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Crystal Johnson teaches regularly in her social studies classes about George Floyd’s murder and the protests that followed. She includes Floyd in her lessons on the Civil Rights movement. Her students want to talk about it.

Some in her class at Park Center High School in Brooklyn Park were in middle school when Minneapolis police killed Floyd while arresting and subduing him on a street corner in May 2020. They joined protests. Some had ties to Floyd’s family.

“It is a recent event that’s happened here in our proximity,” said Johnson. “So it is important for our students to learn about it and to learn about larger movements and how this is one piece of a larger puzzle that is ongoing here in our country.”

Johnson, though, remains an outlier when it comes to bringing Floyd’s killing into Minnesota classrooms. While Minneapolis stood at the epicenter of American history after Floyd’s killing, it’s rare to find it taught in the state’s schools. 

Many of Johnson’s peers around the state won’t touch the subject. Some educators and administrators say it’s too politically charged to tackle, and they fear a public backlash.

“Everybody is scared, and I don’t care if they have been teaching for 30 years or if they’ve been teaching for three weeks, no one is sure what they can say,” said Walter Greason, a history professor at Macalester College who serves on the Minnesota Council for the Social Studies, develops curriculum resources and trains teachers. 

Greason believes the Trump administration’s executive orders to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs from school and its attempts to defund federal library and museum funding amount to an “assault to discourage people from having free expression and open inquiry.” 

“Folks are right to kind of be cautious and to find ways that they (can) talk to their principals and their superintendents and their school boards about what the best guidance is, what the best steps forward are,” he added. 

Several educators MPR News spoke to in recent weeks said they were continuing to teach about systemic racism and George Floyd’s murder and to apply diversity, equity and inclusion work in their schools — but they didn’t want their names used, saying they were afraid of the scrutiny or of losing their jobs in the current political climate.

Johnson’s district, the Osseo Area Schools, took a bold step two months after Floyd’s killing when its board approved a 

 on Floyd, affirming the need to “teach the experiences, honor the history and highlight the contributions of Black people.” 

The district, though, recently turned down a request by MPR News to sit in on one of Johnson’s lessons on Floyd, saying “this topic isn't currently a district or state curriculum requirement.”

Political polarization is partly to blame for the hesitancy and fear teachers might be feeling now around the teaching of what happened to George Floyd, said Michael Lansing, a historian at Augsburg University who’s written extensively on the history of the Minneapolis Police Department and its treatment of people of color. 

Despite extensive video evidence and a criminal trial that ended with Chauvin convicted of murder, there are narratives that doubt what happened to Floyd, making it even more difficult for social studies teachers to bring the topic into classrooms, he said.

“We now have competing stories around what happened in 2020,” Lansing said. “If we’re having debates about what happened in May and June of 2020, let alone the innumerable instances of, say, police brutality that happened in the many decades before that in Minneapolis and elsewhere — if we are telling different kinds of stories about the movement making that has been working for decades to resist police brutality or transform policing to create a broader and actual public safety … that also intensifies the stakes” for social studies teachers.

Observers say tensions have been converging in recent months — attacks on school diversity initiatives along with calls for Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer convicted of murdering Floyd, and the Trump administration’s decision to dismiss its Floyd-driven case against Minneapolis that would have ordered changes in policing.

“There is not a shift in what we believe in or what we are working on. There is a shift in the pressure that comes from various directions around that work,” said LeeAnn Kampfe, a principal on special assignment in the St. Louis Park schools who’s worked for years on 

Kampfe said St. Louis Park school leaders in recent months have received an uptick in requests to remove things like “signage in buildings that’s representative of the rights of different groups.” The school leaders she’s in contact with have listened carefully to those requests, but declined to remove the signs.  

She said she wants school leaders to listen to concerns but that the district won’t retreat on subjects connected to people’s civil rights. 

“We already acknowledged years ago that that was not OK,” Kampfe said. “If you think that things aren't going the way that they should, by all means, speak up, but, please, come with a solution that does not involve us returning to what we know was wrong.”

Floyd’s killing is not part of Minnesota’s recently revised social studies standards, so the state does not require it to be taught, leaving it to teachers and school district leaders to make the call.

The Minnesota Historical Society often works with state teachers to develop curriculum around the state’s history, but its education and curriculum development team hasn’t received specific requests for topics related to George Floyd’s murder, and it is not an area they are currently focused on, said MNHS spokesperson Nick Jungheim.

Some students who were active in police protests following Floyd’s killing have taken a different view on teaching about Floyd.

Thousands of Minnesota students walk out of school to protest racial injustice

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Prior Lake High students find voice, power in wake of Twin Cities racial turmoil

As a St. Paul student, Jerome Richardson helped organize walkouts against racism, police brutality and gun violence involving thousands of middle and high school 

He’s now an undergraduate at Temple University in Philadelphia. He also offers consulting work to nonprofits and trains current high school students who want to organize their own protests. In talking to those students, he hears some of the energy behind student protests following Floyd’s murder has faded.

“I’ve literally had conversations with young people recently,” Richardson said. “They’re like, ‘Yeah, we tried to do a walkout recently, but it just didn’t work. Like people wasn’t getting on board, people were scared, people, people didn’t know what time we were going to do it at,’” And so I’m like, ‘Oh Lord, it looks like y’all need another training,’”   

Johnson, the Park Center High School teacher, also serves on the Minnesota Council for the Social Studies and often speaks with other social studies teachers across the state. She said many districts simply don’t bring up George Floyd’s murder in the classroom. 

“Now is one of those times just with some of the anti-DEI rhetoric reinforced by the government,” she said. “You don’t feel as safe talking about topics of, you know, systemic racism.”

She said she believes there’s room to approach the topic of Floyd’s killing in a way that inspires good-faith discussions.

“In some communities where there’s perhaps discussion of, you know, Blue Lives Matter versus Black Lives Matter, these community case-by-case basis becomes a little bit more uncomfortable. How do we have those conversations?” she said. 

“I do think having some more widespread materials and more widespread training and guidance for teachers might make them a little bit more comfortable to have these conversations.”

Johnson said she feels confident her district supports her approach to teaching social studies in the classroom, including her lessons on George Floyd, but knows not every teacher in Minnesota feels the same way. 

“Being a social studies teacher,” she said, “It always is a political job, because we teach about government, we teach about current events, we teach about history. And it doesn’t always feel like a safe place to do so when so much of what we do comes under scrutiny.”

Elizabeth Shockman

Author

Minnesota was the epicenter of American history after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. But five years later, you’re unlikely to find it taught in Minnesota schools. Some teachers say it’s too painful and too politically charged.

MPR News senior education reporter Elizabeth Shockman talks about the lack of education around the murder of George Floyd in schools

A person wearing a cap and gown holds a sign. 

Keren Habtes for MPR News | 2020

Students take part in a George Floyd anniversary event

Tim Evans for MPR News

Nicole Neri for MPR News

A young man purses his lips during a press conference

History we don’t teach: Floyd’s murder an uneasy subject in Minnesota schools

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