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Describes a hostile response to contrarian questions about whether the U.S. is systemically racist and whether art teachers are morally obligated to be actively antiracist. Documents how evidence-based counterarguments and referenced scholarship were dismissed and how online discussion threads were removed, arguing this undermines critical, rational judgment and produces poorer educational outcomes.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/confronting-woke-groupthink-in-art-education/588218/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/confronting-woke-groupthink-in-art-education/588218.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Aditya","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":14},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the article claim is happening in art education debates?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It argues that groupthink dynamics lead participants to seek concurrence, avoid reality testing, and dismiss evidence and critical analysis.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the author describe the response to her discussion thread?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"She reports an overwhelmingly negative reception, followed by deletion of the thread from the NAEA website after heated exchanges and allegations of rule violations.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What example does the author use to illustrate lack of reality testing?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"She describes how factual claims and scholarly arguments were dismissed without engaging the cited ideas, including reactions to reviews of Shelby Steele’s work.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},588218,1792684950,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":14,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":52,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},962085564549,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","Acad. Quest . (2022) 35.2 DOI 10.51845.35.2.9  \nConfronting Woke Groupthink in Art Education  \nMichelle Marder Kamhi  \nWhen Irving Janis coined the term groupthink half a century ago, he warned that the phenomenon’s “concurrence-seeking tendencies interfere with critical, rational capacities and lead to serious errors of judgment.” Further, members of the group “believe unquestioningly in [their] inherent morality,” which tends to deter crucial “reality testing” of either the fundamental assumptions underlying their position or its actual consequences.1 I’ve witnessed the truth of Janis’sinsights in the field of art education in recent months.  \nBeginning with Racism  \nThe dubious notion that the U. S. is a “systemically racist” nation has taken hold in art education, as in virtually every sphere of American life. Concern regarding its toxic effects led me to write “Poisoning the Well of Art Education”for Academic Questions (Fall 2021), and to begin a discussion thread about it on the Open Forum of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), of which I’ma longtime member.  \nThe NAEA response was overwhelmingly negative—a defensive circling of the wagons by teachers who subscribe to the prevailing view.2 Virtually no consideration was given to the substance of my contrarian view or to the relevant facts I cited. Still worse, after two days of heated exchange, the entire thread was removed from the NAEA website, for alleged “violations of the community Rules and Etiquette.” A comment by me in response to a related thread was also removed, on the same grounds.  \n1 Irving L. Janis,“Groupthink,” Psychology Today (November 1971): 84–90.  \n2 There were just two notable exceptions—both of them high school teachers who came to my defense on the forum. If others shared their view, they lacked the courage to say so in the current environment.  \nMichelle Marder Kamhi is an independent scholar and critic and co-edits Aristos, an online review of the arts . Her latest book is Bucking the Artworld Tide: Reflections on Art, Pseudo Art, Art Education & Theory (Pro Arte Books, 2020) . Kamhi last contributed to Academic Questions with “Poisoning the Well of Art Education,” in the Fall 2021 issue. This article is a slightly modified version of “Confronting Woke Groupthink in Art Education” which was published on the NAS website on December 14, 2021.  \nThe questions I posed in the original thread were: “Is America systemically racist? And are art teachers morally obliged to be ‘actively antiracist?’”  \nBy framing the questions in those terms, I was directly challenging an open letter sent to NAEA members last year by James Haywood Rolling, Jr. , then president-elect of the association and inaugural chair of the organization’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commission. Based on the premise that America is mired in systemic racism, Rolling (who is black) had asserted a need for the organization to focus on “constructing an [actively] antiracist agenda.” I therefore linked my discussion post to my AQ article, which not only presented facts disputing his basic premise but also critiqued recent “antiracist” approaches to art education.  \nStonewalling, Not Reality Testing  \nAs evidence against systemic racism in the U. S. , I cited the two-term election of a biracial president and the more recent election of a biracial vicepresident—as well as countless blacks serving in high levels in government, the armed services, and other spheres of American life, both public and private. Such facts were peremptorily dismissed by a professor of art education, who argued that they do “not cover the multitude of ways this nation has and continues to maintain a caste system with peoples of color—especially AfricanAmericans and Native Americans—at the bottom of the heap.” In reply, I suggested that what she viewed as a “caste system” holding peoples of color down was due to cultural factors other than race—as black scholars such as Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele ","cbCait56CiX7Ysvr","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCait56CiX7Ysvr","pdf",287638,"English","# Confronting Woke Groupthink in Art Education\n## Beginning with Racism\n## Stonewalling, Not Reality Testing\n## Assuming the Moral High Ground","[{\"question\":\"What does the article claim is happening in art education debates?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that groupthink dynamics lead participants to seek concurrence, avoid reality testing, and dismiss evidence and critical analysis.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author describe the response to her discussion thread?\",\"answer\":\"She reports an overwhelmingly negative reception, followed by deletion of the thread from the NAEA website after heated exchanges and allegations of rule violations.\"},{\"question\":\"What example does the author use to illustrate lack of reality testing?\",\"answer\":\"She describes how factual claims and scholarly arguments were dismissed without engaging the cited ideas, including reactions to reviews of Shelby Steele’s work.\"}]","Confronting Woke Groupthink in Art Education | PDF",1792064771,15]