u/billstopay77

Question in title.

From the article:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity this fall in the schools it operates for military families, part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegsethto redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning.
The Department of Defense Education Activity operates about 160 schools across 11 countries and educates roughly 70,000 students who are children of active-duty military or civilian service members. Conservatives have eyed the schools — which, unlike most public schools, are run by the federal government — as a testing ground for reshaping education.
The Western civilization course planned for this fall will use a textbook published by Encounter Books, a conservative publishing house. Titled “The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, Volume I: The Ancient World and Christendom,” it includes suggested lesson plans created in partnership with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan that has also developed influential materials for K-12 schools.

Historians and educators who reviewed excerpts of the text told The Associated Press it depicts points throughout history in misleading ways, representing Western civilization and Christianity as one and the same and casting Islam as a threat to both.
“You’ve got to wonder a bit whether Western civilization is a Trojan horse for classical Christian education,” said Phil Gorski, a historical sociology professor at Yale University

Free speech related via using supposed public comment as reason for policy change.

From the article:

The Department of Labor received public comments on the plan to fulfill Trump’s executive order pushing for the financial changes, and close to 12,000 of the comments, all in support, show signs of being fabricated, with several being attributed to people who aren’t alive. These comments don’t include email addresses, the commenter’s city and state, or signatures, Bloomberg reportedThursday. 

Bloomberg attempted to contact some of supporters on the list, many of whom had unique names identifiable through public records, and found people who said they never made the comments attributed to them, or were dead. One comment made in May and attributed to Danna Oderman was clearly fake, her son Heath Oderman told Bloomberg, not only because she died in December, but because “the language is nothing she would ever have used while on this Earth.”
Another May submission shows Lyngrid Rawlings supporting the president’s plan, but the educator and U.S. Foreign Service officer died in 2024, her daughter Lauren told the publication.
“It’s deeply disrespectful and dishonoring,” Lauren said. “Her life was about service, and to have her name misused in this way is the antithesis of everything she lived for.”