America is turning back the clock 70 years.

In 1954, after the U.S. Supreme Court mandated public school integration, former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice I. Beverly Lake issued a plea to white families: "If we must choose between a generation of inferior education and the amalgamation of our races into a mixed-blooded whole, let us choose inferior education."

His message was unmistakable —racism was worth the cost of education.

More than seven decades later, a similar undercurrent of exclusionary rhetoric is emerging, this time through statements from the newly confirmed Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon , who backs a recent executive order targeting how race, gender, and history are taught (or not) in America's classrooms.

During McMahon's confirmation hearing, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pressed her on whether African American history courses would fall foul of an executive order aimed at curbing what the administration calls "radical indoctrination" in K-12 schools.

"I'm not quite certain, and I'd like to look into it further and get back to you on that," she replied.

The ambiguity in her reply suggested the possibility that courses dedicated to African American history might soon face scrutiny or even the loss of federal funding.

Murphy pressed again, "So there's a possibility that public schools that run African American history classes ... could lose federal funding if they continue to teach African American history?"

McMahon answered, "No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I would like to take a look at these programs and fully understand the breadth of the executive order and get back to you on that."

The executive order Murphy alluded to seeks to eradicate what it deems "radical, anti-American ideologies" in K-12 schools. It specifically targets concepts like "White Privilege," "unconscious bias," and "discriminatory equity ideology," labeling them as harmful and un-American.

According to the order, these ideas allegedly sow division by transforming students into victims or oppressors based solely on their race, ethnicity, and/or gender. But this narrative, which casts any acknowledgment of systemic inequality as a threat to unity, is both misguided and dangerous because it aims to backpedal on movements meant to uplift racially, ethnically, and gender-diverse communities.

The executive order, and McMahon's unwillingness to take a firm stand against it, are part of a broader strategy to rebrand bigotry and deny students the education they deserve. In doing so, they risk erasing the very history and knowledge needed to confront the inequalities that continue to plague this country and create a better, more just nation.

At its core, the executive order promotes a vision of education that is reductive and regressive. It seeks to flatten the complex issues of history and identity into simplistic categories of good and bad, right and wrong, American and not.

Rather than encouraging students to engage with the full scope of American history—complex and flawed as it may be—the order prescribes a one-dimensional version of patriotism that erases the contributions and experiences of historically and systematically minoritized groups.

Schools must be a place where students can question, debate, and think critically about the world around them. But the White House's K-12 executive order pushes the system in the opposite direction, demanding conformity and unquestioning loyalty to a distorted version of America's history. It sacrifices intellectual rigor in favor of obedience and narrow patriotism, offering an inferior education that denies young people the opportunity to understand the depth of their nation's history.

This executive order paves the way for the kind of educational inferiority Lake championed in 1954. It suggests that a limited, exclusionary education is a small price to pay to maintain a vision of America that keeps certain histories, identities, and truths in the shadows.

As a former high school teacher and current teacher educator at the university level, I am deeply concerned about the long-term implications of this executive order. It won't foster independent, critical thinking. It won't unify the nation.

What it will do, however, is teach young people to accept a simplified, sanitized view of America. It will teach youth of color and queer youth that their identities and histories are unworthy of being taught, that their lives and experiences are un-American.

Just as Justice Lake once saw inferior education as an acceptable price to pay for preserving racial purity, today's rhetoric proposes that a substandard education is a small cost for maintaining racism, homophobia, trans violence, and antiblackness. The ignorance of the next generation is worth it as long as students aren't forced to learn about people of color and queer folks.

But America's children deserve better.

They deserve an education that empowers them to appreciate the humanity of those around them. They deserve to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to thrive in an interconnected world. They deserve to be seen for who they are, in all their diversity.

Anything less is a betrayal of our responsibility to them and to the future of our nation.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.