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Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance), a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), does anything but teach justice and tolerance. Promoting domestic terrorist Bill Ayers as a role model for educators and declaring that capitalists are white supremacists, it is clear that they only tolerate a radical leftist agenda.

Learning for Justice has even started paying teachers $300-$500 to create social and economic justice lessons. While some might think that they could run out of money by paying so much for lesson plans, they will not. Learning for Justice has access to an astonishing $607 million through SPLC’s endowment of $471 million and their annual revenue of $136 million(2018).

Learning for Justice prefers people like Bill Ayers to be a guide for teachers in classrooms. Featured in their magazine, Learning for Justice hailed Bill Ayers as a “highly respected figure in the field of multicultural education.” Noting his leadership of Weather Underground, Learning for Justice continued with also recognizing, and concealing, Ayers’ goal to bring his radical, violent agenda to the classroom. “At age 20, Bill Ayers literally walked out of jail into his first teaching position. …Ayers has developed a rich vision of teaching that interweaves passion, responsibility and self-reflection.” Commending an unrepentant terrorist who has no problem potentially harming human beings in the name of a political crusade is teaching tolerance of violence and anti-American extremism; not the tolerance students should be learning. This promotion of violence is not limited to Bill Ayers, but includes the violent Malcom X as well, who is growing his influence on American youth thanks to so many of these organizations.

Learning for Justice makes it clear to followers who they should hate. In many instances, alongside attacks on capitalists, they justify and promote attacks on “white people” who they suggest are at the root of the problems in society. To blame anyone of any race for problems in society is not teaching tolerance.

Learning for Justice begins promoting the hate of white people in kindergarten. At first glance, their lessons may seem acceptable; however, a deeper investigation shows how these lessons set up a divisive and damaging atmosphere.

Beginning in kindergarten, Learning for Justice wants students who are white to understand the guilt they should feel belonging to the “white identity” as exemplified in their lesson, White Anti-Racist Biographies. One of the goals of this lesson is to “help young white children see racism and bigotry.” Not only are they preaching hate towards others, they are also teaching young children to hate themselves. The repercussions of this teaching on such young minds is dangerous to the health and well-being of all children, and setting up a divisive classroom will prevent these children from ever understanding unity.

While it is important and necessary to discuss diversity and respect in all classrooms, age-appropriate content is crucial in the social-emotional development of young children. Having kindergarteners (who are learning their letters, numbers, and colors) define “bigotry” is overstepping the boundaries of what is appropriate in their classroom. There are plenty of ways for kindergarteners to learn respect, empathy, and diversity without having them define the word bigot or reflect on what “white privilege” means to them.

In addition to bullying “white people” through their lesson plans, Learning for Justice also uses the classroom as a platform to denounce capitalists.

With lesson plans to support their anti-capitalist rhetoric, it is clear that they want to spread hate, not stop hate. Their lesson, Was Marx Right About Capitalism? gives students a prime opportunity to learn how and why they should hate capitalism. With the guiding question of placing Marx in a position of authority on capitalism, and using only one text, The Communist Manifesto, to answer that question, students are not given any of the necessary text-evidence or any opportunity to say that Marx was wrong.

Other examples include the lessons, How Convenient is Capitalism for me? and A Historical Primer on Economic (In)Equality. As students explore these lessons, they are backed into a corner of supporting socialism and condemning capitalism with the biased texts that they must use to defend their responses. One can expect accusations of racism and bigotry if they discuss any attributes of capitalism, which makes the classroom a place of intolerance rather than a place where students can safely discuss and share their viewpoints.

Learning for Justice is a leading advocate of intolerance as they label anyone with any conservative or moderate viewpoints a racist or bigot, even if their view is simply that they are proud to be American. Tolerating just one political party is not tolerance. If Learning for Justice was created to “prevent the growth of hate,” why are they influencing their followers to “hate” conservatives, capitalists, the police, and anyone who disagrees with their beliefs? If they only tolerate those who share their radical viewpoints, then they aren’t “teaching tolerance” to anyone, rather they are teaching them to use powerful and hateful language to accuse people with differing viewpoints of being bad people.

Like most other radical leftist organizations, Learning for Justice has embraced the power of persuading young Americans to vote in line with their agenda. The idea that “the educator has the duty of not being neutral,” as said by one of their inspirational radical educators, Paulo Freire, is one that they have fully embraced.

This tweet introduced the article, “Centrism is Canceled: High Schoolers Debate the Impeachment Inquiry” by the New York Times.

Out of all of the radical left groups infiltrating America’s classrooms, Learning for Justice is one of the most dangerous as they use bullying and deception as tactics to build support. Their hypocrisy is clear to anyone who views the articles and lesson plans they create. While they claim to combat bullying in schools, they are bullying millions of people themselves to further their own radical agenda which makes their resources unusable to those who want to teach tolerance. Still, schools are embracing them as a reliable resource. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) listed Learning for Justice (see Teaching Tolerance) in their top websites of 2019. Learning for Justice is even so radical to suggest that math needs to be taught differently to reflect issues of “equity,” and yet they are listed as a top resource for teachers.

If Learning for Justice believes UNESCO’s definition of tolerance, which is, “Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human,” resembles their own, why do they disrespect the conservative right to speech? Why do they not accept the will of the American people in choosing their president? Why do they not appreciate the foundation of America that allows for diversity to exist and their voices to be heard?

Learning for Justice, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is one of the most successful and influential non profits in K-12 education. The name of the project is extremely deceiving, which has allowed them to be very well-funded and influential. Their misleading name brings people to believe that they create materials to make students less divided, but in reality, they are a radical organization. If the SPLC were to accurately name this project it would be called “Learning How To Be An Intolerant Socialist.”