About

#ExposeChristianSchools is a viral hashtag used to catalog, document and promote negative stories that former students of private Christian-based religious schools experienced.

Origin

On January 15th, 2019, HuffPost^[1] reported that Karen Pence, the wife of United States Vice President Mike Pence, would be teaching art at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia.

The story started a backlash online as many argued that the school has discriminatory admission policies, including refusing entry to students "who participate in or condone homosexual activity." The school also requires those seeking employment to sign "a pledge not to engage in homosexual activity or violate the 'unique roles of male and female.'" Additionally, employees are barred from "heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g., premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female, sexual harassment, use or viewing of pornographic material or websites."

Several days later, on January 18th, Twitter ^[2] user @C_Stroop started the "#ExposeChristianSchools" hashtag with a tweet. They wrote, "Hey fellow Christian school grads, let’s tell @VP and @DavidAFrench how traumatizing those bastions of bigotry are. Use the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools." The tweet received more than 660 retweets and 1,400 likes in less than one week (shown below).

Spread

That day, another controversy, which saw many criticizing the students of Covington Catholic High School for a confrontation with a Native American man, helped boost the hashtag, as people became more outwardly critical of Christian-based educational institutions.

Throughout the weekend, students and former students shared their stories from Christian schools. Twitter^[3] user @smellin_coffee tweeted, "#ExposeChristianSchools The bullying was intense, specifically for boys who weren't 'manly.' In the locker room, coaches would walk out when 'soft' boys were getting towel-whipped in the shower or heads flushed in the commodes." The tweet received more than 125 retweets and 700 likes in three days (shown below, left).

Twitter^[4] user @dire_blizzard tweeted, "I don’t know if I can properly address all the ways to #exposechristianschools. But here it goes. History classes never reviewed the American Indians’ cultures or the timeline of the Civil Rights Movement. Yay white-washed history." The tweet received more than 280 retweets and 1,200 likes in three days (shown below, center).

Some defended their Christian-school education. Twitter^[7] user @stevenjaba tweeted, "I went to a Christian school and learned way more about the Holocaust, civil rights and even Hiroshima than I did at my public university, even though I was a history major. #ExposeChristianSchools." The tweet received more than 300 retweets and 1,700 likes in three days (shown below, right).

That day, Twitter^[5] user @PoliticalEmilia defended the hashtag. They wrote, "*Nobody* is attacking Christians who want to practice their religion. We’re attacking Christians who teach kids to be ashamed of who they are, who teach that science isn’t real, and who promote racism and homophobia in school. #ExposeChristianSchools." Within three days, the tweet received more than 1,000 retweets and 4,200 likes (shown below,).

On January 20th, YouTuber Mr Atheist posted a video entited "Reading from #ExposeChristianSchools on Twitter- People are Mad!" Within two days, the post received more than 68,000 views (shown below).

That day, The Daily Dot ^[6] reported on the hashtag.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References