The Hmong are a people who fled the communist nation of Laos to escape mass killings by a communist regime. So a Hmong studies class should be anticommunist. But in Minneapolis, school officials are using required ethnic studies classes — including Hmong studies — to promote Marxism and anti-capitalism, rather than teaching about how Laos’s communist regime murdered tens of thousands of Hmong civilians. “At least 100,000 Hmong civilians were killed as the result of Laotian governmental policies, in what has sometimes been referred to as the Hmong genocide,” says Wikipedia.
“Course materials we uncovered for the Hmong studies course center on the ‘Pillars of White Supremacy,’ complete with a diagram that equates capitalism with slavery, war and genocide. It’s important to note that, starting with the class of 2025, [Minneapolis] students are required to take at least one ethnic studies course,” explains the group Defending Education.
The Free Beacon reports:
One might assume that enrolling in a Hmong studies class would entail learning about the Southeast Asian people’s culture and history. But in Minneapolis, high schoolers are instead taught lessons demonizing capitalism—a system absent in communist China, where many Hmong live—as a pillar of white supremacy alongside slavery and genocide, according to course materials obtained by Defending Education.
the course materials Defending Education uncovered for the Hmong studies course provides perhaps the best window into the Minneapolis school system’s approach to ethnic studies classes. In one section, “Power Struggles and Resistance,” the class centers on the “Pillars of White Supremacy,” complete with a diagram equating capitalism with slavery and on par with war and genocide.
Other sections explore why “black lives matter,” and claim white people in the United States “are the dominant group that profits and benefits from race and racism.” One slide quotes Stokely Carmichael, a former Black Panther Party leader who has praised Adolf Hitler, saying, “Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you’re anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist.”
Supplemental resources for the class include the article “Five Faces of Oppression,” which cites Karl Marx to argue that “[e]xploitation uses capitalism to oppress.”
One section in the course quotes Stokely Carmichael, “who has praised Adolf Hitler, saying, ‘Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you’re anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist.'”
The group Defending Education also uncovered course materials featuring readings by “antiracist” activist Ibram X. Kendi. “To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism…Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist,” says Kendi’s book How to Be An Antiracist. That book is a “comprehensive introduction to critical race theory,” gushed the progressive media organ Slate. The “key concept” in Kendi’s book “How To Be An Antiracist” was that discrimination against whites is the only way to achieve equality: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” wrote Kendi in that book.
Students in Minneapolis must take an ethnic studies class and receive at least 0.5 credits in ethnic studies to graduate.
Biased and inaccurate ethnic studies classes are also offered in Minnesota’s other major city, St. Paul. “Less than half of high school students in St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS) are proficient in math or reading but” soon all of them “will be required to take a Critical Ethnic Studies (CES) course before they can graduate,” reported the Center of the American Experiment. Course concepts include things like “identity, intersectionality,” “white supremacy, racial equity, oppression, systemic oppression, resistance,” and “transformation and change.”
In 2023, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a law requiring that ethnic studies be included in Minnesota’s statewide K–12 academic standards. High schools must offer at least one ethnic studies course beginning in the 2026-27 school year. Elementary and middle schools must offer ethnic studies instruction by 2027-28. Ethnic studies will also be integrated into the curriculum standards for subjects like math, science, and English as such standards come up for revision.
Left-wing ethnic studies classes are also proliferating at the college level. Community college students in California have been required to take ethnic studies classes infused with critical race theory. K-12 students are also being required to take classes in critical ethnic studies or critical race theory. Hispanic students in a California school district were forced to learn critical race theory. They hated it, reported Reason Magazine.
Growing numbers of school districts have required ethnic studies classes. San Francisco’s ethnic studies class, which students must take to graduate, reportedly depicts Genghis Khan in a favorable light. Genghis Khan “launched the Mongol invasions that killed 40 million people. For example, he exterminated over a million people in the great city of Merv after it surrendered, resulting in that that ancient city no longer existing. Genghis Khan exterminated the Tangut people, who numbered about 3 million. San Francisco’s ethnic-studies class is relentlessly negative about America, focusing on tearing down our country, not on highlighting the historical contributions of nonwhite innovators or patriots.”
