A growing “ethnic studies” push in American classrooms is teaching students that ordinary parenting amounts to oppression, PragerU CEO Marissa Streit warned in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Ms. Streit said the curriculum leans heavily on the term “adultism,” a concept that originated in sociology to describe age discrimination against children. She said ethnic studies programs invoking the concept are active or endorsed in more than 22 states, though that figure comes from her own review rather than an independently compiled tally. She argued the term has been repurposed in teacher-training materials to cast routine parenting decisions — on clothing, relationships or medical care — as a form of “fascism” or tyranny.
To make her case, Ms. Streit displayed a training manual titled “Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators,” which she said blends anti-capitalism, Critical Race Theory and a rejection of adult authority. Its publisher, AK Press, describes the book as designed to “shine a light on innovative abolitionist projects” in Pre-K-12 settings. Ms. Streit contends the material simply repackages DEI and social-emotional-learning concepts that have already drawn public backlash.
Her warning echoes a real-world example from earlier this year. One such workshop at a San Francisco public high school, titled “Youth as Knowledge Producers: Challenging Adult Supremacy Through Ethnic Studies,” told attendees that “the relationship between students and educators is an oppressive one,” casting teachers as “oppressors” and students as “oppressed.” The district said it did not sponsor or fund the event.
Ms. Streit tied the “adultism” framework to broader fights over parental-notification policies — disputes that have reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled last year that Maryland parents could opt children out of lessons conflicting with their religious beliefs. She noted the American Federation of Teachers has formally opposed forced-outing policies, adopting a resolution this month that rejects notifying parents when a student socially transitions at school — a policy the union linked to President Trump’s executive order defining sex along strictly biological lines.
Ms. Streit argued the effort is part of a larger strategy aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America.
“The ultimate goal is the DSA platform, and that is to radically transform America,” she told Fox News Digital. Her comments track a national DSA co-chair’s on-air confirmation last weekend that the organization supports abolishing the Senate and ICE, phasing out prisons and eventually eliminating national borders — remarks that followed a series of victories by DSA-backed candidates in New York City primaries.
Ms. Streit said the same ideology surfaces in teacher-training material promoting the dismantling of ICE and law enforcement. Fox News Digital reported in July that a two-day conference featuring socialist and anti-war groups was held at Chicago Teachers Union headquarters; according to the conference program, rooms were temporarily renamed for figures including Fidel Castro and Nicolás Maduro, though the union was not listed as an official sponsor.
Other conservative education groups have raised parallel concerns. Defending Education, in a recent report, alleged that the AFT and the National Education Association are embedding DEI principles into guidance for how artificial intelligence should be used in classrooms.
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