The advisory commission was established by the Trump administration in November 2020 to celebrate and promote the principles enshrined in the nation’s founding documents. It is commonly seen as a response to The New York Times’ controversial 1619 Project, which argues that the United States was founded as, and remains today, a racist nation.
Nearly four months after its dissolution, the commission regained attention when a leading member spoke against a Biden administration’s proposal to prioritize funding education programs that promote the 1619 Project and critical race theory, an ideology rooted in Marxist class struggle but with an emphasis on race, with the goal of dismantling all institutions of American society, which it deems as tools of racial oppression.
“The Proposed Rule should be withdrawn, just as individual states, which actually have the authority over the nation’s K-12 educational system, should oppose race-based pedagogy as part of their curricula and even if attempted to be imposed by the federal government,” Matthew Spalding, the executive director of the 1776 Commission, wrote in a letter to the Education Department.