TRENTON, New Jersey (LifeSiteNews) — Recent comments by New Jersey Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy set an ominous light on a new law requiring “information literacy” be taught in public schools.
The law ostensibly requires that every school district in the Garden State teach students how to find and weigh information in the media, including but not limited to the “research process and how information is created and produced”; “critical thinking and using information resources”; “research methods, including the difference between primary and secondary sources”; the “difference between facts, points of view, and opinions”; “accessing peer-reviewed print and digital library resources”; the “economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information”; and the “ethical production of information.”
The bill, which was endorsed by the heads of the state teachers union and library association, passed the Legislature with both Democrat and Republican support, but comments by Murphy celebrating its enactment as law suggest the matter would have benefited from further deliberation.
“Our democracy remains under sustained attack through the proliferation of disinformation that is eroding the role of truth in our political and civic discourse,” Murphy said. “It is our responsibility to ensure our nation’s future leaders are equipped with the tools necessary to identify fact from fiction. I am proud to sign legislation that is critical to the success of New Jersey’s students and essential to the preservation of our democracy.”
I am proud to sign a first-in-the-nation, bipartisan law to equip NJ students with tools to identify fact from fiction.
K-12 media literacy education will empower future leaders to accurately assess information — essential in preserving our democracy in a time of disinformation.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) January 4, 2023
The governor’s rhetoric echoes a prevalent left-wing narrative about “misinformation” as a major social ill, to be combatted primarily via the content-moderation policies of liberal-aligned social networks and technology companies with a hand in online communication. In practice, however, conservatives argue that the “misinformation narrative” is just a pretext to suppress accurate information about left-wing causes and stifle or sway public debate on hot-button issues.
In this light, critics fear, the New Jersey law could be used to condition impressionable students into blindly accepting left-wing establishment information sources, such as the mainstream media or government institutions, as the authoritative word on political and social controversies.
“How will standards be developed?” asked Ashley Jacobs, co-founder of the group Parents Unite. “How will students be assessed? How will students be taught to search for objective truth? Whose truth is the truth? Sadly, ‘disinformation’ has come to be defined as ‘things people don’t agree with.’”
Murphy is a far-left governor who has supported abortion-on-demand at taxpayer expense and requiring public school children to be taught about sexual orientation and gender identity as early as the second grade.