Minnesota to Mandate K–12 Ethnic Studies Instruction in 2026
2nd January 2026
In the coming weeks, school boards across the Land of 10,000 Lakes state will decide on curricula to meet ethnic studies mandates for the 2026–2027 academic year.
There appear to be limited alternatives to the free instructional materials developed with taxpayer dollars and endorsed by the state teachers’ union.
That curriculum instructs 6th graders to learn the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement; 7th graders on how protesters have breached federal buildings; and higher schoolers to “identify plans of action that people have used to resist, refuse, and create alternatives to oppressive systems,” according to the materials developed by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender and Sexuality Studies (RIDGS).
“Students will be able to explain how race is socially constructed and how that social construction has been used to oppress people of color, specifically in relation to Jim Crow, segregation, and racial covenants,” reads the description for the 11th and 12th-grade Jim Crow of the North course.
Time to leave.