, New Hampshire: “We, the RMS community, would like to acknowledge that our school is built upon the unceded land of the Abenaki and Pennacook people. The land was stolen.” 

For a young student, this is not a neutral historical observation. Imagine hearing this as an elementary or middle school student. What conclusions are they expected to draw about their families, their neighbors, or their town?

Rather than learning history, students are pushed toward a moral judgment that their community, their country, and even their family bear collective guilt simply for existing where they do.

For a child who trusts the public school system to teach facts, not an ideologically skewed version of the past, this can be deeply troubling. Instead of fostering civic understanding, these statements frame American history primarily through grievance and condemnation.  

This messaging is not limited to land acknowledgments alone. 

Another example comes from District of Columbia Public Schools that in 2021 sent a message to families ahead of Thanksgiving encouraging them to “Decolonize your Thanksgiving” by not, “sugarcoat[ing] the past.”

They advised parent to use terms like “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “stolen land,” and “forced removal” when discussing the American history of the holiday.

While older students should be exposed to both the proud and the dark side of our nation’s history, language such as “stolen land” means schools have replaced education with ideological indoctrination. 

The messaging extends beyond words to art and images in classrooms as well.

In one Los Angeles Unified School District high school, a poster was displayed reading, “Make Israel Palestine again and Make Amerikkka Turtle Island Again.”

Such imagery does not invite critical thinking or intellectual diversity to play out. It asserts, as fact, that nations such as the United States and Israel are illegitimate occupiers whose existence should be undone. 

A student exposed to these messages repeatedly could reasonably conclude that the United States has no rightful claim to its own territory. Over time, this worldview cements students’ belief in a far-left orthodoxy where law enforcement, people who express traditional views, and even our fundamental and treasured American institutions can no longer be allowed to exist.  

Against this backdrop, Eilish’s remarks sound less like a spontaneous celebrity opinion and more like a familiar refrain.

Without the context of a Grammy stage, her statement could have easily been mistaken for language heard at a school board member or a student assembly. For many young Americans, this speech likely sounded familiar and echoed ideas they already encounter in the classroom.  

Parents should recognize that Eilish’s words are not just the personal opinion of an influential celebrity–and they are not isolated or inconsequential. They reflect a broader ideological worldview that has overtaken public education, and their children have likely already been put on the path to becoming the next Billie Eilish.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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