Lawsuit: Illinois school's equity agenda is 'divisive racial' ideology

[September 27, 2024]  By Brendan Clarey | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – A lawsuit filed against the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 in Evanston alleges the school separated students and teachers by race and incited “racial hostility” through “divisive, race-obsessed teachings,” which the lawsuit says requires teachers to impose on students.

The complaint filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of part-time drama teacher Stacy Deemar alleges that District 65 injected critical race theory into what students were taught. It also says the Department of Education issued a letter finding the district violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The complaint says Deemar is “one of many victims of District 65’s practice of promoting divisive racial ideologies that foster animus in the name of ‘equity.’”

District 65 did not respond to a request for comment.

On its Equity Policy webpage, the district says it “recognizes that excellence requires a commitment to equity and to identifying practices, policies and institutional barriers, including institutional racism and privilege, which perpetuate opportunity and achievement gaps.”

“There are persistent and unacceptable opportunity and achievement gaps for students of color in District 65,” it continues.

The complaint alleges that in pursuit of equity, District 65 told staff that “white individuals are ‘loud, authoritative . . . [and] controlling,’” and that “To be less white is to be less racially oppressive,” that “White identity is inherently racist” and that they must denounce “white privilege.”

The complaint also says the school required them to participate in racially segregated “affinity groups” and “privilege walks,” where teachers step forward or not based on responses to prompts about their race and identity.

“Much of the privilege walk critique shares intellectual commitments with, and builds from, core concepts from critical race theory,” researchers from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University wrote in an essay published this spring.

The lawsuit also alleges that students were taught controversial ideas about race, including: “Racism is a white person’s problem, and we are all caught up in it” and that “White people have a very, very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they should do about it.”

Kim Hermann, executive director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, said that the school district’s approach to equity is divisive and extends to the youngest students.

“From Pre-K through eighth grade, critical race theory is baked into every single aspect of education in District 65,” Hermann said in an interview. “If you look at the curriculum and the teacher training in District 65, you will be hard-pressed to find a single subject for a single grade from pre-K to eighth that doesn’t include critical race theory.”

“District 65 appears to be proud of it. They post their curriculum online,” Hermann said. “A quick look shows that pre-K students as young as 4 years old have to do things like read the book ‘Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness’ and do the activities that include signing a contract with the devil that declares because of their whiteness, they get to ‘mess endlessly’ with their friends of color.”

Hermann said that by basing all of their lessons on ideas coming from critical race theory, District 65 is pitting kids against each other based on race, teaching white kids that they are the oppressors and Black kids that they are the oppressed and victims.

Screenshot | Amended Complaint

Dozens of states have enacted laws prohibiting what critics call 'divisive topics' related to critical race theory. Critics of those bills say such legislation limits what can be discussed in class and that critical race theory is not taught in K-12 settings.

Hermann said after Deemar filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights and an 18-month investigation, the OCR issued a letter of finding that said the school violated Title VI. That letter said the district violated the law by separating students and staff by race for various training and affinity groups.

The OCR’s letter of finding said the district violated Title VI with a policy requiring staff to consider students’ skin color before disciplining them, as well as with a “Colorism Privilege walk activity” that “treated students differently and separated students solely based on their race and color.”

“In January 2021, The Department of Education issued this letter of finding, Joe Biden took office, and several days later, the Department of Education withdrew the letter of finding without any explanation, something it has never done in the history of the Department,” Hermann said. “So what does that signal to us?”

“It signals that under the Biden-Harris administration, mandatory racial segregation is now OK and no longer violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” Hermann said.

Deemar is seeking only nominal damages in the amount of $1, according to the lawsuit.

Hermann said Deemar is not filing an employment claim for money and has experienced harassment from students, administrators and even the community, which held a rally against her in a local park. Deemar is filing the lawsuit because she doesn’t want to be forced to violate the rights of her students, Hermann said.

According to Hermann, the practices alleged in the lawsuit are still ongoing.

“These haven’t ended,” Hermann said. “These segregated staff meetings and the privilege walks have not ended. In fact, emails have gone out this week to staff requiring privilege walks in the schools.”

Hermann said that while these debates are often described as a culture war, we're actually in the midst of a constitutional war.

“As we’re teaching kids to hate one another, as we’re teaching kids to look at everything through the lens of race, we’re also teaching them to hate our country. And if they hate our country, they’ll hate our Constitution, and then they won’t fight for it anymore. And before you know it, we have a country that doesn’t look like America.”

District 65’s Black Lives Matter Week day one curriculum for Pre-K/Kindergarten students says they will “understand that our country has a racist history that is grounded in white privilege.”

“They’re teaching kids from the youngest of ages that the number one thing you look at is the color of somebody’s skin,” Hermann said. “That’s the very last thing that we should be looking at.”

This story initially published at Chalkboard News, a K-12 news site that, like The Center Square, is also published by Franklin News Foundation.