Media top headlines February 23
In media news today, James Clapper said he wished the Obama White House was more aggressive against Russia, an MSNBC guest claims the Obama administration emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine, and ‘The Five’ remembers Bob Beckel.
New York Magazine published an article on Wednesday which asserted the Republican Party only supports parents’ rights in education due to their view of parents as "household tyrants" to children.
Intelligencer senior writer Sarah Jones covered the topic in the context of recent efforts by Florida Republicans to pass new education laws. Jones criticized the new laws claiming that to "empower parents, Florida Republicans would put children in danger."
People gather to protest different issues including the board’s handling of a sexual assault that happened in a school bathroom in May, vaccine mandates and critical race theory during a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Ashburn, Virginia, U.S., October 26, 2021. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)
Furthermore, she argued against any suggestion that parents should have more rights over their children or that they know what’s best for kids.
"The right’s real ambition isn’t restoration, though, but expansion; they want to create new rights on top of the privileges parents already enjoy. In the party’s view, parental rights both supersede and exist in conflict with the rights of the child. The right insists that what’s good for parents is good for kids," Jones wrote. "This is not necessarily the truth, as any queer person can say in return. The idea that children are already people, with thoughts and needs independent of their parents, never factors into the party’s position at all."
The article shifted to a more political direction by suggesting that Republicans only support a parent’s rights in education to flex their love of authoritarianism.
"As Republicans long for a strong figure in power, they imagine the same figure in every home. Subject of a household tyrant, the child has no freedom," she wrote.
Parents and community members attend a Loudoun County School Board meeting, just 40 minutes from Fairfax. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
"Authoritarianism is inconsistent in this way; rights granted to followers are not extended to dissenters. For the latter there exists only punishment, a fate that extends to their children. The GOP is the party of parental rights because it is increasingly anti-democratic," she added.
The article was also supported by progressive Nation contributor Jeet Heer who tweeted, "The patriarchal household is the seed of all authoritarianism. This is one reason why ‘social issues’ and ‘the political’ can never be separated."
However, the article appeared to have more critics than supporters.
In response to the backlash, Jones defended her article by dismissing the criticism.
"This appears to have pissed a lot of people off, to which I can only say, lol," Jones tweeted. "I was homeschooled for eight years by a pair of God-fearing complementarians and I know whereof I speak!"
People talk before the start of a rally against "critical race theory" (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Virginia on June 12, 2021. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
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The rights of parents in their children's education has grown into a major political issue for Americans in the last few years. The issue became a common campaign issue for Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial race. The topic grew more significant when three San Francisco school board members were recalled earlier this month.
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