A public school superintendent in a rural part of North Dakota sent an email last month attacking “godless” Democrats and critical race theory (CRT).
Larry Volk, superintendent of the Starkweather School District, called CRT “bigotry cloaked in academic theory” and vowed it “will never have a place in our school district.” He then wrote that it’s “time to move away from godless corrupt woke, left-wing ideology and back to the devout Christ centered Republic the founders envisioned.”
Volk sent the email to a large mailing list run by the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders, reported the Grand Forks Herald. He was apparently upset over a speaker that the group hosted over the summer whom Volk accused of being a proponent of CRT. But Aimee Copas, the council’s director, told the Herald that Volk was incorrect and that the speaker did not discuss CRT.
CRT is sometimes taught at the graduate level in universities but is not routinely taught in secondary schools. Opposing it has lately become a rallying cry for Christian nationalists.
In the message, Volk compared Democrats to Hitler and said the Ku Klux Klan has now been “replaced by the modern military wing of the Democrat party – Antifa and Black Lives Matters.” He told Forum News Service that he meant to send the message to one person, not the full list, and refused to discuss it further.
Starkweather School Board President Chris Berg said he supports Volk.
“I know Mr. Volk very well and know exactly what his views are,” Berg said in an email to the Herald. “I completely back his views 100 percent, and we agree completely on that. We are very tired of the woke leftists pushing their garbage on the school systems and the United States as a whole.”
The small district serves 63 students.
