BUZZ
Key Takeaways
- The Norristown, Pennsylvania school board is facing backlash for eliminating the DEI director position, with critics labeling this a shift towards 'MAGA behavior' and a failure to support a majority-Hispanic student body.
- Obed Arango, a community leader and UPenn lecturer, emphasized that the board's actions ignore the trauma faced by Hispanic students and claimed that the new approach reflects a charter school model prioritizing data over diversity concerns.
- The board insists that it is not abandoning DEI but rather shifting its focus to a new role, 'chief of schools,' designed to improve leadership across the district, which has been criticized for racial disparities in gifted programming and discipline.
The Democratic school board in Norristown, Pennsylvania is being criticized for “MAGA behavior” after voting to eliminate the district’s position of DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — director.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, that specific criticism is attributed to Obed Arango, executive director of the Centro de Cultura Arte Trabajo y Educacion which “works with immigrants” in the community.
“Who is closing DEI offices today? … This is a type of MAGA behavior,” Arango said. “You don’t have to belong to a party or movement to behave like that.”
The Norristown Area School District is majority-Hispanic, and almost 30 percent black.
Arango, who also lectures on “Social Policy and the Latinx Community” at the University of Pennsylvania, claimed the board was “adopting a ‘charter school model’ in its focus on data,” and had not considered the “distress” and “trauma” of Hispanic students due to “federal immigration enforcement under Trump.”
Arango also noted none of the new board members — who are elected — are Hispanic.
In place of the DEI director position, the district is creating a new “chief of schools” job which will “align expectations across all of our leadership roles [and] supervise all of the district’s principals and provide leadership coaching,” according to Norristown Assistant Superintendent Yolanda Williams.
Board President Jeremiah Lemke said that although the district is scrapping the DEI position, it is “not moving away from DEI,” just “changing the approach.”
“There’s been a narrative put forth … that we’re taking a right turn, that we’re all MAGA Republicans up here […] that is absolutely not the case,” Lemke said.
He added the district’s DEI initiatives had become “symbolic rather than systemic,” and that the concern “is not primarily whether positive events occurred or whether cultural celebrations were supported [but] concrete key performance indicators.”
The district’s DEI chief, Steven Willis, claimed he indeed “had created an equity action plan” for the district, and rejected Lemke’s characterization of his efforts.
“If anybody on this board has listened to a thing I’ve said for the last three years … it was to move away from those type of events, and to get deeper into the culture and the connection that results in what happens each and every day for every single child,” Willis said.
According to OpenGovPay.com, Willis made $163,402 in 2025 as Norristown DEI chief.
Ironically, the Inquirer notes some of those in favor of eliminating Willis’ position say not enough had been done about various racial/ethnic “disparities.”
While less than 10% of the district’s students are white, they make up more than 37% of students in gifted programming.
About 25% of gifted students are Hispanic and about 19% are Black, “representing our struggle to identify high-performing students of color” [Asst. Superintendent] Williams said during a presentation at a school board meeting last month.
Black students, meanwhile, account for a “staggering” 55% of out-of-school suspensions, Williams said. And while the district’s overall graduation rate is 81.5%, the rate for Hispanic students is 77%.
Williams said while equity “can be eliminated” in a position, it cannot when it “lives in our leadership culture.” She called the noted disparities “the most urgent priorities for the distributed leadership model that we must reverse and address.”
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