School District Changes Its Restroom Policy – Then Ignores the Sexual Assault of a Five-Year-Old Girl

“When you send your daughter to school – when you see her off in the morning – you have a level of expectation that you’re not going to be worried about them, that they’re not going to be exposed to something that you’re not aware of as a parent,” said Mark, a parent in Decatur, Georgia.

But City Schools of Decatur betrayed that expectation. And the consequences were exactly what parents had feared.

In July 2016, Mark’s wife Gena happened to be on Superintendent David Dude’s Facebook page and saw an interesting post. Superintendent Dude had announced that City Schools of Decatur would authorize students who identify with the opposite sex to use the restrooms and locker rooms that align with their claimed gender identity. Not only that, but they would be authorized to join sports teams and share overnight accommodations on school-sponsored trips with members of the opposite sex as well.

Alarmed by this announcement, Gena called other parents asking whether they had heard of the policy change. It quickly became apparent that the school district had not notified its students or parents about the change. Instead, the superintendent simply announced this policy quietly, on Facebook, during the summer months.

Is that how you would want your school district to communicate with you?

As you can imagine, Mark, Gena, and several other concerned parents were not happy. So they met with school district officials and the school board. They made phone calls. They wrote letters. They sent emails. But their concerns left school officials unmoved. The policy remained in effect for the 2016-2017 school year.

Finally, the school board put the policy on its meeting agenda in October 2017. Many people spoke, including the former chairman of the Board of Pardons and Paroles for the State of Georgia.

“Given his understanding of human nature, he specifically testified to his concern that this policy would be used by young boys to gain access to girls in private settings for mischievous purposes,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Allied Attorney Vernadette Broyles.

“And it was as if he was prophetic, because that is precisely what has happened.”

A month after the school board hearing, a five-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in the girls’ restroom by a boy in her class – a boy that was allowed to be there because of the new school policy.

Imagine your five-year-old daughter coming home from school and telling you that she was sexually assaulted in the girls’ bathroom. Now imagine going to school officials – the same officials who stand in your shoes as a parent during school hours – and being told that nothing is going to be done about it.

That is the horrible – and heartbreaking – reality that Pascha, this little girl’s mother, is facing. Pascha told school officials about the sexual assault on her daughter. And they didn’t investigate. They wouldn’t take the boy out of her daughter’s classroom. They wouldn’t assure her that her daughter—and other girls—wouldn’t meet him in the restroom again.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

School officials, the school district, and superintendent must be held accountable. That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom asked the U.S Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to launch an investigation into this incident. Thankfully, it has agreed to do so.

Every school district has a duty to protect the privacy and safety of its students. The City Schools of Decatur has failed that duty. It has failed Pascha and her daughter. And now it must be held responsible.

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Pathetic: Students use cupcakes, tie-dye in diversity talk

They go to university to learn to decorate cupcakes?

Stony Brook University in New York invites students to express their diversity through cupcake decorating and "tie-dye-versity" in October.

Students can attend an Oct. 15 “Diversity Cupcakes” event, designed to make them aware of “how different each individual can be, without even realizing it.” Attendees will decorate cupcakes “which best defines [sic] their identity.”

“Placing dialogue secondary to a fun event like tie-dying shirts or decorating cupcakes takes away needed focus from the actual dialogue.”   

Different cupcake toppings will represent different aspects of each individual’s intersectional identity, such as race, sexual orientation, class, and even relationship status. Each frosting color will also signify a certain hobby. Event organizers call it “a fun, colorful, and tasty way” to “create an appreciation” for differences. 

Stony Brook also invites students to an Oct. 19 event, titled “Tie Dye-Versity,” where they will “[focus] on creating a conversation on diversity while making tie[-]dye shirts.”  Attendees will participate in activities that “make them think on their own identities, explore ideas of diversity, and enjoy a fin [sic] day outside while making their own shirt.”

“These types of events seem like wastes of money,” Stony Brook student Justin Ullman told Campus Reform. “Placing dialogue secondary to a fun event like tie-dying shirts or decorating cupcakes takes away needed focus from the actual dialogue.”

“The more productive events are those that place dialogue as the primary purpose,” Ullman said, noting that while he fully supports “accepting diversity in [the school’s] community,” he feels that “decorating cupcakes likely does not have any effect on someone’s acceptance of others compared to prior [to] the event.”

“The tried and true method of spreading understanding is through simple dialogue,” he asserted.

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Sydney Uni still opposed to Western civilization 

A Ramsay Centre-funded course at Sydney University would be badged 'Western tradition' rather than 'Western civilisation' in a bid to assuage concerns held by some academics about the proposed partnership.

The country's oldest university has offered staff worried about the Ramsay course a number of concessions in an updated memorandum of understanding it will put to the centre, including stripping Ramsay representatives of voting rights on academic and scholarship committees.

A Bachelor of Western Tradition would also have to comply with a university-wide plan to emphasise skills such as "cultural competence", or "the ability to engage ethically, respectfully and successfully in inter-cultural settings". The Herald understands the MOU was distributed to university staff and received by the Ramsay Centre on Tuesday night.

The Ramsay Centre board, which includes former Coalition prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, would need to accept the MOU before a deal progresses. If it agrees, Sydney University will draw up a curriculum that would have to be approved by its academic board.

The Ramsay Centre is offering millions to fund courses on the great books of the West at several universities. Universities, including Sydney, already cover similar content, but this proposal has inflamed the culture wars because opponents see it as cultural imperialism. Its supporters believe the resistance shows political correctness is taking over campuses.

The Ramsay Centre said it would need to time to consider the updated MOU before commenting.

Sydney University vice-chancellor Michael Spence sparked furious debate when he began talks with Ramsay earlier this year after the Australian National University pulled out. Queensland University has also expressed interest.

The ANU said Ramsay's demands would have curtailed its academic freedom. The centre denies these claims. Using "Western civilisation" to describe the course was a sticking point in ANU negotiations, with Ramsay rejecting the Canberra-based university's proposal to call it Western studies.

In an attempt to set clear boundaries around academic autonomy early in the negotiations, senior Sydney University staff drew up an MOU. The first draft gave Ramsay standard donor voting rights for an academic appointment and scholarship committees, but specified that teaching and content be controlled by the university.

But when the university surveyed staff's views on the MOU, reactions were mixed. A third of the 500 respondents were ideologically opposed to involvement with Ramsay, believing it would be a course in European supremicism, according to an email sent to staff on Tuesday night.

A third supported the course, and the remaining third supported the principles of the MOU but worried about how it would work in practice. "Following consultation, the draft MOU has been significantly revised," the email said.

Under the changes, Ramsay will be required to agree to the term tradition rather than civilisation; waive its voting rights on the committees; and comply with the graduate qualities program that begins in 2021.

The university has also amended the clause about a Ramsay review after four years, saying any review would need to be done by academics jointly chosen by the university and Ramsay. The university would also have control over the marketing of the course.

Staff opposed to the centre are planning a public meeting on October 29.

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