Blue states blasted for 'appalling' move to use COVID relief money to fund CRT: 'A trojan horse'

Originally Published on FoxNews.com

California awarded $15 billion for school reopening plan that included 'implicit bias training'

The founder of a parental rights organization told "Fox & Friends First" Thursday it's not surprising that blue states used COVID relief funds for critical race theory education in their schools.

"It is appalling, and it is also unsurprising. Let's look at the words that the department used in February 2021 when they passed this initiative or when they were trying to pass it. Many of us thought that it was going to be used for masks, for air purifiers to keep our schools open," said Parents Defending Education founder Nicole Neily.

But according to a new report, the money wasn't just for COVID protections. Blue states across the country are using billions of taxpayer dollars from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package to push core tenets of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.

The American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, which the Democrats passed in March 2021 without any Republican support, was billed by the Democratic Party as a necessity for reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, the law provided over $122 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), which helped multiple states implement "implicit bias" and "anti-racism" training, among other programs, according to research from One Nation shared with and verified by Fox News Digital.

In February 2021, before the legislation passed, the White House told FOX Business that ESSER funding would provide schools "with the resources they need to safely reopen and fully serve their students."

Democrats like Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., described the passing of ARP as a matter of life and death…