[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 104 (Tuesday, June 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S4525]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              NOMINATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later today, the Senate will vote on 
the nomination of Kiran Ahuja, President Biden's choice to serve as 
head of the Office of Personnel Management. This is the position 
responsible for making hiring, payroll, and training decisions that 
affect literally millions of Federal employees.
  The President's nominee has made statements expressing sympathy for 
the discredited, ahistorical claims about our Nation's origins that 
form the backbone of so-called critical race theory. One major 
organization of Federal employees expressed its concern about the 
nominee's capacity for ``neutrality, fairness, and impartiality.'' I 
share those concerns, and I will be voting against this nomination.
  Still elsewhere in the Biden administration, efforts to subvert the 
basic understanding of our founding principles are already well 
underway. The Department of Education's latest ``proposed priorities'' 
run roughshod over existing history and civic programs--established 
with bipartisan support--in order to push critical race theory on 
public school students and keep pace with ``woke'' sensibilities.
  American students deserve a rock-solid civics education grounded in 
actual facts, not divisive propaganda that tells them they are little 
more than a product of their racial background. That is the basis of 
new legislation I was proud to help introduce this week. Schools that 
choose to trade in fact-based curricula for activist propaganda like 
the 1619 Project forfeit their right to receive Federal education grant 
funding for those teachings.
  The current administration came to power on the promise to unify a 
divided nation. It will be judged closely and carefully on how that 
power is used.

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