University Of California’s K-12 Materials Call January 6 An ‘Insurrection,’ Compare It To KKK

(LifeSiteNews) — University of California Santa Cruz has proposed K-12 educational materials that would teach public school students that the January 6, 2021, protest at the United States Capitol was comparable to the racist terror group Ku Klux Klan rallying a century beforehand.

The College Fix reports that the watchdog group Defending Education found in the university’s “History & Civics Project” a section on “Historicizing Race & Whiteness,” dedicated to teaching “structural and institutional racism.” This unit contained a section called “Contextualizing the Insurrection,” which suggests that “comparing a KKK demonstration in Washington D.C. that occurred almost 100 years ago to the January 6th Insurrection should provide your students with some context for this event while also prompting them to ask some clarifying questions about both.”

Five years ago, the January 6 riot broke out after President Donald Trump’s “March to Save America” rally, which was meant to encourage Congress to delay certification of the 2020 presidential election results over concerns that election irregularities and alleged voter fraud in several states gave former President Joe Biden a victory that should have been his.

Viral videos showed some people physically attacking police, pushing against security barricades, breaking through windows, trespassing in congressional offices, and climbing on walls, causing the vote certification to be suspended and lawmakers to be evacuated from the chambers. Other videos, however, also showed that many were let into the Capitol by police and simply walked the halls after the initial breach. Several people died, some after the rioting and only claimed to be related to it, but the only fatal victim of direct, intentional violence was unarmed Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, shot by a Capitol police officer while she was climbing through an interior window.

Ever since, the incident has been a bitter point of partisan contention, with Democrats insisting it was an “insurrection” intentionally encouraged by Trump to retain power (a charge for which the Biden FBI never found evidence) and most Republicans disavowing criminal acts while stressing that it paled in comparison to the political left’s record of violence and also championing non-violent attendees subjected to overzealous and malicious prosecution (some have also suggested it was “staged” by Trump’s enemies, which has not been substantiated either; some activist agitators were identified in the crowd, but no proof of a government conspiracy has come to light). 

Regardless, January 6 bears little resemblance to the Klan, which is American history’s most well-known white supremacist group. Founded after the Civil War to resist Reconstruction and terrorize former slaves, the Klan is estimated to have murdered 3,446 black Americans between 1882 and 1968.

By contrast, January 6 attendees were motivated by concerns about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, not race. 1,575 individuals were charged in connection with the riot (all since pardoned by Trump), including an estimated 608 charges relating to “assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents or officers or obstructing those officers during a civil disorder” and another 91 for destruction of government property. Even assuming all those charges were warranted, they are a miniscule portion of overall rally attendance, estimates for which range anywhere from 10,000 to 80,000, establishing many thousands of attendees who did nothing more than peacefully protest.

The Santa Cruz history project “presents a one-sided view of history intended to lead students to a certain political viewpoint,” said Defending Education’s Paul Runko. “Any program or curriculum that promotes ‘The 1619 Project’ as a legitimate historical text should be scrutinized.”

“Political advocacy should have little to no role in K-12 schools, particularly when civics programs today encourage activism before students have a solid understanding of American government and constitutional principles,” he added.

American institutions of higher education have long been recognized as heavily dominated by left-wing bias and historical revisionism, conditioning students to reject religion, traditional morality, and free markets and to view America as a uniquely malignant force in the world, a society systemically rigged against the poor and minority groups, with identity-based grievances forming the foundation of so-called “social justice” and “intersectional” approaches to education.

The toll of such an activist bent often extends well beyond politics. In 2024, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.

In response, the second Trump administration has issued executive orders to deny federal funds to educational entities that indoctrinate students through DEI programs, among other executive actions to combat so-called “woke ideology” in education.