Science

NC Republican: “We don’t need to be teaching social studies and science” to kids under 5th grade – Salon

On Monday, WRAL reported that North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the highest-ranking Republican in the state, called for eliminating science and history classes from elementary schools.

In his memoir, “We Are the Majority: The Life and Passions of a Patriot,” according to reporter Bryan Anderson, “Robinson is dropping more hints about a potential run for governor in 2024. And, if elected, he says he’d work to keep science and history out of some elementary school classrooms. He says he’d also seek to eliminate the State Board of Education, end abortion and work to prevent transgender people from serving in the military.”

“Robinson said he’d work to keep history, science and a number of other subjects out of first through fifth grade curricula and instead prioritize reading, writing and math,” said the report. “‘In those grades, we don’t need to be teaching social studies,’ he writes. ‘We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to be talking about equity and social justice.’ Robinson also reaffirms personal views on climate change that became a major issue in the 2020 election. ‘Guess what? Most of the people of North Carolina know global warming is junk science,’ he writes.”

Robinson, a former gun rights activist, was elected in 2020, along with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who was given a second term.

He has become highly controversial for his past statements, including that gay people are “devil-worshipping child molesters,” that transgender identity is a “mass delusion” designed “to turn God’s creation … into a sickening image of rebellion to glorify Satan,” that the Parkland school shooting activists are “silly little immature media prosti-tots,” that Michelle Obama is secretly a man, that Muslims in America are “invaders,” and that the film Black Panther is a Jewish plot to grift money off of Black people. While vehemently anti-abortion, he has also admitted that he once paid his wife to have one before they were married.

According to Robinson’s book, of all his past controversial statements, the only one he regrets is the Black Panther comment; Robinson says that he was actually trying to cite an obscure quote from Mel Brooks, and hadn’t meant any anti-Semitic intent behind it.