A Maryland school district is educating students about "speciesism," which includes the oppression against plants as part of a lesson plan linked to Black Lives Matter.
Teachers in Howard County Public School System [HCPSS] were instructed to assign students a "Privilege or Oppressed? Worksheet."
The worksheet prompts students to identify "the places where they enjoy privilege and places where their status causes them to lack privilege."
Speciesism is one of 13 "types of oppression," including racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and adultism.
This type of oppression is illustrated through a chart that breaks down how each type of oppression is manifested such as the variable involved, the non-target groups, and the target groups. In the case of speciesism, the variable involved is species, and the non-target group is humans, per the chart outlined in the worksheet. The targeted group is animals, plants, and flora.
The worksheet is derived from a lesson plan that appears to have connections to the Black Lives Matter movement, per documents obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE).
PDE obtained documents showing details of the HCPSS lesson plan, which explicitly has a "Black Lives Matter" banner at the top of the "lesson" titled "Diversity and Globalism: Secondary Social Studies Community."
Howard County Board of Education approved a resolution "recognizing Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action" on January 21, 2021. The board stated that the school system was "not using the external curriculum put out by the BLM organization."
They also added that school staff had "created lessons that can be used in Middle School or High School."
The Diversity and Globalism lesson plan instructs the teacher that the prerequisite for students to understand globalism is first comprehending privilege and understanding structural inequities. One of the learning objectives includes that "I understand and can advocate for the principles of Black Lives Matter."
Furthermore, the lesson plan directs teachers to "point out that people who benefit from privilege are unaware of the existence of the benefits they receive through their status."
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Black Lives Matter at School is a "national coalition organizing for racial justice in education," according to the website. The four national demands of the organization will "begin to insure [sic] safety and equity in our schools."
Fox News Digital reached out to HCPSS for a comment, but they did not immediately respond.
"BLM is an explicitly ideological and political movement that supports the Muslim Brotherhood, seeks to disrupt the western nuclear family, and instructs students to be queer affirming and trans affirming," Parents Defending Education Director of Outreach Erika Sanzi told Fox News Digital. "Instruction about racial injustice and black excellence, whether through literature, historical narrative or current events, is essential but the BLM Week of Action materials are not that—instead they are an attempt to indoctrinate children into supporting a movement that they don't understand."
