New Jersey Approves New ‘Gender Identity, Racial, and Equity Guidelines’ for Public Schools

As of August 2nd, the New Jersey State Board of Education has added new amendments to their Administrative Code. In a vote of 6-5, the board voted on the readoption of “N.J.A.C. 6A:7” with several other amendments. The goal of this meeting is to discard gender specific language and replace anything related to equal opportunities for education with equitable forms. Starting with the removal of terms like “equality” and “achievement gap” from their code to be replaced with “equity” as an equivalent to equality and “opportunity gap” as a replacement for achievement gap. They changed this because they feel that one of the biggest reasons that not all kids succeed in their schools is because of their race, creed, color, sex, etc or as the board refers to it: “categories protected in the N.J.A.C. 6A:7.” Instead of being clear about what they claim they aren’t discriminating against they’d rather put it all into a code that you have to dig through to find. Thus listing this opportunity gap as “the difference in access to educational activities and programs as a result of membership in one or more of the protected categories listed at N.J.A.C. 6A:7-1.1(a).” 

Not because of mismanagement of school funds, bad quality teachers, or lack of engagement, but rather that they were just born to have less and it’s now the board’s job to help save them. Instead of providing every student, regardless of who they are, where they’re from, their skin color, etc with equal opportunities to excel, they will now be specifically helping students they deem are in more need rather than helping the student body as a whole equal group. Hence the definition of equity, where the goal is not equality of opportunity but equality of outcome. They want to close the “opportunity gap” so that every student ends up the same instead of allowing any of them to surpass expectations, which is the opposite of what education is intended for.

Of the other amendments, any courses dealing with sexuality are separated, not by a student’s biological sex, but rather their gender identity. New Jersey is already a state that tries to blur the lines between the genders but this is now official in every public school across the state for kids to be “separated” for sexual education where in reality they are being mixed together. Within the code they are also redacting gender specific language such as men and women to be replaced with the term “persons” in an attempt to be inclusive. The board fully promotes these ideas, being quoted in the commentator notes: “Gender identity and gender are more complicated than the commenters suggest and there are individuals who fall outside of the traditional gender roles and gender identities, including transgender individuals and individuals who identify as non-binary.” The response from commentators are as follows:

• “The commenter objected to the proposed amendments regarding “sex and gender” throughout N.J.A.C. 6A:7. The commenter also objected to the existing definition of “gender identity or expression” at N.J.A.C. 6A:7-1.3 because it states “person’s assigned sex at birth.” (221) 
  • Response: The Department disagrees. “The proposed amendments at N.J.A.C. 6A:1.3 are based upon medically accurate and evidence-based information. The Department acknowledges that the subject of biological sex is complicated and further acknowledges that both gender and sex are nonbinary.”

Another commentator would go on to say this:

• “The commenter also requested that public schools cease teaching classes concerning health and, at a minimum, cease teaching anything related to sex, sexuality, or male and female biology because it should be done by parents. The commenter stated that public schools have been unable to teach this subject matter in a factual and unbiased 41 manner. The commenter suggested that health class should be an elective or there should be homeschool-based health assignments.” (843)

Finally, they are solidifying a “multicultural” curriculum, where they are replacing studies related to African American and other specific cultural curriculum with the discriminatory Amistad Commision Curriculum:

• “[African-American history] Amistad Commission curriculum” means instructional content, materials, and methods that were developed in consultation with the Amistad Commission 3 and infused into the New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS) in accordance with N.J.S.A. 18A:35-4.42 and 4.43. The Amistad Commission curriculum, as infused into the NJSLS, is designed to enable students to learn and develop an understanding of the persecution, emancipation, discrimination, achievements, and contributions by people of African descent and how the experiences helped to transform America and continue to contribute toward the emergence of a global society.

This curriculum is infamous for teaching similar content as Critical Race Theory, where some students are taught that they are either oppressed or an oppressor, and that some people’s accomplishments are more valuable based on their race. Along with this the board also decided to redact the term “National Origin” but somehow at the same time are pushing curriculum specifically based on race and national origin. 

The board is trying to have its cake and eat it too, which from the outside only makes them look foolish and shows just how discriminatory they really are. The board doesn’t want to address the quality of their teachers, the funding of programs that help students excel, and making sure everyone is given the same opportunities to succeed. They’d rather focus on teaching oppression, further distorting reality, and making sure that every kid comes out of their programs as close to the same as possible. They preach individuality based on gender identity and racial background, but do not want any individual student to be getting too far ahead of any other. What should be obvious to readers is that this will further divide kids, involving their race and gender in every discussion, and give them no incentive to go above and beyond.