1974 Textbook War:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Karl C. Priest, M.A.-  June 2, 2009
Columnist EducationNews.org

For 35 years, nearly everything written about the Kanawha County (WV) Textbook Controversy (which launched the cultural wars) has been slanted to portray the protesters as violent religious fanatics. This is Part II of three articles that portrays the protesters in the positive way they deserve.

(Part I): “The Bad” (A Protester Perspective)

(Part II):  “The Ugly” (Told by a Teacher)

Until I was contacted (April 2009) by a journalist researching the history of Kanawha County Textbook War, I had sort of put the event into a category similar to what many Vietnam era veterans (http://insectman.us/testimony/uss-wright.htm) did with that war.  We put it behind us and tried to avoid the “shame” that “enlightened” people wanted to cast upon us.  Sure, I had enough “fire-in-the-belly” to make me refuse to totally hang my head because I knew, deep down, that those who thumbed their noses at us (Vietnam era vets and textbook protesters) were wrong.  For too many years I just assumed a defensive position instead of advocating for the truth. 

Talking to the journalist motivated me to look through my files (untouched for over 30 years) and to retrieve some dim memories of the Textbook War.  In doing so, I was reminded that the protesters had been unfairly treated by the mainstream media, most historians, and so-called academic researchers.  I wonder what took so long for a reporter, or researcher, to contact a teacher protester.  Could it be that teachers do not fit the stereotype of ignorant protesters that liberals want to portray?

I began to do research in preparation to record the truth about the Textbook War “troops”.  My research brought out some anger due to the elitism that I had to recall as part of my fact gathering process.  It was very much like the feelings that we, Vietnam era vets, felt when we started to confront the anti-military forces in the 1990’s and culminating with holding the line against the election of John Kerry (whom we perceived as a traitor) in 2004.  It started to feel good!  Just as the Vietnam era vets uncovered the un-Americanism of the Ayers-Fonda crowd, I will reveal the truth about the pro-book radicals.

There are three main camps of liberal critics—media, clergy, and academians.  This part will focus on the academians.  The protesters have been attacked by academic forces from 1974 to this day.  Now, I will expose three of those entities—three individuals and a teachers’ union—which typify the opposition from the education community.

MOFFETT

A prominent book, which typifies the biased reporting of the protest, is Storm in the Mountains by James Moffett.  The subtitle is “A Case Study of Censorship, Conflict, and Consciousness”.   An appropriate title for a review of Moffett’s book would be “Sulking in Liberal Land: An Example of Hypocrisy, Haughtiness, and Hatred”.   The book jacket screams insults at the protesters.  Mr. Moffett intended to make the case that the protesters were censors and he was the open-minded academian who was much wiser than the marauding mountaineers.  Moffett’s bias is apparent in the preface. He referred to protesters as “people” (that liberals) “take under their wings” and that “because of poverty, ignorance, and rejection more readily generate bigotry, racism, and violence.”  In other words, liberals will be the parent figures of adult conservative/fundamentalists who are likely to be bigots, racists, and dangerous.  Moffett displayed his arrogant self-righteousness throughout his book.

After pointing out that none of the members on the splinter group of the Textbook Review Committee (see below) had college educations, Moffett tried to cover his attempt to slur the intelligence of the protesters by stating a college education “though worth noting, that should not be regarded as of the greatest significance.”  I’m not a farmer, but I know what it is that I smell in a pasture.  It does not take a college degree to recognize obscenity and blasphemy.  Moffett defended profanity by claiming it mainly occurred in dialogue.  That is like putting a hanky over a cow pile.  Likewise, it is obvious to me that Moffett looked down upon the protesters when he wrote, “It is clear that the (book) supporters were better educated than the opponents and this holds true generally all over the country in censorship cases.”  It is interesting to note, that the leader of the splinter group (a bank vice president) challenged critics to take a comparative IQ test with him.  That particular protester was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives a few years after the protest.

Liberals sometimes are forced to face the reality of history and Moffett did so in two major ways.  First, he stated the fact, often cited by conservatives, that (atheist) John Dewey won “a generation of educators with his humanism.”  Secondly, Moffett admitted that publishers “do their own precensoring” and he should know because he was the developer of one of the book series that had been protested in 1974.  He admitted that he was “hurt and angry when those book-banners knocked down the program on which I had spent over three years of full time work and which I had expected to spiritualize some of public education.”   So much for objectivity!

Did you notice his reference to spiritualizing public schools?  Moffett had the audacity to defend his insertion of yogism into his textbook.  He quotes the book stating that any religious person can practice yoga because he “usually forms his own relationship with the Ultimate Reality once he has come closer to it.”  He admitted that the main goal of yoga is “spiritual illumination.”  Amazingly, Moffett included a quote from the section that told students to direct their thoughts to the “Infinite Light which is God”.  I have abbreviated his New Age mumbo jumbo so this is a prime example of the protester claim that the context made their objections even more valid.

In the conclusion of Storm in the Mountains, Moffett solidified his philosophical/religious beliefs.  He claimed that Marx and Darwin had set the “Framework for the twentieth century, on which Freud and Einstein had built”.  It is unusual to throw Einstein into the mix of the liberal trinity of Marx, Darwin, and Freud who, according to Moffett, were “geniuses” who “have played masterful roles in raising consciousness to higher levels than before.  I think Moffett included Einstein’s name for the same reason evolutionists try to deflect attention from their fantasy beliefs by mixing them with real scientific facts completely unrelated to evolutionism.

Moffett quoted from a New Age spiritual master before concluding, in his last paragraph, that we are evolving in consciousness through Darwin, Marx, and Freud to “higher truths” but we cannot obtain those “higher truths” through literally believing the Bible.   Instead the “individual consciousness partakes of cosmic consciousness and so achieves that direct and full knowledge called gnosis.” (Gnosis is spiritual knowledge of a mystically enlightened human being.)  By the time Moffett got to his last paragraph he was so far into New Age religion that he destroyed the thin thread of reality from which his book hung.   (Note:  By the 1990’s the West Virginia school system was requiring teachers to be indoctrinated with New Age religion.  Also, in 2008 Kanawha County allowed Yogaism to become an official school activity.  See my April 2008 articles “Yoga Should be left out of Schools” and “Religion Established in Public Schools” http://insectman.us/exodus-mandate-wv/my-articles-2008.htm.)

Moffett’s fervent effort to defend profanity in schoolbooks as “colloquial” language, and his blatant promotion of Hinduism (via Yoga) are moot because I demonstrate from the personal example of where public school reading material had sunk in 2000 (see Part III).

MS. MYSTERIOUS

Mr. Moffett conferred with a couple (or more) of Kanawha County Schools Central Office staff members in preparation for his book.  One thing that caught my immediate attention was that those “board people” expressed their dismay that Kanawha County was the only United States school system to have adopted the material published by the Institute for Creation Research, but that is another story.  (See my testimony http://insectman.us/testimony/testimony.htm).  None of the school personnel who conferred with Moffett were named, but he referred to one as an “informant”.  This person fed him lies about the protesters not reading the books (See Part I) and being funded by big money sources.

From Part I we know that someone, who had to be an insider, tipped off the press about Alice Moore’s (the Board member that brought the textbooks to the public’s attention) attempt to hold a private and peaceful meeting with other Board members to express her concerns about the books.

Catherine Candor-Chandler’s doctoral thesis was cited as a primary source of information for Mr. Moffett.  Dr. Chandler once worked for Kanawha County Schools as the Director of Research and Evaluation.  Based upon this circumstantial evidence, could she be the mysterious unnamed source?

It is possible that Mrs. Candor-Chandler was not Moffett’s informant and/or the tipster that stirred up things which Alice Moore was attempting to keep quiet.  In fact it is even possible that the informant was a male.  If so, the title of this sub-section could be “MR. MYSTERIOUS”.

The point is to reveal the sneaky thread of liberalism that entwines the “good ol’ boy” educator pro-book crowd.

MASON

Professor Carol Mason (Director of Gender and Women's Studies, Oklahoma State University) has practically made a career out of ridiculing conservatives, especially the textbook protesters.  Her modus operandi is to concentrate on the exception to the rule, such as the rare violent abortion protester.   Mason claims the textbook protest was racially motivated (See Part I) because the protesters (the overwhelming majority of who were not prejudiced) were pawns used by racists.

Dr. Mason is listed as a trainer for an aggressive pro-abortion (i.e. baby killing) group that promotes talking points for opposing pro-life vehicle plates.  Liberal “logic” insists that a woman is in charge of her own body (even though science says a baby is a unique individual), yet liberals want to prevent citizens from controlling what they place on their private vehicles.  That is censorship—(im)pure and simple.

In reading one of her “scholarly” papers I couldn’t help noticing that Ms. Mason seemed fixated upon Alice Moore’s Southern charm and feminine beauty. In keeping with my theory that the pro-bookers are the same as the pro-abortionist, pro-sodomy, and anti-American crowd, I noted that Carol Mason taught the following college course:  “Queer Theory” which “indicts both the assumption that people are naturally or normally heterosexual…” and “examines all kinds of sexual practices and gender expressions…”  The textbook for that course was “My Lesbian Husband”.

It’s none of my business what those who condemn the protesters do in private, but everyone should know that those self-proclaimed “objective scholars”, like Dr. Mason,  have an agenda which influences how they interpret their research and they are extremely biased toward their own proclivities and prejudices.  Mason is a prime example of someone who throws muddy stones from a glass house.

MULTITUDES

There are very few people who know that many Kanawha County teachers objected to the books.

Some teachers voiced their objections to the books prior to the June 27 Board meeting that ignited the simmering protest.  I remember the Kanawha County Association of Classroom Teachers (KCACT), of which I was affiliated, conducting a survey among its members and then not publicizing the results because there were too many teachers sympathetic to the protesters’ points.

There is a record of a teacher survey, conducted by the liberal Charleston Gazette, which conveys the liberal bias of the media.  An October headline said “Majority of Teachers in Survey Pro-Text”.  Many people would have read no further.  The article (by a reporter that, in another article, proclaimed that he saw nothing wrong with the books) was slanted to convey a stronger case of teacher support than was a reality.  Only 82 teachers responded and three had no opinion.  Of the 79 who expressed an opinion, 22 of them had objections to the books.   Of course, that is a minority, but still a sizable percentage of teachers were not brain-washed, or compromised, much to the dismay of the liberals.

The KCACT was an affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA).  There were multiple millions (if not billions) of dollars at stake if American parents gained control of the public schools.  Also, the KCACT was leveraging for gaining collectiving bargaining power at this time. The NEA came to town in December of 1974 under the auspices of a request by the KCACT to investigate all the facets of the textbook controversy”.  The NEA issued a report of its findings in February, 1975.  Immediately, the pro-book leader labeled the report as “excellent”.

In the 1970’s the NEA was deceptive about revealing its liberal agenda.  There were too many teachers who were conservative and held traditional American values.  Today, the NEA is unashamedly devilish and relies on three categories of teachers:  (1) Compromised.  They are willing to lower their standards for the benefits and pay that the NEA can enhance.  (Unfortunately, I was in that category for several years after the Textbook War.)  (2)  Confused. A small minority of teachers have not realized that the NEA is evil.  (3)  Corrupted. Many teachers totally embrace the NEA goals.  The “corrupted” numbers are rapidly increasing as the leftist-liberal university schools of education (with professors like Mason and Moffett) churn them out fully indoctrinated.  Actually, as more and more students are educated in government schools, all that the universities need to do is reinforce and refine the liberal values the students already have when they leave high school.

The NEA report was expertly written to convey the NEA’s distaste for conservative (especially Christian fundamentalist) views in a way that made the NEA appear to be a high-minded organization offering solutions to avoid future Textbook Wars.  Any semblance of neutrality by the NEA was eliminated when the report disclosed that the chairperson of the NEA Ethics Committee represented the NEA in a pro-book parade and rally held in Charleston.

The NEA (and its liberal allies) conducted the hearings during December 9-11 in a conference room at the Charleston Civic Center.  Participants were formally invited and some uninvited individuals were allowed to participate.  I do not recall, but probably I received an invitation.  I doubt if the NEA invited all three of my fellow “protester” teachers.   The only indication that there were teachers aligned with the protesters was included in a list of what the NEA said the Textbook War brought to Kanawha County:  “prolonged civil strife and uncivil conduct, pitting neighbor against neighbor, church against church, the school system against segments of the community; provoking discord among teachers themselves, and doing violence to the education of students.”  (Bold font is mine.)

There were 77 people who “testified” at the NEA hearing.  From the resulting report, I analyzed the likely position of those people and determined that 11 were protesters and 55 were pro-bookers.  Eleven others were not categorized due to various reasons such as being identified only as a parent or a citizen.  That comes out to only 20% of those interviewed were protesters.  I included 10 students in the group of 55 because the report used several quotes from students and admitted that all were pro-bookers.  If those 10 are excluded from the fraction, the NEA panel heard from a group that included only 25% protesters.  That is hardly fair and balanced. 

Besides classroom teachers there were 13 principals and five central office administrators who appeared.  Quite revealing is that there were 13 people who could easily be identified as classroom teachers. Nine of those were on the textbook review or selection committees and obviously pro-bookers.  Four were members of the Teachers’ Chapter of the Business and Professional People’s Alliance for Better Textbooks (http://insectman.us/testimony/teacher-chapter.htm) which I "chaired".  Therefore, 44% of the teachers who were interviewed were protesters. That is still slightly unbalanced, but what is deadly to the NEA pretense of objectivity is that not one of our comments was included in the report! (Note:  It is possible that the four Textbook Review Committee members were not teachers.  If so, that only enhances my claim the protester teacher points-of-view were censored.)  The teacher comments were about how threatened they felt, and how stifled they were in their classrooms. A teacher was quoted as saying, “We do feel that there has been strong doubt cast upon our professional and personal integrity,” Although that is a whiney statement, I think, if true, it was a situation some teachers deserved and brought upon themselves.  One principal was quoted as saying that a teacher in his building feared teaching a biology section on the reproduction of mollusks. That is ridiculous and pure propaganda slanted against the protesters!

Although the NEA was too slick to say it, they figured (wrongly) that the protesters could not think for themselves, so the protesters must have had someone manipulating them.  Free thinking protesters trying to persuade public policy could not be comprehended by the NEA because only liberals (by NEA thinking) have the right to guide the thoughts of others.

While claiming that outside forces (In a newspaper interview the NEA said “right wingers” fed the controversy.) fueled the furor of (and funded) the protesters, the report conveniently ignored the fact that the NEA itself was an “outsider”.  Outsiders tried to influence both sides.  The NEA panel consisted of members of other liberally lead national groups such as the National Council of Churches. 

One of the several attempts in the report to portray the NEA as a neutral body is the following statement.  “It is the responsibility of this, like all other school systems, to be responsive to these concerns (by the protesters over the kind of education their children were receiving), but in ways that will not jeopardize the education of students or violate the rights of any parties to the education process.”  That statement is difficult to disagree with until the actual track record of the NEA is exposed.  NEA history is an onslaught of liberal values and the censorship of conservative views.  Just consider what the teacher unions did during the later Kanawha County school battles over the “Evolution Resolution” (http://insectman.us/testimony/resolution.htm), “Pandas and People” (http://insectman.us/testimony/pandas.htm), and “State Standards” (http://insectman.us/testimony/standards.htm).  Not only did the NEA ignore the will of science teachers as a whole and textbook selection committee members as a group, but they stabbed in the back their previously supported Board member and contributed to her loosing a reelection attempt. (I have omitted the pertinent, but non-teacher, battle fought by a local parent (http://insectman.us/testimony/citizen-complaint.htm.) 

There are some profound statements in the NEA report to which all Christians should take heed.  The NEA admitted that “There can be no teaching of literature or history that does not concern itself with philosophical, moral, or political values.” And “There can be no teaching or learning in the public school classroom without the exploration of values, philosophies, ideologies, and religious beliefs.”  I have documentation that proves that non-Christian “philosophies, ideologies, and religious beliefs” were a part of the middle school mathematics curricula I used in the early 2000’s.

The NEA report took the position that objectionable passages were taken out of context, yet the report declares that putting the books on display at the public library (which School Board member Alice Moore did) was a “highly ineffectual means of informing the public of their content”.  The report stated that the Board should have mounted an aggressive campaign to respond to each objection and explain the language arts philosophy.  In other words, the Board should have used the liberal media to mute, confuse, or hide the facts.  (Note:  It was the protesters who did not want to censor the full text of the books from public scrutiny since protesters put the complete set of books on display at venues throughout the county.)

I raised the issue of humanism (a stealth term for atheism) in my remarks (http://insectman.us/testimony/nea-hearing.htm) when I testified at the hearing.  The NEA report concluded that objections to the establishment of humanism as a state religion were foolish because the references to humanism were merely referring to being human.  History has proven that I was correct because religious humanism has filled the void left by the  removal of any pretense of Judeo-Christian values in public schools. 

Ultimately, the panel stated, textbook selection belongs to “professional educators” and parents should not be allowed to serve as censors.  Do you see an irony in that conclusion?  It could easily read that professional educators should be the state sanctioned censors. 

The bottom line of the NEA report was that “no group has the right to impose its religious values upon the public schools.”  That means that, Christian values are out, and since a vacuum cannot exist in the place of those Christian values, the religion of secular humanism (no matter how vehemently denied by NEA and its liberal cohorts) will rush in. 

Besides viewpoint hypocrisy, teacher unions are guilty of extremes when it comes to protesting.  Among other liberal issues, The NEA has called for boycotts of specific food brands and companies such as Wal-Mart. 

In my years of Christian activism I have observed that the groups like the NEA and ACLU are fronts for left wing extremists all of whom support values, beliefs, and causes that are the antithesis of those of America’s founding fathers.  I coined a term to describe those who are so far left of center that they do not qualify as true liberals.  That term is levobortomite (lev oh BOR tow mite):   noun.  Anyone who believes and/or promotes left wing extremism, evolutionism, abortion, and/or anti-family activities such as sodomite marriage.  These people are not limited to any particular political party. 
 
This part of the series of articles has “ugly” in the title.  I use the term “ugly” in the context of “morally reprehensible and deserving rebuke or censure.”   The duplicity displayed in the examples above is a clear depiction of intellectual ugliness and that ugliness runs down to the local teacher level.  The KCACT exhibited some narrow-minded thinking and some anger-provoking policies during the protest.   On September 11 the Board withdrew the books and appointed Textbook Review Committee of 18 citizens to review the books.  The KCACT, assuming the citizens would see the validity of the protesters’ issues, quickly voted to oppose any recommendations by that committee.

After the review process was underway six of the Textbook Review Committee members (and an alternate) felt the atmosphere was so hostile to the protesters that they formed their own sub-committee and issued a 450 page report of specific objections and detailed reasons for them.   Mr. Moffett marginalized the splinter group’s report.

Later, the local teacher union group participated in a censorship campaign ignoring the wishes of many Kanawha County teachers of whom quite a few were union members.  At the beginning of the “Evolution Resolution” (http://insectman.us/testimony/resolution.htm) debate I presented to the Board the results of a poll I conducted among secondary science teachers.  Neither the Board nor the teacher union was interested in the results which indicated that teachers were skeptical of evolutionism.  During the “Pandas and People” (http://insectman.us/testimony/pandas.htm) battle the teacher Textbook Selection Committee recommended Pandas, before rescinding that position.  I found out, thanks to a Freedom of Information application, that the teachers had been unduly influenced by the California based, atheist led, National Center for Science Education.  The local teacher union rejected the will of its members when that will separated from the union’s liberal bias and agenda.

I have a clipping from the local teacher union journal headlined “Teachers Must Fight” and the body of the article uses the word fight a couple of more times.  The passion of the article is expressed with (referring to fighting for the United Nations goals of helping children) “Teachers have fought. God help us if you don’t…”  If those words had been printed by a protester the guffawing, from the left, would have never ended!

As a loyal member of the teacher union for over 20 years I can attest to the union’s frequent battles with the Kanawha County School system including walk-outs and loud demonstrations at the Board office and in the halls of the state legislature.  I can provide documentation of the union request for large groups of teachers and parents to “protest” with poster board signs at Board meetings.   In 1990 (after some single day walkouts in previous years) teachers in West Virginia conducted an illegal strike over not receiving a promised pay raise.  I was in a compromised condition and was an ardent participant in those union disruptions of the school system.  My building colleagues elected me as the picket captain.  The strike lasted 12 days and eventually completely closed down the state school system depriving over 100,000 students of several days of education.  In Kanawha County, at least 7 teachers were arrested for blocking busses. 

Prior to the strike (and at times since then) a large group of teachers gathered outside the capitol, or roamed inside the building, making a lot of rowdy noise while the legislature was in session.   Teachers did what they did for their pocketbooks.  Protestors did what they did for their principles. 

A small town newspaper editorial (mentioned in Part I) posed a question and answered it.  The author wrote, “Do I question the integrity of some teachers?  You’re darn right I do….Often today teachers are not like the kindly little lady who taught us back in second grade…No one should try to feed me that rot about trusting all teachers.” 

The protest never was associated with teachers as a group, but rather the material the teachers were going to be required to use.  There were a lot of excellent and ethical (even fundamental Christian) teachers in the Kanawha County school system in 1974.  Their numbers have rapidly decreased and there is no hope for a traditional teacher to survive unless he/she remains a confused conservative or a covert Christian.

That is a prime reason why Christian parents should put their children in home or truly Christian schools (See Exodus Mandate-WV http://insectman.us/exodus-mandate-wv/index.htm.) 

This series of three articles from a “Praise the Protester” perspective has illuminated little known facts about the 1974 Kanawha County Textbook War.  In Part III the protesters will be portrayed in a light that they have not had shined upon them before—the spotlight of heroes.

(See Part III for citations.)