When schools take sides on contested issues, students lose
In January 2024, Ann Arbor Public Schools became the first public school district in the country to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Regardless of one’s stance on the conflict, the resolution marked a troubling shift: A public K-12 school district was taking an official position on a deeply divisive geopolitical issue.
As a parent advocate in Ann Arbor concerned about my children’s schools providing an inclusive and high quality education, I was struck not only by the content of the resolution but by the precedent it set — one that risks politicizing our classrooms and alienating families.
What we have seen in K-12 education in the last several years mirrors the ideological shifts on college campuses, in which institutions of higher learning promote specific politicized viewpoints to both the student body and the outside world.
To counter the growing trend of universities taking official positions on a wide variety of divisive social and political issues particularly after Oct. 7, 2023, a number of leading universities, including the University of Michigan, Northwestern University and the © The Hill
