August 18, 2025
PragerU is a conservative ‘education’ platform has been criticized for whitewashing history.
After the White House pulled federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting earlier in August, the Trump administration accelerated its partnership with PragerU, a nonprofit organization that has been credibly accused of creating whitewashed and far-right versions of American history.
Laura Meckler, national education writer for The Washington Post, told Vox that many of the videos reflect an effort to editorialize history, aligning with the Trump administration’s push to control the historical narrative.
“There’s a video with Christopher Columbus, who is talking to some modern-day kids who are saying, basically, ‘I heard bad things about you.’ And he says, ‘You have to judge me by the standards that were true at the time.’ The upshot of this video and other Prager videos is to — I think it’s fair to say — minimize the role of slavery or how much we should focus on it or how upset we should be about it from our past and to try to look on more, shall we say, uplifting ideas from American history,” Meckler said.
The viral video that Meckler referenced is from a 2022 episode of its programming, in which two young modern-day students travel back in time to determine whether Christopher Columbus deserves to be celebrated. The video is emblematic of the kind of content that PragerU creates, pseudo-educational content that seeks to position itself as a conservative alternative to “woke” or the correct version of history.
As 404 Media reported in July, PragerU has increasingly been integrated into the educational curriculum of several states, and even partnered with the White House to create what the outlet referred to as an odd collection of lesser known historical figures alongside John Adams and Thomas Jefferson for its “Road to Liberty” series, which was hosted, but with a wink and nod, not officially endorsed by the White House and the Department of Education.
As Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, told Education Week in 2023, “PragerU is not a university. It is a political propaganda machine, and it promotes mistruths about climate change, slavery, and a whole host of other things.”
He continued, “The things I’ve seen, both about slavery and climate science, are radically distorted and not based in evidence the way that universities understand that term.” Taking into account the argument about any left-leaning bias in the curriculum, Zimmerman noted that “there are any number of much more credible sources that one could use to balance the equation. This isn’t a solution; it’s cynicism. It is distressing and destructive.”
In 2023, members of the Texas State Board of Education criticized PragerU after another member, Julie Pickren, indicated that the group’s educational materials would meet the criteria for use in Texas classrooms.
“This has not gone through any kind of review process,” SBOE District 1 member Melissa Ortega told Fox 7 Austin. “We do not endorse this, and we will not be having this come to Texas.”
In addition, Carisa Lopez of the Texas Freedom Network noted that “PragerU has twisted the words of Frederick Douglass, making disgusting claims that slavery was a compromise. And that’s just one example of the negligence and misinformation this vendor pushes.”
According to Texas AFT Policy Analyst Kelsey King, instead of presenting the correct version of history, PragerU engages in a number of problematic narrative choices.
“These videos instead whitewash and misrepresent events in our history, glorify hyper-capitalism, promote jingoism and are rife with misogyny and white saviorism,” King told the outlet.
RELATED CONTENT: PragerU Hosts Animated Video Of Frederick Douglass Calling Slavery A ‘Compromise
