CVE in schools – teachers as an extension of law enforcement

Authored by: Alison Davis
         
             As the academic year begins across the country, the abilities of students and teachers to effectively learn and teach are at risk due to disabling and invasive countering violent extremism (CVE) programs. And the traditional tendency of the courts to allow extraordinary concessions of civil liberties in the name of national security suggests that this is just the beginning.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has created a website designed to help students and teachers identify those who they determine to be at risk of turning to extremism, essentially taking steps to police thought and turn teachers into modified law enforcement. As it stands, the website encourages reporting of people who use multiple cell phones, discuss traveling to “places that sound suspicious,” photograph government buildings, or use unusual language. These broad guidelines foster ignorance of other cultures and breed discrimination based on language and nationality. In the US, a country that prides itself on diversity and inclusiveness, these risk factors lack logic.

Although the US has yet to mandate any reporting, it provides questionable guidance to educators in an effort to combat radicalization due to educators’ unique position to impart affirmative messaging. This guidance is written by the FBI with no indication that the Department of Education, teachers, students, or parents participated or that the best interests of the child were considered.

            The CVE Guide is used once a community is placed under observation. Educators and public servants are asked to assist in determining the degree of risk of a particular family, community, or individual. The CVE Guide provides a Rating Risk and Resilience Factors checklist that social service providers – including teachers – can use to determine the degree of risk posed, on a scale of 1 to 5 in categories such as Experiences of Loss; Hopelessness, Futility; Perceived Sense of Being Treated Unjustly; Withdrawal from Former Activities, Relationships; and Connection to Group Identity (Race, Nationality, Religion, Ethnicity). It is peculiar that the risk factors for CVE are also the same factors that would prompt a teacher or any social service provider to provide more care to a child, not report a child to law enforcement. Furthermore, the CVE Guide is heavily influenced by and even references the abrasive and controversial UK Prevent Strategy, which goes to far as to impose a legal duty on educators to report children who they suspect to be at risk of subscribing to extremist ideologies.

            Although these products all serve as tools for teachers and do not impose legal duties at this point, they serve as an impetus for discussion regarding whether national security policy should infiltrate the classroom. It should not. There is no consensus as to what characteristics indicate vulnerability to engaging in acts of violent extremism, leaving far too much up to the subjectivity of teachers and peers.  Attempts have been made to quantify and predict who will become a terrorist, however, there is presently no well-founded terrorist risk factor checklist, despite decades of efforts to create one. This reality speaks to the complexity of terrorism itself, a complexity that mirrors other important issues such as gun violence, and one that students should prepare to confront by learning to dialogue effectively about challenging topics, rather than being forbidden from addressing them.