Alvin J. Schmidt

Supporters of multicultural education often argue that school curricula and texts should be revised so that they include more female and minority perspectives. In the following viewpoint, Alvin J. Schmidt contends that textbooks promoting multiculturalism actually distort history. Such texts, he maintains, often emphasize relatively insignificant accounts about minorities and women and unfairly malign Euro-American culture. In a misguided attempt to enhance minority self-esteem, Schmidt reports, multiculturalists’ textbooks ignore the negative events in minority histories and omit the positive achievements of Western civilization. Schmidt is the author of The Menace of Multiculturalism: Trojan Horse in America, from which this viewpoint is taken.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. In Schmidt’s view, in what way do multiculturalists’ books resemble Plato’s definition of “noble lies"”

2. According to the...