OSU Undermining and Belittling Parents
Part 5: This segment continues to focus on queer theory at OSU and shows how queer activists are undermining and belittling parents and advocating for limiting parental rights.
This segment continues to focus on queer theory at OSU and shows how queer activists are undermining and belittling parents and advocating for limiting parental rights. These activists include university, state, and federal officials and educators. The actions of these people are making it increasingly difficult for parents to know about or intervene when their children are being targeted. The environment created by these activists shields pedophiles and perverts and vilifies parents trying to protect their children.
From 2008 until 2019, Hugh Crethar worked in the College of Education at OSU. During his time at OSU, Crethar served as a Professor in the Counseling and Counseling Psychology Program and as Counseling Program Coordinator. He held an Endowed Professorship, served as Chair of the OSU’s Institutional Review Board, and served multiple roles within the American Counseling Association, including President of Counselors for Social Justice and President of the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues in Counseling. Crethar’s research involved social justice competence, multiculturalism, excellence in counselor training, play therapy with children, LGBTQQI issues in counseling, and issues related to parental consent. Crethar departed OSU in 2019 after he was charged with stalking students.
Before Crethar departed from OSU, he conducted work on topics including LGBTQ+, multiculturalism, feminism, social justice, family counseling, developmental disabilities, counselor supervision, gender identity, equity, racial microaggressions, Native Americans, systemic oppression, privilege, empowerment, intersex people, mentoring, redefining counseling, and social justice for gender identity, expression and sexual orientation. A list of Crethar’s work can be found here. As part of his collaborative research with students and faculty Crethar worked on a meta-analysis titled The Effects of Requiring Parental Consent for Research on Adolescents’ Risk Behaviors Crethar and others concluded:
“Requiring active parental consent can lead to a systematic bias in the sample where the population under study is misrepresented. Institutional review board committees should collaborate with researchers to find solutions that protect minors without silencing the voice of high-risk youth in the literature.
Crethar was serving as Chair of OSU’s Institutional Review Board, approving and signing off on research approvals at the same time he was concluding in his research that “parental consent can lead to a systematic bias” and “Institutional review board committees should collaborate with researchers to find solutions that protect minors without silencing the voice of high-risk youth”
There are university, state, and federal officials, educational organizations, and activist educators advocating for the omission of parents from conversations and decisions about their minor children, especially regarding sexual orientation or gender dysphoria. These people and organizations believe universities, public schools, educational organizations, and government agencies outrank parents. They promote the idea that education and government officials must protect children from parents. They have done so publicly for an extended period.
In July of 2020, Adrienne Sanogo, Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Student Services, shared a post on Facebook that stated:
“Here’s the secret of ‘university indoctrination.’ Professors aren’t doing it. Your little darlings are finally meeting a diverse group of people and realizing that the stereotypes you’ve been feeding them are closed-minded garbage.”
Sanogo’s post was shared from Mike Shor, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut.
You can read comments about the post on the World Wide Women Facebook page. One of the commenters wrote:
“It's the parents/person accusing universities of indoctrinating thought who are actually the indoctrinators and they want to maintain control of that process. Universities teach critical thinking skills which prepare your 'little darlings' to question the view of the world you have indoctrinated them into since birth. Everytime I hear someone use that phrase I know they are trying to control what others think and I wish they could go to university to expand their understandings of the world.”
In February 2022, another OSU official, Robin Fuxa, tweeted a statement that included “those…very fundamentalist, far right.”
Oklahoma lawmaker Forrest Bennett on social media told people to call their state representatives and “reject hate” by opposing a bill that would, according to Bennett, require school officials to “out LGBTQ kids to their parents.” The actual language in the bill was, “Teachers, counselors, principals, administrators, or other school personnel, upon determining that a student is experiencing sexual orientation or gender dysphoria, shall notify the parents or legal guardians of the student immediately upon determining that such risk exists.”
Bennett’s post was shared by Fuxa, who stated “this hateful damn bill” would put children in “peril.”
In May of 2022, The New York Post ran a story about teachers in Colorado telling students as young as 12 years old not to tell their parents about attending the school GSA club. According to the story, a teacher told kids that “parents aren’t safe, and that it’s OK to lie to them” and “heterosexuality and monogamy are not normal.”
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The previous segment of this series briefly described GSA, GLSEN, and Rainbow Club. The segment also provided information about OSU hosting the Oklahoma State GSA Leadership Summit. an OSU employee and a Stillwater Public Schools employee presented at the summit. A presentation was given at the National Council of Teachers of English by Sarah Donovan, Alison Black, Uwe Gordon, Dillon Graham, and Kristy Self. The presentation also included Cat Thomason. Cat was a student at Stillwater High School and a member of GSA.
In the article “GSAs with GLSEN Gaining Momentum Throughout the U.S,” published in November 2020, Cat shared how as a 9th grader, she joined the GSA and eventually served as president of the club. According to Thomason, GSA creates a supportive environment, “Especially for kids who aren’t able to have that love and support from family members and friends.” Kristy Self discussed being a GSA advisor and member of GLSEN’s National Educator Advisory Committee. Kristy Self was recently promoted to assistant principal at Stillwater Pioneer Virtual Academy and Uwe Gordon was recently promoted to school superintendent in Stillwater.
There are state officials, professors, educators, and education organizations advocating for the omission of parents from conversations and decisions about their child’s sexual orientation or gender dysphoria. These people and organizations believe public schools, educational organizations, and government agencies outrank parents. They promote the idea that education and government officials must protect children from parents. An increasing number of stories from parents document the seriousness of this situation.
April 28, 2022, EducationWeek published an article titled “Are Teachers Obliged to Tell Parents Their Child Might Be Trans? Courts May Soon Decide” The article discusses parent concerns about schools using gender support plans and allowing children to use chosen gender pronouns, change their name at school, and go by a different gender identity at school but without parental consent or telling parents what the school is doing.
Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) provides stories written by parents who have “experience in the upside-down world of gender ideology.” PITT provides information, an uncensored voice, and resources for parents and families impacted by gender ideology. PITT is also helpful for educators who oppose (and many of us do) queer theory. The story “I Am Not the Same Teacher” describes what increasing numbers of classroom teachers are being asked (instructed) to do in today’s k-12 classrooms.
Kelly Ske wrote about a website that helps children get hormones without parents knowing. You can read the story on Ske’s “A Time To Stand” Substack, where you can also listen to her podcasts and read other stories written to help parents understand what is happening in schools. Kelly has spoken about issues in Oklahoma. You can watch Kelly speak on The UnWokable Podcast.
In September 2021, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to the Biden administration requesting “immediate assistance” from the U.S. Department of Justice, Education, Homeland Security, FBI, Counterterrorism Division, and U.S. Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment Center. The National School Boards Association used “domestic terrorism and hate crimes” to describe parents speaking out or protesting at school board meetings because of concerns about critical race theory. The National School Boards Association stated that the concerns about critical race theory were based on “propaganda” and that “critical race theory is not taught in public schools.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland replied with a memo to the National School Boards Association stating, “The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate. In the coming days, the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
The National School Boards Association's original letter listed several states, including Virginia. Parent concerns in Virginia were related to critical race theory but also included concerns about transgender policies, including bathroom policies, concerns about sexual assaults, and violations of open meetings laws. As of June 2022, a Virginia school district is facing a lawsuit that is reported to include multiple accusations against the district, including "Filling classroom libraries with books that encourage children to question their gender as early as Kindergarten; Forcing students to publicly provide their ‘pronouns’ in front of class; Making it virtually impossible for parents to remove the pornographic books available to children.”
The National School Boards Association claimed to write the letter on “behalf of our state associations and the more than 90,000 school board members who govern our country’s 14,000 public school districts.” At least thirty state school boards have distanced themselves from or spoken out against the letter written by the National School Boards Association, and many states have left the Association. Oklahoma has done neither!