WOKE ALERT: Universities, school districts nationwide call for ‘decolonizing’ Thanksgiving: ‘Day of mourning’

November 26, 2025

From Fox News: As families across the U.S. gather on Thanksgiving to celebrate one of the nation’s most cherished national holidays, some educators and schools are lamenting the day, pushing back on its “colonial” roots, and incorporating diversity, equality and inclusion DEI into the holiday.

At the University of California, Davis, the California History-Social Science Project, which describes itself as “Resources & professional learning for K-12 history-social science,” hosted a Zoom event called “Decolonizing Thanksgiving in the Classroom.”

“We will discuss reframing classroom practices and rituals about Thanksgiving,” the event description explained. “Centering perspectives from Turtle Island (a name for North America used by some indigenous people) will help us decolonize Thanksgiving and spark new conversations about how to authentically make meaning of this holiday with our students.”

Earlier this month, Washington University in St. Louis, an institution that has long been criticized over its DEI policies, put out a press release promoting an event that “highlights and honors the way different cultures recognize and understand Thanksgiving, both as part of their history and as a tradition brought into the present day.”

The event at Washington University promoted the event as a way to “actively contribute to inclusive and equitable practices that influence individual and systemic change.”

The report also notes that Massachusetts Institute of Technology invited students on Tuesday to the “4th annual Thanksgiving Myth-busting” event aimed at “continuing our exploration of the narratives justifying land grabs via colonialism” and included a viewing of the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and a trip to the “National Indigenous Day of Mourning (NDOM)” rally in Plymouth, Massachusetts, at the location of the Mayflower’s landing.

The University of Massachusetts also referred to Thanksgiving Day as a “Day of Mourning” in an announcement on its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility website.

Fox News listed multiple other universities invoking similar anti-Thanksgiving narratives, including Berkeley Unified School District in California, who used the term “mourning” in its “Rethinking Thanksgiving Teaching Guide” and lamented the “painful legacy” and “nuanced perspectives” of the nation’s beloved holiday.