December 23, 2021
Dear White Progressives,
I am moved to write this open letter to you today because I can no longer be silent on what I see as a growing theme in your posts around the public education system in our nation. Many of you are demonstrating by your posts and likes on social media that you have no idea how to be an ally. Many of you lack any understanding of the education experiences of Black and Brown students across the U.S.
Recently the focus of much of the debate over U.S. education policy has been driven by the deliberate attacks by Republicans on education equity policies as a way to anger their base and boost their voter turnout in 2022 and 2024. The disingenuous attacks on fake issues such as Critical Race Theory and book-banning campaigns in public schools and libraries are deliberately designed to misinform their base voter and create outrage.
Yesterday, NBC reporter Mike Hixenbaugh shared his latest story on what is happening around diversity and equity issues in the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas. In case you haven’t been following this story, let me give you a quick recap.
The fight against racism in Carroll ISD started in 2018, when a video of white students shouting the n-word was shared across social media. In response to national pressure sparked by the video, the district’s Board of Education members reluctantly created a diversity council and charged them to draft a diversity plan. But parents pushed back, electing a new, anti-diversity school board and filing a lawsuit. This month, the new board settled the lawsuit. The settlement disbanded the Carroll ISD diversity council and rejected the diversity action plan.
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