Representative Josh Williams has introduced the “Home Buyer Protection Act”. This bill would help to stop racial discrimination when submitting offers for real estate purchases. Racial discrimination in housing has always been a problem. The government was even at fault when the redlining process was started in the 1930s. Williams explained how he has personally experienced discrimination when buying a home. Bringing light to this issue is the right thing to do. This bill sounds like a good thing for Ohio.

Less than a year ago Williams heard House Bill 103, to change the social studies standard for Ohio. The bill was proposed and is spearheaded by a private organization called the National Association of Scholars (NAS). Representative Don Jones and Representative Tracy M. Richardson have sponsored Ohio House Bill 103.

National Association of Scholars (NAS), and its affiliate, the Civics Alliance (CA), is a political group that is intent on denying any science, facts or information that will impact their theology and ideology. Climate change, racial discrimination, same-sex marriage, clean energy, fossil fuel, the list goes on. Anytime someone tries to change the world, NAS cries foul and uses the same tactics repeatedly to stop change.

Peter Wood, the president of NAS, is racist, homophobic, transphobic and a bigot. Plain and simple. The idea of handing over the social studies curriculum standards of Ohio to him is infuriating. Wood has tried to associate same-sex marriage with an increase in pedophilia. Wood thinks discovering that racism exists is the most common form of racism. He believes the idea of discussing racism is racist.

Williams had no issue with this organization setting Ohio curriculum standards, but has an issue with racial discrimination in housing? How will generational discrimination be resolved if we do not start with young people? Age-appropriate education on topics that are important to society is not bad.

NAS and Hands-on Learning

The NAS created the American Birthright standard as a way to get its ideology into public schools. It speaks to exploring the original documents that founded the United States while refusing to accept any ideas that might paint the founders of the country in any negative light. The drum beat they use is facts vs feelings. Only teach facts, only discuss facts. This makes sense until you have to face the realization that people have feelings.

Race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation and gender. These are all areas that the NAS thinks discriminate against people, but not in the sense that most people would think. They argue that attempts to address any of these topics will result in more inequalities, because those that were previously not discriminated against, are now in the focus.

NAS dislikes it when people are involved in protests of any kind. They want people who practice civics involvement by learning and not by engaging. They do not want people who stand up for what they want. The NAS even wants to ban community service from schools. They want to create generations of complacent people.

We also call for the repeal of legislation requiring community service in public schools. … Community service only improves character when it is chosen voluntarily.

Community Service

The NAS wants community service to be done through parents, religious institutions and other groups. But this wouldn’t be voluntarily chosen. If your parent or church group organizes the volunteering, it’s not chosen by the individual. More backward arguments to push an agenda of keeping as many people quiet as possible.

This is all very hypocritical coming from an organization that has an outline of which states and representatives to push its agenda onto. the NAS thinks some people should get involved but others should not. They want to create lemmings and followers. All while they push an agenda of hate.

Grant Public Power to Private Organizations

The current model curriculum for Ohio does not recognize any outside organizations and does not endorse a single outside source as the basis for Ohio’s standards. Doing this would create a way for the NAS to hold the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce liable if the curriculum standard does not meet the standards that the NAS has established. The proposed law states

the task force shall develop statewide academic standards in social studies for grades kindergarten through twelve based on the standards published in “American Birthright: The Civics Alliance’s Model K-12 Social Studies Standards,” a product of the national association of scholars or its successor

HB 103

This would leave the potential for a lawsuit from the NAS if they feel the standard proposed by the task force does not meet the American Birthright standard. The law says it should, so this leaves the door wide open for NAS to bring a lawsuit against the state.

The Ohio House of Representatives Primary and Secondary Education Committee has listened to the first round of testimony from proponents and opponents. The comments from Representatives were interesting.

Rep. Gary Click

Faith has been systematically erased from the curriculum of our founding fathers and our historical documents

House Primary and Secondary Education Committee 5-9-2023 50:00

You can’t erase faith from historical documents. The document says now what they said then. No one can erase it. Rep. Gary Click thinks the American Birthright curriculum would be a “neutral position” starting point for Ohio. This is far from the truth and the NAS and American Birthright should not be allowed in Ohio public schools.

HB 103 sets the standard as defined by NAS. A conservative think tank that does not believe in equality, does not encourage open discussion and does not want engaged students. “Constructive conversations” as Rep. Jones wants would not happen under the guidance of the NAS. This was even stated by proponents of the bill. Rep. Jones asked if you can indoctrinate people using only facts and a supporter of HB 103 said this.

You can shape people’s opinions by selectively presenting facts. I think that that’s absolutely true. I think we should always try not to do that. We need to teach people how to think not what to think.”

Jonathan W. Pidluzny House Primary and Secondary Education Committee 5-9-2023 51:50

This testimony is a direct contradiction of what American Birthright wants. They do not want “skill” based education. They want to teach “knowledge” or “facts”. Skills would be teaching people how to think. Facts are teaching people what to think. American Birthright is a scam. Their supporters know it.

This is all the more reason we need to adopt and form this task force so that we can have these constructive conversations and help our young folks to look at all angles and make that decision for themselves rather than telling them what they have to think.

Rep. Don Jones House Primary and Secondary Education Committee 5-9-2023 53:37

Rep. Jones wants to view all angles and let people make decisions for themselves. The American Birthright introduction even states “the capacity both to listen sympathetically to multiple points of view and to engage in free and fearless debate”. Then the CA lists these topics they do agree with

action civics, so-called “anti-racism,” civic engagement, critical race theory, current events learning,
inquiry-based learning, media literacy, project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and virtually
any pedagogy that claims to promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “social justice.”

American Birthright Introduction

Rep. Jones probably doesn’t like the answer Mr. Pidluzny gave because it shows that you can indoctrinate or persuade students by leaving out specific facts. Aligning the Ohio social studies standards with the American Birthright standard as proposed by HB 103 will only remove criteria and limit the scope of the curriculum. It will do exactly the opposite of what Rep. Jones just said he wanted, open debate, looking at all angles, and deciding for yourself. But Rep. Jones is sponsoring a bill that does not do that. The CA and American Birthright focus on content and regurgitation of facts, and not critical thinking skills.

More Insight Into the NAS

Peter Wood, the president of NAS, has a long history of disliking teachers, public schools, therapy, inclusion, equality, and anything that might be seen as addressing someone’s self-identity. The disdain for public schools, universities and all levels of education is thick.

In 2008, NAS attacked No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This is how they summarized it:

imagined every child is a creative genius waiting only for the opportunity to flourish. NCLB vainly imagines that every obstacle to learning can be overcome by good teaching

Save It or Scrap It?

The benefits of a program would have to be seen and verified to know if its impact had a positive or negative outcome, but I don’t see an issue with wanting children to flourish and trying to overcome obstacles.

The LBGTQ+ community has been under attack from Peter Wood for decades. In 2003 he wrote about the theory he has that gay marriage would lead to the encouragement of pedophilia.

To imagine that we could have gay marriage in the United States without also giving strong encouragement to this form of eroticism is, in light of the ethnographic evidence, wishful thinking.

Sex & Consequences An anthropologist vindicates the traditional family.

The president of NAS thinks gay marriage will increase pedophilia between gay men and adolescents. His homophobia is on full display. Rather than go into a description of a single group of 400 people that have created very specific cultural practices that Wood does not agree with. It would be more logical for Wood to just say he hates LBGTQ+ people.

Peter Wood has a confusing take on the Charlottesville protest and the death of Heather Heyer. The mind games Peter Wood plays with himself to justify a protester being killed is mind-blowing. He blames the city council for voting to remove a confederate statue. He says the statue wasn’t racist because an Italian, who could not harbor racist views against black people in America, created the statue. Peter Wood likes to push facts and not talk about feelings, but he sure did put a lot of assumptions and personal feelings into the theory that because the sculptor is too oblivious to understand the meaning, the monument must not be to a time of racial tension in the United States.

NAS and the CA are not neutral and hold the belief that almost all of academia hates America and that public schools are corrupt from top to bottom. These are the thoughts of the CA and its coalition. Representatives from Ohio who are aligning themselves with this organization are ignoring the history of the NAS. Please contact a representative on the Primary and Secondary Education Committee and ask them to keep this hate out of Ohio.

Adam C. Bird	rep63@ohiohouse.gov
Sarah Fowler Arthur	rep99@ohiohouse.gov
Phillip M. Robinson, Jr.	rep19@ohiohouse.gov
Sean P. Brennan	rep14@ohiohouse.gov
Gary Click	rep88@ohiohouse.gov
Don Jones	rep95@ohiohouse.gov
Beth Lear	rep61@ohiohouse.gov
P. Scott Lipps	rep55@ohiohouse.gov
Gayle Manning	rep52@ohiohouse.gov
Derek Merrin	rep42@ohiohouse.gov
Joseph A. Miller, III	rep53@ohiohouse.gov
Jessica E. Miranda	rep28@ohiohouse.gov
Beryl Piccolantonio	rep4@ohiohouse.gov
Justin Pizzulli	rep90@ohiohouse.gov
Josh Williams	rep41@ohiohouse.gov