For decades, K–12 schools across the United States have honored the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a way that reflected both his values and his example. On MLK Day, children have volunteered at food pantries, assembled hygiene kits for shelters, cleaned up local parks and donated books to libraries.
The message was simple and powerful: citizenship requires service, and freedom comes with responsibility.
After 15 years of advocacy, President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law in 1983, establishing the third Monday in January as a federal holiday. It was meant to be a unifying moment in American civic life — a day to reflect on our shared values, our progress and the work still left to do.
Today, that legacy is under assault.
In New York City, a radical teachers’ group calling itself “NYC Educators for Palestine” is hosting a “Palestine teach-in” on MLK Day for children as young as 6 years old. Similar efforts are cropping up in other cities, including Philadelphia.
These events are not about service. They are not about Dr. King’s vision of nonviolence, pluralism or moral clarity. They are about ideological indoctrination — using a sacred day in American civil-rights history to push a one-sided, inflammatory political agenda onto children.
The group’s own materials make their intentions clear — falsely claiming that Israel is occupying “historic Palestine.” Students will be taught “Palestinian history and culture,” along with lessons on the “origins of Zionism.”
This is not neutral education. It is activism, dressed up as pedagogy. And it is particularly cynical given that Dr. King himself was a proud supporter of Israel and Zionism, viewing the Jewish people’s right to self-determination as fully compatible with the fight for black civil rights.
That part of history is unlikely to make it into the curriculum.
As a black American woman, and as someone who works at the intersection of education and national security, I find this appropriation of Dr. King’s legacy deeply offensive. MLK Day is not a blank canvas for every ideological movement that wants moral cover. It is not an “intersectional” free-for-all. It is a day set aside to honor a man whose leadership was rooted in universal human dignity, democratic values and a profound belief in America’s capacity for moral growth.
So what does it say that educators feel comfortable hijacking a day meant to honor a black American icon to promote a foreign political cause — one that has become increasingly associated with antisemitism, historical distortion and, in some cases, open support for extremist violence?
There are a few possibilities. Some of these educators may simply be historically illiterate, unfamiliar with Dr. King’s actual views on Israel and the Jewish people. Others may see a day off from school as a convenient organizing opportunity. But given the pattern we’ve witnessed over the last decade, the most likely explanation is more troubling.
Radical movements often latch onto the moral authority of successful civil-rights struggles to legitimize their own causes. They borrow language, symbols and historical figures not because they respect them, but because they are useful. Under the banner of “intersectionality,” entirely unrelated issues are forcibly linked, flattening history and erasing nuance. In this framework, complexity is the enemy — and children become easy targets.
The result is a K–12 system increasingly willing to politicize classrooms, blur the line between education and activism and sacrifice intellectual honesty for ideological conformity. Parents are told not to worry. Students are told they are learning “justice.” But what they are actually being taught is a simplistic, grievance-driven worldview — one that divides the world into oppressors and oppressed, with no room for democratic values, historical context or moral consistency.
This year marks 42 years since MLK Day became a federal holiday. It took decades of effort to secure that recognition and to ensure that Dr. King’s contributions to America would be honored, not distorted. And yet, here we are, watching his legacy be repurposed by activists who neither share his values nor respect his history.
This is not just shameful. It is dangerous.
Children should not spend MLK Day being fed propaganda masquerading as education. They should be learning about courage, sacrifice, nonviolence and the hard work of building a pluralistic society. They should be learning that civil rights are about expanding freedom, not narrowing it — and that justice is not achieved by replacing one form of hatred with another.
Dr. King deserved better. So do our children.
Dr. Brandy Shufutinsky is the Director of Education and National Security at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a board member at the North American Values Institute (NAVI).
This story originally appeared on NYPost
