Documentaries produced by California’s “first partner,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom, promoting fringe views on gender have been shown to over 2.5 million K-12 students, with an accompanying lesson plan that forces teens to publicly disclose their sexual orientation to their peers and identify which of their classmates violate gender norms and may be labeled “fags,” “pussies” and “nasty butches.” The lavishly produced documentaries are funded in part with gifts from Governor Gavin Newsom’s donors and corporations that have received handouts from his administration. The California Department of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor, recommended that public schools screen Siebel Newsom’s documentaries in California public schools to teach students how to “question the examples of gender and sexuality they see in media,” according to a statement from the board in 2019. [snip] Siebel Newsom and her husband are now facing a federal criminal probe, which is said to be focusing in part on Siebel Newsom’s taxes, her charities, and her for-profit documentary company, all of which are interwoven in a complex skein that up until now has largely evaded serious scrutiny. Though the probe began when former president Joe Biden was in office, Gavin Newsom has publicly called the investigation a baseless Trump-driven political prosecution of him and his wife. On Thursday, Politico reported that the Newsoms have hired Abbe Lowell, who also represents several other Democratic figures who are facing criminal investigations or charges by the Trump Justice Department. [snip] One of Siebel Newsom’s charities, the Representation Project, which is believed to be a focus of the federal investigation according to the Los Angeles Times, is a self-described “gender watchdog” that has made her one of the most influential educators in America. The charity works hand-in-hand with her for-profit film production company, Girls Club Entertainment LLC, on her gender documentaries. Girls Club Entertainment produces the documentaries—which combat “intersectional gender stereotypes”—and the Representation Project licenses and distributes the films, mostly to schools, and prepares accompanying lesson plans for students from kindergarten through high school. Siebel Newsom claims the lessons have been distributed to 11,200 teachers in over 5,000 schools across all 50 states, reaching over 2.5 million students. The curricula teach that “gendered values” are the root cause of economic inequality and other societal woes. [snip] The exercise does not provide students with the option to opt out of publicly disclosing their sexual orientation to their classmates, which appears to violate the broad consensus among legal watchdogs including the ACLU and LAMBDA Legal that public school students have a First Amendment right to privacy when it comes to their personal identity. In another exercise called “The Box Activity,” Siebel Newsom has students identify the traits of the stereotypical man—including “strong, tough, in control”—and the stereotypical woman—such as “emotional, soft submissive.” The lesson plan states that some women who remain “inside the box” will be raped and abused by their partners, and asks students to consider whether those stereotypical female traits “really bring them safety or power.” [snip] Following that, Siebel Newsom’s exercise has students discuss as a group which and how many of their classmates act inside their respective boxes “all the time,” thus prompting students to consider which of their classmates may be labeled “fags,” “pussies,” and “nasty butches” who exhibit those “out of box” characteristics some or all of the time. To Siebel Newsom, the “Box Activity” suggests to students they will contribute to economic inequality and the perpetuation of domestic and sexual violence if they stay inside their gendered boxes. But to Rhyen Staley, the research director at the conservative watchdog group Defending Education, the exercise is nothing more than a thinly veiled humiliation ritual for the sorts of vulnerable students Siebel Newsom claims to defend. [snip] Siebel Newsom says she developed the lesson plans with help of a team of professors, teachers, and film experts, including Dr. Riane Eisler, a “social systems” scientist who writes about gender, Dr. Caroline Heldman, a political scientist who specializes in gender, and Annie Delgado, a Latina high school teacher who sparked a #MeToo controversy in 2019 when she reported being sexually harassed by a white basketball coach at her school. Siebel Newsom’s work with the Representation Project and Girls Club Entertainment—not to mention the criminal investigators believed to be circling them—threatens to overshadow her husband’s nascent 2028 presidential campaign. Gavin Newsom is featured in several of his wife’s films, where he delivers talking points on government budgets and lectures viewers on their obligation to tap into their “political will” and “step up and solve big problems,” Open the Books reported. In her companion lesson plans, Siebel Newsom has students discuss her husband’s public stance against the War on Drugs, which Gavin Newsom says was racist. [snip] But since Gavin Newsom took office as governor of California in 2019, the Representation Project has paid his wife upwards of $1.8 million. Siebel Newsom has drawn $913,000 in direct salary from the organization. In that same timeframe, the charity paid an additional $923,000 to Siebel Newsom through her for-profit production company, Girls Club Entertainment, for her documentary writing, producing, and directing services. Since 2019, the Representation Project has reported $2.4 million in total film production expenses, indicating that the films are made on a shoestring budget and Siebel Newsom’s compensation appears to have consumed much of the charity’s production budget. Siebel Newsom has her husband’s administration to thank for steering revenue and eyeballs to her documentaries. In 2019, Newsom’s Department of Education recommended public schools screen them in California public schools. The Representation Project charges schools and corporations between $49 and $1,500 to screen its documentaries, and the charity has reported earning $956,000 from film sales since Newsom took office. [snip] “It is the worst thing my daughter has been exposed to,” the father told the Bee. “When I send her to school, I don’t want her to see porn. That is what this is.” But film sales to schools represent a small fraction of the Representation Project’s total revenue. The charity has raked in more than $7.7 million since Newsom took office, thanks in large part to deep-pocketed corporate donors who have received millions of dollars from her husband’s administration, drawing pay-to-play allegations, the Daily Mail reported. The charity’s corporate benefactors include media giant Comcast, health care giant Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, and PG&E, a utilities giant which raked in more than $323 million in California taxpayer funds in 2021. The Representation Project has also brought in contributions from Planned Parenthood, oil heiress Aileen Getty, and Anne Wojcicki, the former wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin. [snip] The films themselves feature interviews with some of the most prominent members of the Democratic Party. In addition to Siebel Newsom’s husband, the films feature commentary from former 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), socialist activist Dolores Huerta, MS NOW host Rachel Maddow, and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.). The participants are almost all Democrats (Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, is an exception). The Representation Project did not return a request for comment. Post navigation Court Rebukes University After Professor Was Punished for Exposing Failures in DEI Admissions How Chinese Communism Is Penetrating U.S. Universities — And Threatening Our Future
