The country's two biggest teachers unions are working to get diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) ideology into artificial intelligence models before they are used in grades K-12, sparking backlash from at least one education and parental rights advocacy group. Such efforts were flagged in a recent report by Defending Education, a national conservative and right-of-center grassroots advocacy organization. "The goal of these groups is to implement DEI ideology into AI before it can be fully integrated into America’s education system," Defending Education continued. "If DEI is embedded in AI before schools adopt these new tools, then DEI, as part of AI, becomes institutionalized in the nation’s schools once the tools are adopted." AFT has argued such efforts are to advance equity and fairness in public education and address societal inequities” through AI technologies,However, Freedom Foundation’s Aaron Withe isn’t persuaded.