New conservative majorities on local school boards have already altered lessons on race and social injustice in many classrooms. Now some districts are finding that their broader efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion are also being challenged.
Since issues of diversity, equity and inclusion can thread their way through every part of a school system — including recruitment, services and equipment — the debate carries implications for hiring and spending.
“Even in districts that aren’t threatened as much, they’re thinking twice about what they say and what they do and how they go about doing it because it is having a chilling effect on the whole equity, diversity and inclusion movement,” Domenech said.
Critics questioned the findings and the way they were presented, at a series of public meetings called “equity cafes” that some said limited full discussions. Conservative candidates set their sights on the school board, with three winning seats in the November election.Board President Parth Melpakam said by email that the new board had yet to discuss the issue but plans to at a work session in the spring.
Democrat Adrienne King, who helped design the plan, ran for a seat on the school board and lost in November. Five Republicans won after running against the initiative, which they had called divisive. The program’s future remains unclear while a new committee considers it. “In a second grade mind, it was just, ‘Oh, I learned this new fact. You’re Black, Frederick Douglass was Black. You must be a slave,’” she said.The Arlington, Virginia-based group Parents Defending Education is critical of diversity, equity and inclusion programming, citing on its website a goal of “fighting indoctrination in the classroom.
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