Beginning this week, Minnesota teachers must now complete cultural competency training with a special focus on Native Americans.

Per Minnesota law, cultural competency results in acknowledging personal bias concerning
“racial, cultural, and socioeconomic groups; American Indian and Alaskan native students; religion; systemic racism; gender identity, including transgender students; sexual orientation; language diversity; and individuals with disabilities and mental health concerns,” and how that bias impacts relationships with students, students’ families, and the school communities.

The Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) first enacted a more general version of cultural competency training in 2020; in April, Native Americans and Alaskan natives were separated into their own category.

In order to pass the training, teachers must meet the Standards of Effective Practice. This requires teachers to not only understand the various identities and beliefs of their students, but to affirm them and help them develop “positive social identities based on their membership in multiple groups in society.”

Teachers are further required to not only understand, but support students in the recognition of “dehumanizing biases, discrimination, prejudices, and structural inequities.” Additionally, teachers must demonstrate their respect for and responsiveness to the identities and beliefs of their students both verbally and nonverbally.

PELSB argued that since most teachers are white, they must come to terms with their implicit bias.

“[T]he predominantly white teacher workforce must be equipped to understand their own implicit bias and the unique lived experiences of all their students as a core requirement of teaching,” stated PELSB.

A cultural competency training can cost anywhere from $30 to $670 for two graduate credits.

PELSB’s Committee to Increase Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers approves who provides valid cultural competency training. The committee assumed the responsibility in January 2021.

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Current members of the committee are Angela Osuji, Reuben Moore, Jessa Cook, and Gift Saloka.

The cultural competency training changes didn’t pass without resistance throughout the public input period last year. One group, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) Twin Cities, argued that cultural competence training results in divisiveness through a rejection of common culture and fairness in treatment.

“[This training] prescribes the segregation of students by group or cultural identity (commonly race or gender, but also many others throughout the proposed rule) and the subsequent incessant recognition and affirmation of such segregation,” stated FAIR Twin Cities. “Teachers should encourage each student to examine varying points of view rather than to reflexively conform to views attributed to that student’s groups or cultures.”

However, PELSB defended the licensure requirement as necessary for teachers to foster trust with their students and, consequently, impart a proper education.

“[The] pedagogical knowledge of how to create positive learning environments and how to work with all types of learners is essential in fostering student learning,” stated PELSB.

Retired Air Force Maj. David Grusch, a former U.S. intelligence and military official who claims the government is covering up a UFO retrieval program, said he gained “firsthand access” to information that he cannot discuss publicly.

The comment, made by the whistleblower during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s “The World Tonight” alongside his lawyer, offered a rebuttal of sorts to detractors who fault Grusch for pinning his public claims on other knowledgeable individuals with whom he has allegedly conferred. In a pre-recorded interview, as aired on Thursday, the host asked Grusch how he could “know” the U.S. government is hiding crafts of non-human origin, as Grusch claims, if he has not seen them.

“There’s certain things that I have first-hand access to that I can’t publicly discuss at this time,” Grusch said. “However, myself and other colleagues interviewed 40 individuals, both current and former, highly distinguished intelligence and military personnel that were specifically on the programs. And those who were willing, I directed to the Intelligence Community inspector general so the inspector general is able to interview these people that do have direct, firsthand information.”

Though some members of Congress — such as Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) — are eager to investigate the matter further, the air of mystery which prevails despite Grusch’s bombshell allegations has driven some skepticism, particularly after the whistleblower’s appearance before a House Oversight panel last week when he insisted that there was certain information he could not divulge to lawmakers outside of a classified setting.

“I always love it when you have somebody who comes forward and testifies about things that they don’t know anything about,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) said on “Sunday Morning Futures” after Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo played a clip of Grusch talking about there being non-human “biologics” in some of the UFO recoveries, allegedly based on what he was told by people involved in the program.

“I mean, the most, I think, striking aspect of all of the testimony was repeatedly, over and over again, the whistleblowers had to say: Actually, I don’t have any knowledge of this. Somebody else told me that,” Turner added. “I mean, really, it — this would take thousands and thousands of people for such an unbelievable cover-up to be occurring. And for people to speak with such confidence over something that they do not know is, I think, something certainly everybody needs to be concerned about.”

Asked if he could say aliens are not on Earth, Turner said, “I certainly can’t tell you that there are no aliens here.” He then turned his attention back to Grusch, saying, “I can tell you that, certainly, there’s no evidence that what the gentleman is testifying about, he has — he said himself personally he has no direct knowledge of,” and declared that China poses a bigger threat than the prospect of aliens on Earth.

The Debrief broke the story back in early June that Grusch, who helped lead efforts to study unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) for years, claimed to have been denied access when he sought information about an alleged multi-decade retrieval and reverse-engineering program that he now says has been illegally kept from Congress. The report said a whistleblower reprisal investigation has been opened and noted that Grusch has provided classified information such as names and locations to the Intelligence Community Inspector General and congressional intelligence committee staff.

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During his interview with BBC Radio, Grusch offered insight into why he came forward. It is “very important for the public at large to understand their place in the cosmos, their place in the universe,” Grusch said, adding that the government should be “held accountable for potentially over classifying or misclassifying basic science.”

The Department of Defense has released a statement insisting that its All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which has been tasked with investigating UFOs, “has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”

Grusch offered some reasons why the government may want to cover up a UFO retrieval program.

“It goes back 80-90 years ago when this was first created and they translated some of the secrecy of the Manhattan Project onto this subject because they weren’t sure how ontologically shocking it was going to be to the world populace,” he said. “And then, two, as you can imagine, it’s a Pandora’s Box for potential military and weapons development-type reverse-engineering activities, so they decided to keep it under wraps for many years.”

Grusch also dismissed the notion that only the U.S. government may be hiding UFOs, saying, “It does cross into other countries and other allies, to include the Five Eyes alliance, which is something I’ve already stated publicly. The media reporting bias and societal transparency is a little different in the U.S. That’s the crux of what most people hear, but it is certainly not an American issue.”

The BBC Radio airing of the interview ended with Grusch being asked to respond to AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick writing a statement that the congressional UAP hearing last week was “insulting” to members of his team and that none of the witnesses who testified were ever a representative to AARO, which Kirkpatrick claimed was contrary to statements made in the testimony.

Grusch’s opening statement said that in recent years, he was the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s “co-lead in Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) and trans-medium object analysis, as well as reporting to UAP Task Force (UAPTF) and eventually the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).”

“Dr. Kirkpatrick oversaw our activities and what we were doing and the money we were spending,” Grusch told BBC Radio. “I never said I was a part of the core team, so I believe it was just lost in translation or misconstrued.”