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Ep 176: How the “Parental Rights” Rallying Cry Has Been a Rightwing Stalking Horse for Over 100 Years

Added 2023-02-08 23:10:17 +0000 UTC

"Surrounded by children, DeSantis signs the 'Parental Rights in Education' bill," ABC13 reports. "Biden partnered with organization which questioned parents' rights to be notified about their kids' transition" Fox News tells us. "Parental rights isn't a partisan issue. It's what's best for our children," an opinion column in The Washington Times warns. We've heard these cries for over a century from reactionary forces: we’re just a bunch of scrappy "parents" protecting our kids from sinister, secular forces of state control.

But what does "parents' rights" mean exactly? Which parents' rights are we talking about? Which "rights" are we centering, and who funds which parents to assert which set of rights that, we are told, are essential to these "parents"?

There is, of course, no essential "parents" cohort with a coherent ideology and view on education. But, as a term, it's a useful stalking horse for far right political projects targeting education, namely those opposing secularism, anti-racism, LGBTQ existence, labor, and teachers unions. A skeleton key for whatever reactionary cause doesn’t want to be presented as such. After all, who could oppose "parents' rights." Like the clever term "pro-life," the "parents' rights" label is similarly designed to put advocates of secularism and progress on the defensive, to erase parents who oppose a far-right agenda, and court sympathetic and whitewashing coverage from corporate media.

On this episode, we discuss the history of "parents' rights" as a popular right-wing slogan, from its uses in opposing child labor laws in the early 20th century to pushing religious indoctrination in public schools in the 1990s to today's attacks on trans people and teachers unions; how its evocation by the right––and acceptance by media outlets––obscures the darker motives and political forces at work; and why any media framing of what "parents" want or don't want is inherently mugging bullshit.

Our guest is Jennifer Berkshire.

Guest

Jennifer Berkshire is a teacher, writer and co-host of the education podcast Have You Heard. Her analysis of education and politics has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The Baffler and The New York Times. Her most recent book is A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School, co-authored with Jack Schneider and published in 2020 by The New Press. The updated paperback will hit stores in March.

Show Notes

The GOP Has Revived Its Obsession With Parents’ Rights

Jennifer Berkshire | December 9, 2021 | The New Republic

GOP renews early focus on parental rights, critical race theory

Annelise Hanshaw | January 17, 2023 | The Missouri Independent

The history behind ‘parents’ rights’ in schools

Brooke Schultz | November 14, 2022 | Associated Press

These Groups Are Pushing Back Against ‘Divisive’ Parents’ Rights Policies

Libby Stanford | November 1, 2022 | Education Week

Virginia Explained: How the state got its parents’ rights law

Graham Moomaw | October 20, 2022 | Virginia Mercury

Crusading for parental rights may cloak other motives

Edward Larson | September 19, 2022 | The Washington Post

How Christian home-schoolers laid the groundwork for ‘parental rights’

Sarah Pulliam Bailey | June 11, 2022 | The Washington Post

Legislative Tracker: Parent-Rights Bills in the States

Bella DiMarco | June 6, 2022 | Future Ed

The Danger More Republicans Should Be Talking About

Ibram X. Kendi | April 16, 2022 | The Atlantic

A lesson in hypocrisy — what’s really behind the ‘parental rights’ movement

Liz Willen | March 15, 2022 | The Hechinger Report

The Parental Rights Movement Is History Repeating Itself

Catherine Caruso | March 9, 2022 | Dame Magazine

Georgia bill would chill classroom discussions of race, racism

Maureen Downey | February 28, 2022 | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Groups Pushing Anti-Trans Laws Want to Divide the LGBTQ Movement

Melissa Gira Grant | February 17, 2022 | The New Republic

How Abolishing Critical Race Theory Preserves White Power

Whitney Bunts and Kayla Tawa | February 10, 2022 | The Center for Law and Social Policy

Danger Ahead for the “Parents Rights” Movement

Laura Finley | February 5, 2022 | LA Progressive

Parent-activists, seeking control over education, are taking over school boards

Hannah Natanson | January 19, 2022 | The Washington Post

What white parents get wrong about raising antiracist kids — and how to get it right

Melinda Wenner Moyer | June 25, 2020 | The Washington Post

Against Parental Rights

Samantha Godwin | March 2015 | Columbia Human Rights Law Review

The Origin of Parental Rights

Barbara Hall | January 1999 | Public Affairs Quarterly

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here.

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