Just 33 days before he leaves office, lame duck president Donald Trump has named some members of his “patriotic education” commission that he wants to direct education curriculum, Politico reports.
Trump so-called “1776 Commission” is supposed to advise the president on education initiatives countering what Trump describes as teaching student “to hate their own country” in schools by including lessons on unfavorable history of the United States. It’s his effort to oppose the “1619 Project” led by the New York Times Magazine, which focused attention on the 400th anniversary of the first African slaves being brought to America.
Larry Arnn, the president of the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan and a long-time Trump supporter, will be the chairman of the commission. The vice president of Hillsdale College and the dean of the school’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government will be the commission’s executive director.
Politico lists other members of the commission as Charlie Kirk, who founded the conservative campus group Turning Point USA and led the Students for Trump campaign effort; Mississippi Republican Governor Phil Bryant, who has declared his state “Trump Country;” Silicon Valley CEO and Trump fundraiser Scott McNealy; Brooke Rollins, Trump’s domestic policy adviser; and Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow.
“The 1776 Committee was formed to advise the President about the core principles of the American founding and how to protect those principles by promoting patriotic education,” Spalding said in a statement. “The path to a renewed and confident national unity is through a rediscovery of our shared identity rooted in those principles.”