Politifact’s Winsome Sears “Fact Check” Is Fact Checked With Actual Facts

Winsome Sear, the newly elected Lt. Governor of Virginia and vocal opponent of Critical Race Theory (CRT), laid into the left for using “semantics” to deny its presence in the Virginia public school system.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears speaks out against critical race theory in schools: “We need to go forward. We can’t always keep looking back. I am proof that we are progressing.” pic.twitter.com/WyaymRGs8N

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 17, 2022

“I can tell you that they are using semantics, the other side is. When it comes to CRT, it is definitely being taught in some form or fashion. We know last year the Loudoun County school board spent about 300,000 plus dollars, that’s real money, that’s going to jail money, to bring CRT in some form or fashion, they used a consultant specifically for CRT.”

Politifact jumped on this to label it “mostly false.”

Check this out and see how they do it.

First they paraphrase Lt. Gov. Sears as claiming that “The Loudon County School Board spent about $300,000… to bring CRT in some form or fashion to the school system.”

I’d say it’s a decent paraphraser of what she’s saying. She even covered her bases against semantic manipulation by saying “in some form or fashion,” because CRT indoctrination can take countless forms and look like countless different things.

But then, for their “fact check,” they pose the question, “Did Loudon County, Va. schools pay ‘about $300,000’ for critical race theory training?”

Now, here’s where those pesky semantics that Sears referenced come into play. Do you see what they did there? They carefully specified that they are checking whether or not schools paid “about $300,000” for critical race theory training. Which technically means that if the schools spent money on anything that wasn’t specifically classified as training or anything that wasn’t specifically labeled as critical race theory, then it doesn’t get counted. For example, what if it was technically called coaching instead of training. Or perhaps they paid for school specific curriculum development, which isn’t technically training. Maybe the content was called equity principles instead of critical race theory. See how this works? Even if it is, for all intents and purposes, critical race theory. Even if it is inextricably linked to CRT being taught in schools “in some form or fashion,” it isn’t being considered for the purposes of this “fact check.” This is extremely manipulative and intentionally misleading. And they absolutely did it on purpose.

Politifact was counting on a couple of very important things for this semantic manipulation to be successful.

Firstly, they were hoping that their “mostly false” “fact check” would spread far and wide and reach millions of people who would immediately see the label of “mostly false” and automatically discount or dismiss Sears entire argument. They hoped people would look no further. Maybe not even read the actual “fact check” article once they saw the “mostly false” label. They especially hoped that people wouldn’t notice that tricky little specification about “training.”

Secondly, they were hoping that even if someone called them out for this intentionally misleading “fact check,” that person wouldn’t have receipts to prove the “fact check” wrong or the social reach to overcome the widespread dissemination of the “mostly false” label.

But they were wrong, at least on the second point.

Chrissy Clark, a reporter with the Daily Caller and a contributor for Newsmax, produced the receipts to prove that not only was Winsome Sears correct, she actually underestimated the amount by about $100,000. In the process, she proved that Politifact is nothing more than a partisan propaganda machine with no journalistic or organizational integrity or morals.

.@PolitiFact is calling out @WinsomeSears for “falsely claiming” that LCPS paid “about $300,000” for critical race theory-inspired training.

Well, your humble Poynter alumni is here with receipts. And LCPS DID pay upwards of $300k for such traininghttps://t.co/67dfCjaORz pic.twitter.com/OXT78tRiHm

— Chrissy Clark (@chrissyclark_) January 25, 2022

Check out that photo. That’s a literal receipt. Receipts for the actual amount of taxpayer money spent by Loudon County School Board and paid directly to Critical Race Theory training and curriculum group The Equity Collaborative LLC, to “bring CRT in some form or fashion into the school system.” Their website states that they “create educational equity through equity coaching,” which they further explain as them assisting schools to build and implement their own “equity” frameworks and plans in their own schools. So technically they aren’t focused on training in a particular critical race theory curriculum, per se, but rather supporting and coaching the school leadership in how to develop it themselves. This brings us back to the semantics of the Politifact “fact check.”

The details of those invoices are a little difficult to see so I’ll type it out for you:

• On 8/20/2018, $6,000 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” specifically labeled as being for “Equity Leadership Team Planning Meeting.”
• On 6/11/2019, $242,000 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” with no specification of exactly what it was intended to purchase.
• On 9/24/2019, $25,000 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” specifically labeled as being for “Aug/Sept coaching, meeting, facilitation.”
• On 11/24/2019, $25,000 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” with no specification of exactly what it was intended to purchase.
• Also on 11/24/2019, $22,000 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” with no specification of exactly what it was intended to purchase.
• On 3/19/2020, $68,333 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” with no specification of exactly what it was intended to purchase.
• On 6/9/2020, $34,167 was paid to The Equity Collaborative LLC, listed as the “supplier,” with no specification of exactly what it was intended to purchase.

That’s a total of $397,500.

Almost $400,000 paid to a group who specializes in training and assisting school leadership in implementing critical race theory principles in schools.

So you tell me. “Did Loudon County, Va. schools pay ‘about $300,000’ for critical race theory training?”

The facts show that they did, and that “fact checkers” will go to great lengths to lead you to believe otherwise.