Latest news with #indoctrination
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Teachers applying for jobs in conservative state must sit test to root out 'woke indoctrinators'
Oklahoma is demanding new teachers from liberal states to take a first-of-its-kind assessment aimed at filtering out what officials call ' woke indoctrinators'. The new certification test, developed by conservative media company PragerU, is being administered for the first time ever on Friday and targets aspiring teachers who have relocated from California and New York. State Superintendent Ryan Walters told CNN that any applicant who fails the assessment will be denied a teaching certificate and barred from working in Oklahoma public schools this academic year. 'This keeps away woke indoctrinators,' Walters said. 'We will not allow these leftists' plans and schemes to take place here in Oklahoma. They are trying to warp the minds of our kids to turn them into social justice warriors.' The 50-question, multiple-choice test covers topics ranging from basic U.S. civics to more politically charged issues. One question asks which chromosomes determine biological sex, while another probes the importance of religious freedom in American identity, CNN reported. Walters, 40, said the test reflects Oklahoma's 'standards and values' and is designed to ensure new teachers 'teach history appropriately' and acknowledge the influence of Christianity in the nation's founding. PragerU, which is not an accredited university despite its name, has gained traction among Republican-led states in recent years. Its content has now been approved for use in public schools in ten states - including Alaska, Idaho, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arizona, New Hampshire, Montana, Texas and Florida - and its videos, which are often criticized for promoting misinformation, are widely used in conservative circles. Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, described the move as a 'watershed moment' for PragerU. 'It's actually giving Prager an explicit role. It's official and it's institutionalized,' Zimmerman said. So far, the test applies only to incoming teachers from California and New York, but Walters said it could soon extend to applicants from as many as eight additional states. An aide to the superintendent told CNN that the test will affect a 'fairly large' number of applicants, though specific figures were not provided. The initiative comes amid a teacher shortage in Oklahoma and increased scrutiny of the state's education system, which ranks near the bottom nationally. Critics have argued that the assessment amounts to a 'political loyalty test,' not an evaluation of teaching ability. 'You don't sign up to teach schools because you hate America,' John Waldron, chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party and a former teacher, said. 'That's not who's teaching in our classrooms,' he said while calling the test an 'insult to our profession.' At a recent State Board of Education meeting, members raised legal concerns and requested to review the assessment before its rollout. However, Walters declined, insisting he had full authority. 'Every teacher that teaches in the state of Oklahoma will have to have a certificate that goes through my office,' he said. 'It has my signature on it. So those will not move forward until this is done.' According to CNN, who obtained a partial look at the assessment, the test includes questions about the Constitution, U.S. Senate composition, and civics basics, alongside more ideological content. In July, the state education department shared Oklahoma's certification standards with PragerU, which then compared them with California and New York requirements to build the test. 'You're gonna teach that there's biological differences between males and females, period,' Walters said. 'We want our students to be patriots. Here in Oklahoma, our academics are going to be grounded in fact.' PragerU CEO Marissa Streit said the goal is to 'undo the damage of gender ideology' and align with the values of Oklahoma's parent community. Walters, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, has also previously mandated the teaching of the Bible in schools as a historical document.
Daily Mail
10-08-2025
- Daily Mail
How I escaped my nightmare life in the 'Baby Factory'... and the hellish punishment drove me to flee
As far back as he can remember, Jamie Mustard says his childhood was one of squalor, non-stop indoctrination, jaw-dropping exploitation and reckless indifference to his safety. The son of a Scientologist mother, he was placed in the care of the church's nursery months after his birth in 1970. His earliest memories are of the cracked, dust-caked linoleum floors of a Los Angeles apartment building that he calls the 'Baby Factory.'
RNZ News
04-08-2025
- RNZ News
Government must ‘wake up' on Gloriavale, leaver says after leader Howard Temple convicted
Gloriavale's overseeing shepherd Howard Temple pleaded guilty to 12 charges on Wednesday. Photo: The Press/Kai Schwoerer The government needs to "wake up" and act to protect people at Gloriavale who were being indoctrinated and "broken", a former member has said. On Wednesday, Gloriavale's "Overseeing Shepherd" Howard Temple entered the dock at Greymouth District Court and pleaded guilty to an amended set of twelve charges, more than two years after first contesting two dozen sexual assault charges, and just days into what was expected to be a two week trial. The 85-year-old pleaded guilty to five charges of doing an indecent act on a young person, five of indecent assault and two of common assault. The other charges were dismissed. More than half of the charges were representative, meaning they represented multiple incidents that took place in similar circumstances. Temple was remanded on bail until 11 August when a date would be set for sentencing. Leavers were frustrated Temple had not admitted to his crimes earlier , saving the time spent going through the courts, and the testimony and cross examinations of five of the nine original complainants, Gloriavale Leavers Support Trust general manager Liz Gregory said. Many survivors felt the case underscored the hypocrisy of Temple's apology in January to those who had suffered historic sexual abuse, following a request from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, she said. Gloriavale leaver Virginia Courage said she harboured no illusion the guilty plea would have ramifications in the community, which is based at Lake Hapuri, in a remote valley about 60 kilometres from Greymouth. "Sadly Gloriavale lives under a completely different world view - they don't judge it through what we would consider normal societal views. They look at most of what has happened recently - with the convictions, the court cases, the focus on the school - as religious persecution. "They view it as religious persecution and it's not - it's prosecution for them not keeping the law." She doubted the outcome would have much cut through in the community, because it did not view sexual offending - especially on children or women - with the abhorrence that most of society does, because a sense of disconnection from the physical body was part of their religious teachings. Layered on top of that, Temple was generally well liked, but, as with everyone there, he had different personas, Courage said. "Howard is viewed as a very nice, gentle person - very respectful to women, very well mannered. And the truth is, he actually is, when he's Howard-the-person. But when he steps into his cult persona as the Overseeing Shepherd of Gloriavale, the person who's keeping the rules and the person who's making sure everyone's on the straight and narrow, he's the cult-Howard. And they are different. I was a different cult person in Gloriavale - I was an absolute rule keeper, I was an absolute loyalist. "They mess with your mind, they change who you are, they change your values, they change your moral code. They completely break the actual person that you are. And sadly, that's what's actually happened with so many people there." She said she did not know exactly how the community could be disestablished. "But surely if the group is under the control, is dominated, is being coerced by this group of men who allow the breaking of the law, surely we can close it?" Former Gloriavale member John Ready told Morning Report he was surprised Temple changed his plea. "I thought he would just fight it till the wheels fell off." But Ready did not believe the outcome of the trial would change much in Gloriavale. "Their world view is just not in line with reality. That's why we have to go to court to do any sort of negotiation with them because a sit down, face-to-face talk is just impossible." Outside court on Wednesday the mother of one of the complainants, who cannot be named, said she cried in the public gallery when Temple initially denied the charges. "I was thinking you are the shepherd, you are responsible for these people. You didn't show the care of a shepherd," she said. "It's a milestone that our voice has been heard. A leader of Gloriavale has acknowledged he has done wrong to our children. We do not want future generations of children suffering this and going through the same scenario." Hearing the guilty pleas was like having a heavy burden lifted, she said. "The girl's voices were heard, and in the girl's voices were their parents' voices as well." The amended charges cover a 20 year period, from 2002 to 2022, and relate to six complainants. Five gave evidence over the two days of the trial, describing a culture of fierce patriarchy, where women and girls were at risk of being deemed rebellious or worldly for anything from tying the belt on their uniform incorrectly, to allowing too much hair to be visible under their headscarves. The women described Temple taking advantage of the domestic chores they are required to do to touch, caress and grope them, such as during meal times when they served large, heavy jugs of cider or hot drinks to tables of 50 or more. Temple was also alleged to have frequented the kitchen to "hug" the young women from behind while they worked, kissing them on their necks, touching their breasts or making lewd remarks. The women said there was no way to refuse Temple, nor to report his actions to anyone in the context of the complete control Gloriavale's leaders wielded over members. Barrister Brian Henry said it was well past time for the government to intervene. "This is a criminal activity that's gone on for over 50 years. We now have both shepherds - and remember, the shepherd is regarded as the right hand of God - carrying out sex offences against little girls and it doesn't matter the extent of what's done, the damage to their heads, the damage to their life by these predators is huge. "They've organised this community and they've just had fun for 50 years - it's time it got stopped." In 2024, Henry filed proceedings against several government agencies - Oranga Tamariki, the Department of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Social Development and Labour Inspectorate - for allowing abuse to continue at Gloriavale. "The government can't just sit by and say, it'll sort out itself. It won't. They have to step in. They have to get the families and the kids out. "Temple should be registered as a sex offender, be supervised around women under the age of 16, or kept away from the community altogether," Henry said. The case may prompt others to come forward with allegations, but only if they had already left the strictly controlled group, he said. "If they don't leave, there's no way they're able to happily survive inside the community and give evidence against the leaders. It's just not that sort of environment. But they leave, they start to understand how badly they've been treated and how badly they've been conned into believing this is a utopian Christian way of life. "They've had no freedom of thought, no freedom of religion, no freedom at all." Earlier legal cases had helped build trust among leavers, with the success of three former Gloriavale men at the Employment Court in 2022 prompting female leavers to come forward with a similar case. The court found in their favour in 2023. Henry said Gloriavale's leaders would present the charges against Temple as "lies of the system" working against the community. But Temple's admission of guilt was different from the conviction of founder Hopeful Christian , who was imprisoned on indecent assault charges, which he denied. "This time he [Temple] has admitted it, he's pleaded guilty to charges which expressly state he had intent to sexually abuse these girls. "Howard Temple is in a different situation to the others who have been prosecuted in the last couple of years. He is someone who created the environment they're in. He is one of the original establishers of Gloriavale. He's been in the top job since the 1990s. He's a ringleader, he's actually one of the king sex offender crims in my book." Henry wanted to see government action to remove children and families from Gloriavale, and an end to government agencies "enabling" the community. "If the government goes in and tries to support and hold the community together, they've got to understand they're supporting criminals to carry on abusing girls and I just don't understand how social welfare and people like that can go in and run these programmes knowing full well what's happening. "They are sex offenders who've built a society cloaked in Christianity so they can perpetrate their crimes." Temple's predecessor as Overseeing Shepherd, Australian evangelist Neville Cooper (Hopeful Christian), founded the Springbank Christian Community near Rangiora in the late 1970s. The community relocated to the West Coast in the 1990s, where it still operates today, with an estimated 600 members. Temple has been bailed to a property adjoining the main Gloriavale site. Asked if that was a cause of concern for Oranga Tamariki, it noted bail conditions were managed by the police. Regional Commissioner Canterbury and Lower South Tamariki and Whānau Services Ana Su'a-Hawkins said the organisation was working collaboratively across government to "support the safety and well-being of children and young people at Gloriavale". Staff made regular visits to the community for "a range of activities" including risk assessments and implementing and monitoring safety plans, she said. Su'a-Hawkins said Oranga Tamariki was also engaging with the community "by attending child protection lead meetings and through discussions with leaders regarding children's and women's rights and education provisions". Police West Coast area commander Inspector Jaqueline Corner said it had been a long and intensive investigation, and she was pleased with the guilty pleas. She acknowledged the victims, and said the outcome was a direct result of their willingness and courage to speak up. Minister for Children Karen Chhour and Minister for the South Island James Meager both declined to comment. Oranga Tamariki did not respond before deadline. A Gloriavale spokesperson said he was unable to answer any questions on Temple. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Fox News
03-08-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Bill Maher calls universities 'indoctrination factories,' partially backs Trump efforts to reform them
Bill Maher slammed America's elite universities as "indoctrination factories" and shared support for President Donald Trump's plans to reform them, saying they need a "hot poker up the a--," on HBO's "Real Time" on Friday. "Academia needed a hot poker up the a--… our universities have been out of control for a long time. They became indoctrination factories... There's absolutely no diversity of thought," Maher said in response to a viewer question about Trump's efforts to reform American universities. Trump has been waging war against the country's top colleges over antisemitism, DEI and lack of diverse thought. Trump has withheld billions of dollars in federal research funds from Columbia, Harvard, Yale and other top schools in efforts to get them to reform their campuses. Antisemitic incidents have sharply spiked at colleges across the country since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. Additionally, studies show that intellectual diversity is in decline at universities, with liberals outnumbering conservatives. Trump restored research funds to Columbia after the Ivy League school settled with the administration, paying over $221 million to resolve various federal civil rights investigations against it. The deal includes $21 million to resolve antisemitism complaints. The Trump administration hailed the deal as the largest antisemitism settlement in history. Columbia also committed to several reforms to combat antisemitism and discrimination on its campus. Maher conceded that he didn't think withholding scientific research funds wasn't the right course of action, but countered that universities had become profoundly anti-American. He also said that professors, cloistered in their "ivory towers," had become disconnected from basic moral decency. "Why do you think they erupted so many of them in cheers for what happened On October 7th? Why do you have professors coming out there and saying they were exhilarated by this mass massacre of people? Okay, that didn't happen overnight, you know, they're ivory towers, and also they're just very Anti-America," Maher said. Cornell University Professor Russell J. Rickford called the Hamas terrorist attack "exhilarating" and "energizing," just days after it took place. "It was exhilarating, it was energizing. And if it weren't exhilarating by this challenge to the monopoly of violence – by this shifting to this balance of power – then they would not be human. I was exhilarated," Rickford said. He later issued an apology. The "Real Time" host slammed colleges for lacking free speech on their campuses, and said that something had been "rotten" about American higher education for quite some time. He slammed universities for not permitting conservatives to speak on campus. "You cannot speak the other side of the coin, when conservative thought, whatever you think of it. It's just verboten, which is basically what happened," Maher said.
ABC News
29-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
China forces young Tibetan children to indoctrination boarding schools to push state propaganda
Distressed Tibetan children as young as four sent to Chinese state-run boarding schools for indoctrination have been beaten for praying and wearing Buddhist blessing cords, forced to sleep on sheepskins and taught only in Mandarin, a new report has found. Researchers and activists say the boarding schools have been used by authorities to suppress the local culture and language of people in China's Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Details of the violence and coercive indoctrination have emerged in a new report from the US-based Tibet Action Institute (TAI) titled When They Came To Take Our Children. Two Tibetans interviewed told the TAI that children were reprimanded for practising their religion. "Students are restricted from wearing any sungdue [Buddhist blessing cords] around their necks and wrists and chanting Tibetan prayers," the report says. A former student, who has left Tibet, told the TAI if school authorities inspected dormitories and "found that we had not kept it clean, we were beaten as a punishment". Along with the allegations of beatings, the report says Tibetan children are indoctrinated to praise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and taught only in Mandarin. "It's an effort to move Tibetan children away from family and community … expanding its control over what they're learning and thinking," Freya Putt, the author of the report and TAI's Director of Strategy, says. The TAI said its research was based on rare firsthand accounts from people in Tibet, and with those who have recently fled — as well as Chinese news reports and research papers. Human Rights Watch Associate China Director Maya Wang said they too have gathered evidence of the CCP's enforcement of Mandarin instruction of Tibetan schoolchildren. "It's part of a bigger forced assimilation drive, where the intention is to punish any kind of expression of Tibetans that are not following the Chinese government script," she told the ABC. Chinese authorities have denied children have been mistreated, and have used state media to cast the schools in a far more positive light. TAI's previous research found that 800,000-900,000 Tibetan children aged 6-18 were living in state-run boarding schools. Fieldwork by educational sociologist Gyal Lo suggests another 100,000 aged four to six are also in boarding preschools. "Some people do not want to send their children to boarding school but they don't have any other choice," a Tibetan who recently fled is quoted as saying in the report. "Parents do not want their children to be illiterate, so with that hope they send their children to the schools. But when these children return home, they cannot speak in Tibetan with their family members, they only communicate in Chinese. Dr Lo said he had even seen this happen to his two grand-nieces. He described it as a "sort of cultural genocide", and that his grand-nieces seemed to be uncomfortable sharing the family's Tibetan identity. "They became a stranger at home," he said. "That's just the result of the three months in the boarding preschool." The TAI's report detailed terrible conditions in boarding preschools. A student teacher's online diary is quoted, describing how "children in the lower bunks were prevented from falling off by boards; children in the upper bunks were tied up with a strap. For nap time, children have to sleep with their heads on their desks". Another account from a Tibetan still in Tibet described how the young child of a friend was so distressed they had to be locked in a room so their parent could leave them at boarding school. "China is using Tibetan children as the final frontier on the battleground to eliminate the Tibetan identity language and the culture," Dr Lo said. Former UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, described these practices as an "existential threat" to Tibetan people. "Within two generations, if this situation does not improve, the language, much of the identity [and] culture will be lost," he said. Tibetan-Australian Yangkyi Dolma Sangpo, 25, attended a boarding school as a young child. Yangkyi's parents fled Tibet when she was only four months old. "My father, he got in trouble with the Chinese government because he was bringing Tibetan scriptures and Tibetan political texts from India back into Tibet," Yangkyi said. Her parents could not risk taking her on a month-long journey through the Himalaya mountains to India, she said. So she was left in the care of her grandmother. Yangkyi remembers being taught in Mandarin at school in the village where she lived with her grandmother. She said they did learn Tibetan "on the side", but the school was closed down when she was about six. She was then told she would have to go to a boarding school. At that school, students were strongly discouraged from speaking Tibetan or keeping possessions tied to Tibetan traditions, like prayer beads, she said. "We received a lot of bullying from other students who were there a long time … they were looking down on us," she said. At boarding school, Yangkyi said they were only taught Chinese culture and language. "We were not practising Tibetan religion or any other type of traditions," she said. Yangkyi remembers the culture shock when she returned home. "Because my grandmother and my extended family … they don't speak Mandarin, and me coming home [I was] completely speaking Mandarin all the time and correcting little words," she said. "Like if they said 'socks' in Tibetan, I'd be correcting them to say it in Mandarin." Yangkyi said she had a kidney condition as a young child. Her family used that as an excuse to keep her at home in the village instead of returning to the state-run boarding school. She eventually went to another privately run boarding school that taught Tibetan language and traditions. Then in 2010, Yangkyi was reunited with her parents who had been relocated to Australia on humanitarian grounds. Even outside of Tibet, people like Yangkyi and Dr Lo put themselves at great risk by speaking publicly about their experiences and research. When Dr Lo was recently in India, his father died. "My brothers and sister could not directly inform me that my dad passed away because they're afraid of Chinese authorities' intimidation," he said. Accounts from Tibet have been extremely difficult to verify. Yangkyi tried for months to get documents or photos from family still there, to help the ABC verify her story. But it was not possible without putting them at risk. Even chatting briefly with Yangkyi spooked one of her cousins. "He left me a note saying: 'Hey, I'll be MIA for a while, I don't want to get in trouble,'" she said. There have long been accusations and documentation of religious and cultural suppression in Tibet. In 1950, the then-newly proclaimed People's Republic of China sent troops into Tibet. It was annexed by China and after a failed uprising in 1959 the Dalai Lama — Tibet's spiritual leader — fled to India, where he set up a government in exile that still exists. Tibetans living overseas say communication with relatives is limited, and there is great risk talking about anything political or controversial. People in Tibet are also routinely restricted from travelling and being issued passports, according to the Central Tibetan Administration, the India-based government in exile. Foreign journalists and officials are rarely allowed into the region. The US State Department's East Asia and Pacific bureau stated in May that five requests in 2024 and three in 2023 by American officials to visit were rejected. Diplomats visiting Tibetan areas outside the TAR are subject to "conspicuous surveillance to intimidate, monitor, harass, and restrict [their] movements", it says. It says the TAR is the only part of China its officials need to formally request permission to visit. The ABC has made repeated requests to visit Tibet to report on the devastating earthquake in January, which killed at least 120 people. They were all denied, with officials citing safety concerns. The CCP has mobilised its media outlets to portray the schools in a positive way. A video posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, by China Tibet Net — a state media outlet — shows children in class, playing outside, conducting chemistry experiments and dancing. The description emphasises that enrolment in the boarding school system was voluntary, and students received free food and accommodation with tuition in both Tibetan and Mandarin. There was another video posted by The Tibet Daily, the official newspaper of the CCP's Tibet Autonomous Region Committee. It features footage said to be from foreign media reports, accusing them of spreading fake information about boarding schools. In the video, two Chinese reporters visit a school in Tibet where a teacher tells them they give classes in Tibetan language, culture and dancing. The video says the boarding schools are the only way to provide high quality education in such a large and sparsely populated region. In 2020, China's State Council introduced measures aimed at "promoting and popularising the national common language and script", with policies encouraging teachers from other regions to support teaching in Tibet and improve Chinese proficiency among local teachers. There was no requirement for teachers to have Tibetan language skills, according to a 2024/2025 recruitment document issued by the Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau. Zoe Bedford from the Australia Tibet Council said her organisation had asked the Australian government to sanction Chinese government officials responsible for Tibet's boarding schools. "We get the reply back that the government raises the issue of these colonial boarding schools publicly and privately in their conversations with Chinese officials," Ms Bedford said. A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said they would not speculate about potential sanctions. "The Australian government has serious concerns about the erosion of educational, religious, linguistic, and cultural rights in Tibet, including through the boarding school system," it said in a statement. In October, Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, James Larsen, raised concerns about the "separation of children from families in boarding schools; and erosion of linguistic, cultural, educational and religious rights and freedoms". The ABC contacted China's Embassy in Canberra for a response. Professor de Varennes, the former UN special rapporteur, called on UN institutions and democratic countries to do more.
