Anne Holton, wife of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), denounced the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as “fundamental in enshrining slavery.”
Holton made the comments as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) new history standards were approved 5-3 by the Commonwealth’s Board of Education, upon which she sits. She said:
To an audience as inclusive as our Virginia is, you cannot reference the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as ‘remarkable documents’ without also acknowledging that they [are] fundamental in enshrining slavery, and limiting the protections that they provided only to white property-owning men.
Holton also served as Virginia’s Secretary of Education under former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who tanked his own campaign against Youngkin by making anti-parent remarks regarding the education of the Commonwealth’s children.
The history standards were written at least in part to correct disinformation and anti-America propaganda injected into the curriculum through the use of critical race theory — something Youngkin ran on during his campaign.
However, the unveiling of those standards had a rocky start, with the initial revision facing severe backlash and a rejection by the same school board. Youngkin acknowledged of the initial standards that there were “omissions and mistakes.”
The new standards, which were approved to move toward a public comment period, will likely see revisions in April.
Youngkin board appointee Andy Rotherham — who was appointed to the board by Sen. Mark Warner (D) when he was governor — said that it was “good work” but that the document needed improvement. He believes ultimately that the board needed to “get this to the public.”
“Come April, for me to feel good, there’s going to have to be a chance to render improvements,” Youngkin board appointee and former Salem City Schools superintendent Alan Siebert said.
However, in a Richmond Times-Dispatch piece written by the Virginia superintendent of public instruction and executive officer of the Virginia Board of Education, Jillian Balow argued that the new standards reinvigorate history and civics as central to the American and Virginian identity.
“American history and the tenets of our founding documents are not trivia to be Googled when needed and then quickly forgotten,” she wrote, adding:
There is an increased emphasis on civics, beginning in the early elementary grades. As students advance, they learn about the vision of our Founding Fathers and its relevance today. George Washington is again ‘The Father of Our Country’ and James Madison is again ‘The Father of the Constitution.’
Such a curriculum revision is perhaps most contentious in Virginia, as many of America’s Founding Fathers were themselves Virginians, and many, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, primarily wrote Founding documents like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
One of the earliest histories in the Founding of a new nation, Virginia is the setting of early colonial-American and American trials and tribulations. It provided many intellectual sources for the Founding, and was also home to a significant number of slaves. It was the capital of the Confederacy and the place where Massive Resistance began, but it also elected the first black persons to Congress, as well as elected the first black person to a governorship of any state in the union.
With that as a backdrop, the Youngkin administration’s stated goals have always been to truthfully tell history, “the good and the bad.” Balow wrote:
The draft also rejects ‘presentism,’ a historical lens that places historical figures in the dock for trial and condemnation according to contemporary standards but is unflinching in its examination of eras when America did not live up to its founding ideals, including the dispossession of native nations and tribes, slavery, the Jim Crow era, and the race-based exclusion of Asian immigrants.
Despite that, some on the left are using heavily embellished language to describe the standards, such as Loudoun County NAACP chapter president Michelle Thomas, who described the new standards as “the new Massive Resistance.”
Kaine is up for reelection in 2024.
