Klein Online

Students taught to emulate Van Jones’ anti-police activism: New curriculum glorifies communist who called for ‘resistance’ against cops.

Posted on September 6, 2011 at 10:38 AM EST

By Aaron Klein
 

Van Jones, president Obama’s former “green jobs” czar, led an event that launched a new “human rights” curriculum for high schools in which the work of Jones and other radicals is glorified.

High-school students are now being asked to “know who Van Jones is and why he is a human rights defender,” according to lesson plans obtained by KleinOnline.

The plans also ask students to “become a defender” against “police brutality” while glorifying an organization founded by Jones that has been accused of anti-police activities.

Jones resigned in September 2009 after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Jones also called for “resistance” against the U.S., among other revelations of his extremist rhetoric and ideology.

KleinOnline first reported the new curriculum, “Speaking Truth to Power,” promotes Jones as a “human rights defender.” The curriculum was officially launched in New York schools in December.

Now it has emerged that Jones was one of five so-called “human rights defenders” featured at an Atlanta event when the controversial curriculum was first being formed.

On Jan. 15, 2005, Jones was on stage with four other so-called human rights defenders at two workshops for high school students in Atlanta’s Freedom Hall of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. The event was meant to serve as an inaugural in Atlanta for the new curriculum.

On stage with Jones was Chinese activist Harry Wu, Russian activist Marina Pisklakova and Dianna Ortiz, a Roman Catholic nun who was kidnapped and raped by members of the Guatemalan military. Ortiz later drew criticism when she accused the U.S. government of involvement in her abduction.

Students participated in a webcast to launch the new curriculum. Presented in conjunction with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, the webcast was broadcast live from Chestnut Ridge Middle School in Spring Valley, N.Y.

The new curriculum revolves around a book, also “Speaking Truth To Power,” that presents 17 “human rights” defenders, including Jones.

Other so-called defenders include Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who was recently accused of misusing humanitarian aid; the Dalai Lama and South African activist Desmond Tutu.

Both Yunus and Tutu are founders of The Global Elders, which has gone on solidarity visits to leaders of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

KleinOnline recently obtained the “Speaking Truth To Power” curriculum.

One required lesson for grades 9 through 12 is “Justice, Fair Treatment.” The lesson instructs teachers to ensure students “Know who Van Jones is and why he is a human rights defender.”

The lesson also tells teachers to “Instruct the students to read the Van Jones interview from “Speaking Truth to Power” and to read the article ‘Lessons from a Killing.’”

The “Speaking Truth To Power” textbook profile of Jones fails to mention his radical history.

“From March to September 2009, Jones worked as the special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council for Environmental Quality,” states the profile, which does not mention that Jones resigned amid controversy.

The profile goes on to state Jones founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, describing the organization as “a strategy center for documenting and exposing human rights violations in the United States – particularly those perpetuated by law enforcement.”

However, as KleinOnline reported, Baker was an avowed socialist who worked closely with communist activists. She also participated in events that were close to the radical Weather Underground domestic terrorist group founded by Bill Ayers, President Obama’s associate for many years.

The textbook profile also notes Jones founded Bay Area Police Watch, which is described as being “committed to stopping police misconduct and protecting victims of abuse.”

Jones’ Police Watch group, however, has been widely accused of demonizing local police. KleinOnline reported Jones signed a petition calling for nationwide “resistance” against police, accusing them of using the 9/11 attacks to carry out policies of torture.

The new curriculum teaches students to “Become a Defender:”

“While it is important to trust what is within the news, it is much more difficult to discover what is truly going on, especially when it is the law enforcers you are investigating,” reads the curriculum.

The curriculum asks: “Research the United States’ official position on police brutality. What actions does the U.S. Justice Department take against law enforcement agencies that violate U.S. laws on police brutality?”

It goes on to urge students to “contact organizations within the United States that work to eliminate police brutality. Find out what you can do to help end brutality and organize a branch of that organization locally.”

“Write to a federal official and file a complaint if you believe that what you have seen, heard, read, or experienced is a form of police brutality,” it suggests.

Jones, meanwhile, was a founder and leader of the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM.

Speaking to the East Bay Express, Jones said he first became radicalized in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, during which time he was arrested.

“I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.

“I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary,” he said.

Succeeding revelations about Jones by KleinOnline included:

*One day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of “U.S. imperialism” around the world.

*Just days before his White House appointment, Jones used a forum at a major youth convention to push for a radical agenda that included spreading the wealth and “changing the whole system.”

*Jones’ Maoist manifesto while leading the group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, was scrubbed from the Internet after being revealed by KleinOnline.

*Jones was the main speaker at an anti-war rally that urged “resistance” against the U.S. government – a demonstration sponsored by an organization associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party.

*In a 2005 conference, Jones characterized the U.S. as an “apartheid regime” that civil rights workers helped turn into a “struggling, fledgling democracy.”

Meanwhile, “Speaking Truth To Power” seeks to expand globally.

Already, the group boasts its curriculum has been disseminated to hundreds of thousands of students in the U.S., Europe and Africa.

“A model country for this educational initiative is Italy, where the 12-week course has been taught to over 250,000 students. The human rights education curriculum is also being taught in South Africa and Romania,” states the group’s website.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott