A mother of a 10-year-old boy said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) “crossed a line” by blasting her son’s essay on electric vehicles in a scathing letter that accused the child’s teachers of “indoctrinating him.”
“Ask your teacher to explain propaganda to you,” Foxx, 82, wrote to 10-year-old Christian Mango in a letter posted by his mother, Emily Mango, on Instagram.
“While I will never be able to know, my guess is that your teachers will not give you a good educational experience and help you learn to think as they are too interested in indoctrinating you,” the representative’s letter read. “How sad.”
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Mango slammed Foxx’s letter as a “demoralizing, reprehensible response” in another Instagram post about the exchange.
Christian, along with his classmates, had been assigned to write a persuasive essay on a topic of their choosing and mail it to an influential decision-maker, his mother told Fox affiliate WGHP.
The fourth grader researched electric vehicles and proposed a $5,000 tax rebate for new EVs. He told the outlet EVs are “better than normal cars. They’re better for the environment. They pay less. And there’s no gas.”
“Maybe there is still a chance for 6.5 million people to not die anymore and for the weather to get better just maybe glaciers stop melting,” the fourth grader wrote in his essay, which was shared by The News Observer.
While Foxx began her response to Christian cordially, she told him his request “means that the federal government must take that money out of the pockets of hardworking people who may not have the means to buy an electric vehicle in the first place.”
She then warned the 10-year-old of the rising national debt, telling him, “YOU and your classmates will be responsible for that debt.”
Foxx cited articles from conservative news outlets, including one published by The Washington Times, headlined “Losing its cool? Climate movement takes hits as Trump wages onslaught, leftists pivot,” before accusing Christian’s teachers of failing to teach him to think for himself.
On Instagram, Christian’s mother praised his educators as “amazing teachers who are lifelines for these kids,” telling Foxx that “teachers don’t deserve the contempt and disrespect you have shown.”
“You crossed a line when you attacked a child and attacked teachers,” Mango said. “You don’t deserve to be on a Committee for Education when you talk to children like this and think so lowly of teachers.”
“Please set a better example,” Mango wrote.