Veep's Wife Champions Curriculum
 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice president, disputed
educators who want to
teach more multiculturalism in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks,
promoting instead an
America-first curriculum. 
 

``If there were one aspect of schooling from kindergarten through college
to which I would give
added emphasis today it would be American history,'' Mrs. Cheney said
Friday in remarks prepared
for a speech to the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. 
 

Cheney, a well-known critic of political correctness and former chairwoman
of the National
Endowment for the Humanities, took issue with published comments by the
deputy chancellor for
instruction in New York City schools, Judith Rizzo. 
 

In a Sept. 30 article, The Washington Post quoted Rizzo as saying: ``Those
people who said we
don't need multiculturalism, that it's too touchy-feely, a pox on them. I
think they've learned their
lesson. We have to do more to teach habits of tolerance, knowledge and
awareness of other
cultures.'' 
 

Cheney agreed that children need to be taught about world cultures. But,
she said, ``to say that it is
more important now implies that the events of Sept. 11 were our fault, that
it was our failure to
understand Islam that led to so many deaths and so much destruction.'' 
 

The assertion that Americans need to learn more tolerance implies, Cheney
said, ``that somehow
intolerance on our part was the cause.'' 
 

``But on Sept. 11, it was most manifestly not the United States that acted
out of religious prejudice.'' 
 

A time of national crisis is a time to study national history, ``to know
the ideas and ideals on which
our nation has been built,'' Cheney said. She cited a recent survey of
college seniors at 55 elite
American universities that found only a third could identify George
Washington as the American
general at Yorktown. Not one of those 55 universities requires a course in
American history, Mrs.
Cheney said. 
 

``Let me suggest that if there is a failure here, it is lack of commitment
to this nation's history.'' 
 
 

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