Fact-checks should be, as the name suggests, about checking facts, but a Friday piece from Alex Kasprak at Snopes showed aspiring fact-checkers how not to do their jobs as he defended Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz on the accusation he banned Christians, Jews, and Muslims from teaching in the state.
Kasprak writes, “In late August 2024, several far-right media outlets rehashed an old talking point about Democratic vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: That he passed a law that "bans Christians, Jews, Muslims from teaching."
Underneath three screenshots of headlines, Kasprak proceeds to violate the central fact-checking commandment: thou shall not torch strawmen, “Given such bold headline claims, one might be led to believe that Tim Walz passed a law that bans Christians, Jews, or Muslims from teaching at Minnesota public schools. He did not. These headlines are an aggressive and inflammatory reading of teaching licensure guidelines set to take effect in July 2025.”
Kasprak then cites the updated regulations, “[Foster] an environment that ensures student identities such as race/ethnicity, national origin, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical/developmental/emotional ability, socioeconomic class, and religious beliefs are historically and socially contextualized, affirmed, and incorporated into a learning environment where students are empowered to learn and contribute as their whole selves.”
If Kasprak had cited the actual articles and not just their headlines, he would’ve found that exact same paragraph. Nobody accused Walz of being so blatant that he passed a literal religious test. Religious affiliation and beliefs aren’t just a self-assigned labels, but Kasprak proceeded to violate another fact-checking tenant: assuming the claimant’s identity has any bearing on the claim’s truthfulness:
The argument that such a requirement bars Christians or other religious individuals from receiving a teaching license in Minnesota is that it supposedly forces teachers to ‘reject their faiths' declaration that God has created only two sexes, male and female.’ These are talking points that have been pushed aggressively by Koch-linked, dark money conservative legal groups opposed to teacher licensing requirements.
In his subheading, Kasprak writes, “Merely repeating a talking point ad nauseum does not make that talking point become true.”
You could say the same thing about Kasprak’s “fact-check” because religious people have always believed in certain ideas of right and wrong, and Minnesota is giving them a choice: embrace falsehoods and sin or quit being a teacher. They didn’t need “Koch-linked, dark money conservative legal groups” to tell them that.
Kasprak wasn’t done, he next violated a third and fourth law of fact-checking: thou shall not use ad hominem attacks and thou shall not cite left-wingers as objective sources, “The most recent round of headlines originated with a story in The Federalist written by Joy Pullman — author of a book arguing that "queer politics mean the end of America." Pullman published a nearly identical article about the new licensing requirements in January 2023. Her sources included the Koch-linked Upper Midwest Law Center, and the Minnesota-based Child Protection League, described as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
In his fifth and final paragraph, Kasprak casts more negative motivations on the authors, “The claim that the new Minnesota licensing requirements ban religious individuals from teaching is a politically motivated, bad-faith talking point. Because the law does not ban Christians, Jews, or Muslims from teaching in Minnesota, the claim is False.”
With that, one of the laziest and most unprofessional fact-checkers ever written mercifully came to an end.
