Tom Cotton Introduces Bill to Remove Federal Funding of 1619 Project Curriculum

Bronson Stocking / Townhall Tipsheet

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), has introduced a new bill that would prohibit federal funds from being used to teach the 1619 Project at K-12 schools and school districts. The bill would also render schools that teach the 1619 Project ineligible for purposes of receiving federal professional-development grants.

"The New York Times’s 1619 Project is a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded. Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage," Sen. Cotton is quoted in a press release.

The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, rewrites the history of the United States to begin with 1619, the year when African slaves were offloaded onto the shores of Virginia. The 1619 Project identified slavery and its subsequent effects as the central driving force throughout American history. The Project has been criticized by historians as being inaccurate. But, despite the inaccuracies, Hannah-Jones was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her work.

Cotton's bill, Saving American History Act of 2020, would require the Secretaries of Education, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture to prorate federal funding to schools that teach the 1619 Project based on a determination of how much it costs to teach the curriculum at each school.

According to Sen. Cotton, several schools have already begun incorporating the 1619 Project into their curricula. These schools and school districts include Chicago; Newark, New Jersey; Buffalo, New York; and Washington, D.C.