FIRST ON FOX: Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks is demanding an investigation be opened into a Minnesota professor who was appointed to a working group examining “ethnic studies” within Gov. Tim Walz’s Minnesota Department of Education, excoriating the professor’s previous comments that the U.S. be “overthrown” because it is “irreversibly racist.”
“[Brian Lozenski] has clearly explained, publicly and on video, that he supports the deconstruction and overthrow of the United States because our nation is irredeemably racist and evil. This is a radical and destructive worldview, that, because of Governor Walz’s recent signing of Minnesota’s education law, will be taught to thousands of children across your state,” Banks, who is running for the Senate and secured an endorsement from former President Trump last year, wrote in his letter.
The letter was first obtained by Fox News Digital and calls on Jennifer Hoppenstedt, interim inspector general of the Minnesota Department of Education, to investigate Brian Lozenski, associate professor of urban and multicultural education at Macalester College, over comments calling for an “insurrection against the United States.” Macalester College is a private liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Rep. Jim Banks and Gov. Tim Walz (Getty Images)
“I am calling on you to investigate Mr. Lozenski’s history of advocating for insurrection against the United States, and to investigate whether Mr. Lozenski’s radical, anti-America views influenced the Minnesota’s Ethnic Studies Working Group development of its Ethnic Studies framework,” Banks continued in his letter.
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Lozenski was appointed by Walz’s state Department of Education to help write the framework of ethnic studies standards for the state. The working group’s framework for ethnic studies is set to wrap up on Oct. 31, with Banks’ letter sent to the IG roughly a week before the deadline.
Walz taught high school social studies before launching his political career as a U.S. House member representing Minnesota in 2006.
Rep. Jim Banks speaks during a news conference to criticize the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan outside the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 24, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital previously reported that a video published on June 19, 2022, by The Solidarity Network, showed Lozenski discussing his critical race theory research, and arguing that the U.S. is “irreversibly racist” and “must be overthrown.”
“We don’t use critical race theory in school,” Lozenski said. “The first tenet of critical race theory is that the United States, as constructed, is irreversibly racist. So, if the nation state, as constructed, is irreversibly racist, then it must be done with. It must be overthrown,” he said in the 2022 video.
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“We can be like, ‘Oh no, critical race theory is just about telling our stories and diversity,’” he added. “It’s not about that. It’s about overgrowth. It is insurgent.”
Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a get-out-the-vote rally on Oct. 22, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The video was removed from YouTube last month as it gained media attention amid Walz’s ongoing campaign for the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket.
“You can’t be a critical race theorist and be pro-U.S. OK, it is an anti-state theory that says the United States needs to be deconstructed, period,” he continued in the video.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign, Lozenski, and the Minnesota Department of Education but did not immediately receive replies on Sunday. Banks sent the letter on Friday.
“Mr. Lozenski is a critical race theory advocate and associate professor of urban and multicultural education at Macalester College. He apparently was selected to sit on the working group following his advocacy for Minnesota House bill 1502, which established the ethnic studies working group, because of his experience teaching ethnic studies in St. Paul Public Schools,” Banks continued in his letter.
Banks’ letter comes as Harris and Walz make their final pitch to voters in the final leg of the election cycle. (Reuters)
“He also founded a group called Education for Liberation Minnesota, which advocates for additional ethnic studies curriculum in Minnesota public schools. Unsurprisingly, a closer look at Mr. Lozenski’s past statements reveals radical political views that should disqualify him from working in public education and certainly from developing a statewide curriculum.”
Lozenski’s biography touts that he is the author of a book titled “My Emancipation Don’t Fit Your Equation: Critical Enactments of Black Education in the US,” and sits on the editorial board of a journal called Ethnic Studies Pedagogies.
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Banks’ letter comes as Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz make their final pitch to voters in the final leg of the election cycle. A national poll published by the Wall Street Journal last week found Trump has a slight edge over Harris, at 47% support to 45%.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.