Donald Trump's 'Divisive' Rhetoric Raising Racial Tensions Among Students: Study
A new Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report finds the fiery, aggressive language espoused by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump throughout much of his campaign is sparking raised fears and racial tensions in classrooms across the country.
The study, titled "The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation's Schools," finds two in five teachers surveyed now feel all the rhetoric has fueled such a hate-filled atmosphere they are now hesitant to use the history-making occasion as a teaching moment.
Immigrant Sudents Fear Deportation if Trump Elected
"My students are terrified of Donald Trump," one educator out of 2,000 polled told SPLC via its "Teaching Tolerance" program. "They think that if he's elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa."
Added another, "There is a boy from Mexico, who is a citizen, who is terrified that the country will deport him if Trump wins. He is scared that kids and grown-ups can and will hurt him."
Overall, more than two-thirds of the teachers surveyed reported that their mostly immigrant and Muslim students feared what would become of them and their families after the general election in November.
In addition, at least one in three educators indicated they detected an overall rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment among their students.
Though the survey did not mention Trump by name, more than 1,000 of the teachers directly referred to him in their responses, a number that was found to be more than five times as many as any other candidate.
Beyond vowing to deport as many as 11 million immigrants if he is elected, Trump marked the official launch of his campaign by branding Mexicans as "rapists."
He has also pledged to build a massive wall along the Mexican border to keep it all immigrants. Trump has proposed banning all Muslims from entering the U.S.
Teachers Shying Away From Discussing Election in Class
The SPLC report also detailed how more teachers now find a greater percentage of their students expressing more hatred for people overall.
"So many of my students have begun to show hatred towards refugees, low-income and poverty citizens, and there has been an increase in religious bias," another teacher wrote.
Penned another, "There's a sense that if someone doesn't agree with you, it's acceptable (even encouraged) to have hatred and anger towards them."
The end result seems to have left many teachers struggling with how to educate students about what it means to respectfully debate against their peers. It also touched upon how many of them now feel torn between wanting to use the history-making election to teach civics and worrying about expressing personal political opinions to their class.
"I don't think it's as possible to be entirely neutral this year," another respondent expressed. "If I were to say Donald Trump had decent points I'd be agreeing with racist dogma. I can be neutral about Democrats and Republicans, but not about racists."
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