I remember how it was -- JR
2 Employees Sue Missouri School District Over ‘Equity’ Training
Public school employees Brooke Henderson and Jennifer Lumley have had it with the racially discriminatory training sessions taking place in their school district in Springfield, Missouri.
The women filed suit Wednesday in federal court, arguing that Springfield Public Schools violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment by forcing them to affirm beliefs with which they disagree during mandatory race-based trainings as a condition of continued employment.
Southeastern Legal Foundation, which brought the suit on behalf of Henderson and Lumley, already had filed a civil rights suit in federal court in Illinois over a school district’s use of racially segregated trainings and affinity groups. It was the first major lawsuit in the nation to confront critical race theory head-on.
Supervisors forced the two educators in Missouri to participate in a districtwide “equity” training program focused on racial identity, white supremacy, and systemic racism.
Equity is an anodyne-sounding term that shields a pernicious reality.
The American Psychological Association describes “cultural competence,” the platform upon which equity rests, as “the ability to understand, appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own,” and “good treatment for people of diverse cultures.” This “good treatment” expresses itself in modern classrooms through “equity training” and “equity”-based curriculum.
In practice, however, equity’s aim is entirely different than that of equality—the principle espoused in America’s founding documents. Rather than assuring that all people get equal opportunities for success, equity is focused on equality of outcome, leveling one group’s perceived advantages by, among other devices, applying federal law in an unequal manner to those of different races and identities to benefit one over the other.
This is precisely the tactic employed by the Biden administration with the president’s Jan. 20 executive order called “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”
The effect of President Joe Biden’s order is the universal application of the doctrine of “disparate impact,” which posits that an entirely neutral, facially nondiscriminatory policy—one that isn’t intended to discriminate and doesn’t actually treat individuals differently based on race—nevertheless constitutes illegal racial discrimination if it has a “disproportionate” effect among different racial and ethnic groups.
The Supreme Court and various federal circuit courts—one as recently as a few weeks ago—have summarily rejected the doctrine of disparate impact as a constitutional matter, focusing instead on application of the law rather than the outcomes that law produces.
In January, a leaked “oppression matrix” used in the Springfield school district’s equity training sessions listed examples of “covert” and socially accepted forms of white supremacy as: “colorblindness,” “all lives matter,” “white silence,” “claiming reverse-racism,” “calling the police on black people,” and “treating kids of color as adults.”
The school district’s matrix compares these so-called covert oppressions to “lynching,” “hate crimes,” and “burning crosses,” all forms of white supremacy classified as “overt” in nature and considered to be socially unacceptable.
As to its use of equity-based trainings and the materials contained therein, the Springfield school district has said:
Our commitment to all students and staff, including those who are under-resourced and underrepresented, is reflected in our strategic plan, which includes a focus on equity and diversity. Staff training encourages participants to consider how their individual journey may differ from the experiences of others. … Subsequent media coverage has inaccurately represented this training by reporting incorrect and/or incomplete information, without appropriate context.
But according to the complaint filed by Southeastern Legal Foundation, the two educators were not “encouraged” to consider differences, but rather required to affirm Springfield Public Schools’ “race essentialism.” This affirmation of race essentialism—the view that race is the defining characteristic of all individuals—came at the risk of the women losing mandatory training credits, having their pay docked, and putting their jobs in jeopardy.
According to the lawsuit, the school district’s equity trainers made statements such as: “In doing social justice work, it is important we acknowledge the dark history and violence against Native and Indigenous People across the world.”
Trainers gave employees signs to express agreement or disagreement with the statements, and employees who didn’t hold up signs saying “strongly agree” (opting, for example, to hold up signs with “disagree” instead) were berated by fellow employees and reprimanded by school district leaders.
Trainers told employees to complete a “social identities” circle, requiring them to respond to inquiries about their sexual orientation, religion, and socioeconomic status by ranking them in order of personal importance.
According to the complaint, Lumley, a records secretary, and Henderson, a student disabilities coordinator, were forced to “affirm views they did not support, to disclose personal details that they wish to keep private, and to self-censor on matters of public interest.”
This mandated participation in the school district’s race-obsessed training set up an “unconstitutional condition of employment” and chilled employees’ speech, according to the lawsuit.
Southeastern Legal Foundation’s litigation director, Braden Boucek, said:
Public schools are an arm of the government. The check on that power is in the courtroom. It is well-settled law that the government cannot discriminate based on viewpoint, cause individuals to self-censor, or force individuals to accept beliefs with which they do not agree. Unfortunately, that is exactly what [Springfield Public Schools] is doing.
Both the Supreme Court and various federal circuit courts have affirmed that the right to free speech under the First Amendment includes not just the freedom to say what one wants, but the freedom to avoid speaking and protection from having to affirm a belief one doesn’t hold, especially on matters of public concern—such as gender identity or race.
Southeastern Legal Foundation has asked the court to put an end to the school district’s training to prevent further violations of employees’ First Amendment rights.
On behalf of its clients, the law firm asks the court for a ruling that the school district’s professional development programming violated the two women’s rights to free speech and was an unconstitutional condition of their continued employment. The firm also has asked the court to permanently halt this training districtwide.
Based on this second major lawsuit, the Chris Rufo-led national legal coalition fighting critical race theory, and a surge in grassroots opposition to its teaching in public schools, apologists for critical race theory soon will face a reckoning in court.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/20/2-employees-sue-missouri-school-district-over-equity-training
****************************************As School Year Begins, Kids Have More Educational Options
School is back in session—or will be soon—for students across America. As they head back to the classroom, many of our children will encounter a different environment this year.
With debates about mask mandates and critical race theory garnering headlines, another underreported story is reshaping American education. Corey DeAngelis, national research director for the American Federation for Children, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share the good news for parents and students alike.
DeAngelis calls 2021 the “year of school choice,” with upward of 17 states giving parents more options to make decisions that benefit their kids. These new school choice programs fund students, giving them the educational freedom to learn in an environment best for them.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/23/as-school-year-begins-kids-have-more-educational-options
***************************************Biden and Critical Race Theory—How To Fight Back Amid Admin’s Confusing Mixed Signals
KEY TAKEAWAYS
* The U.S. Department of Education said that teachers should use reading material from the New York Times’ 1619 Project to reframe the country’s history about slavery
* Critical race theory says everything in public and private life—your job, government, school—must be considered with respect to racial identities.
* While progressives decide how to explain away CRT's bigotry, parents and policymakers should call the theory what it is—discrimination—and reject it.
Judging from the flurry of headlines about racial discrimination and teaching history in schools, you could easily forget that school was out for the summer. But some students have already returned, and the rest will be back at their desks before you know it. So will the grownups settle the issue before all of them are back in class?
Not likely.
Consider what White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked what President Biden thinks about educators using critical race theory—a philosophy that, ironically, pushes racially discriminatory ideas—is appropriate in K-12 lessons: "There is not just racism and slavery in our history … children should learn not just the good, but also the challenging in our history."
Psaki’s response is confusing because just weeks earlier, the U.S. Department of Education recommended that teachers use reading material from the New York Times’ 1619 Project—which, the Times says, "aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative."
So after the Education Department told teachers that racism and slavery should be "at the very center of our national narrative," the White House press secretary said there is more than "racism and slavery in our history." (After the agency received some 35,000 comments to its announcement recommending the 1619 Project, the office retreated from this position. We can safely assume not all the comments were positive.)
The two largest teacher unions in the U.S. are also sending mixed signals. At the National Education Association’s annual meeting earlier this month, union members approved a business item stating that they would make sure teachers continue to use critical race theory in class. Just days later, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said the theory is not used in K-12 schools at all today.
So does critical race theory have something to offer besides racial discrimination? Are teachers including the theory in instruction? And do teachers need it for history classes or not?
No, yes and no.
Critical race theory is a philosophy that law school professors developed in the 1980s. The theory says everything in public and private life—your job, government, school—must be considered with respect to racial identities. The theory is "critical" because advocates based the ideas on Marxist notions of oppressed workers, which stems from a school of thought from the 1930s called "critical theory."
Theorists are skeptical of American law and the concepts of freedom and rights that glue our government and culture together. In Orwellian fashion, critical theorists call their ideas "anti-racist." But Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen exposed the racially biased principles of critical race theory in an opinion he issued in May.
"By its own terms, antiracism excludes individuals who merely advocate for the neutral legal principles of the Constitution," he said. Knudsen adds that critical ideas leave no room for debate. "No one can be antiracist," he says, "who does not … embrace the specific public policy proposals of CRT."
Perhaps worst of all, critical race theory argues that the American Dream is not available to everyone.
Teachers around the country are using critical ideas now. Portland Public school educators formed a Critical Race Theory Coalition; Hayward Unified officials in California recently committed district educators to including critical race theory in their teaching; and Loudoun County, Virginia, school leaders contracted with a teacher professional development company that that uses the words "critical race theory" in their materials.
The challenge for parents, teachers and policymakers, and what has attracted the attention of state policymakers, is that critical race theory is racially discriminatory. Students have been divided into groups according to skin color for certain school activities. Children are told that oppressors can be determined by the color of their skin before even considering someone’s actions.
Perhaps worst of all, critical race theory argues that the American Dream is not available to everyone—America is systemically oppressive, individual effort and determination be damned.
Education is a state and local concern, but we can still applaud some federal officials for rejecting the application of CRT’s racial discrimination in schools. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., recently introduced a non-binding amendment to the Senate’s budget resolution that says federal funding cannot be used to "compel teachers or students to affirm critical race theory," and lawmakers narrowly approved it 50-49.
Though the amendment itself won’t curtail federal funding for CRT (to do that, Congress would need to pass further restrictions on funds), the provision is a good example of how to deal with critical race theory’s prejudice.
Educators should guide students as they wrestle with ideas, even ideas with which they disagree, yet no one should be compelled to affirm that they are owed something before they can hope to succeed. No one should be compelled to believe or defend racial prejudice.
While progressives decide how to explain away critical race theory’s bigotry, parents and policymakers should call the theory what it is—discrimination—and reject it. We can get that settled before kids go back to school.
***********************************
My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
*******************************
No comments:
Post a Comment