Ethnic Studies and ‘Adultism’ Curricula Label Parental Authority as ‘Oppression’

by Meredith Godwin | August 4, 2026 | Education

A dangerous addition to classroom curriculum and teacher training, disguised under the term “ethnic studies,” is rapidly spreading across United States school districts. 

Originating in California and currently infiltrating 22 states, ethnic studies learning materials are pushing radical ideology on both America’s students and teachers. 

One specific book, targeted towards “educators, parents, and young people,” is entitled Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators.

The text’s publisher, AK Press, describes the book as:

Born from sustained organizing, and rooted in Black and women of color feminisms, disability justice, and other movements, abolition calls for an end to our reliance on imprisonment, policing and surveillance, and to imagine a safer future for our communities.
Topics addressed throughout include student organizing, immigrant justice in the face of ICE, approaches to sex education, arts-based curriculum, and building abolitionist skills and thinking in lesson plans.

PragerU CEO Marissa Streit recently called specific attention to ethnic studies’ and Lessons in Liberation’s harmful teachings on “adultism.”

Lessons in Liberation reads, “adultism teaches us that adults have the power and the right to decide what young people’s boundaries should be.” 

In an interview with FOX Digital, Streit explained,

Adultism is most synonymous with tyranny and fascism. … [Lessons in Liberation] actually includes a very specific example that if a child wants to do things to their body or wants to have premature sex, let’s say, that is their right as long as they’re not hurting other people.

In a separate talk posted on X, Streit said, 

You know what they mean by adultism? Is that the adult is the tyrant if they tell the child how to dress, what to do with their bodies, and at what age they should begin having sexual relations. If you’re an adult and you tell a child that they should wait, that they should dress properly, you’re engaging in adultism, according to some of these ethnic studies courses.

Streit warned that the popularization of harmful principles like “adultism” will break bonds between children and parents, create chaotic communities and fuel distrust between people and institutions. She continued, “Then a new form of government comes out and says, ‘well you can’t trust anybody else so therefore you put your trust in us.’”

Streit emphasized:

That’s not liberty; that’s an attack on parental authority.
Parents, not the government, have the right to raise their kids.

Similar materials are being implemented across U.S. school districts in the form of books, teacher trainings, curriculum modifications and workshops. 

For example, an ethnic studies training seminar was recently included as part of an April conference at San Francisco’s John O’Connell High School. 

One presentation, “Youth as Knowledge Producers: Challenging Adults Supremacy Through Ethnic Studies,” used a visual aid that read, “Due to systemic power dynamics inherently the relationship between students and educators is an oppressive one.” 

Marissa Streit further warned that using these tactics and language to break parent-child trust is merely one part of a political strategy to “radically transform America,” promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America. 

Streit cited DSA officials who have publicly stated their intent to dismantle major American institutions, the U.S. Senate, the presidency and U.S. Constitution principles. Streit said, 

Imagine you’re training these teachers and the teachers are taking this to America’s classrooms. Within a few years, you have radical Marxists graduating from our schools, believing that America should be dismantled from within. And once they dismantle America from within, they’ll come in with new political power, as we’ve seen in Cuba and Venezuela and other places around the world.

There is no doubt that “adultism” and other elements of ethnic studies curricula are actively harming American students, parents and teachers. Please join Daily Citizen in prayer for U.S. families and schools, and check out the resources below to learn how you can take back your child’s education. 

Focus on the Family has a free parent resource on education — Equipping Parents for Back-to-School. It explains issues like radical ideologies in the classroom, parental rights in education and religious freedom and free speech in schools. It’s a terrific resource for parents who want to advocate for their children and guide them toward academic success.

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