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New DOE takes another look after teacher’s initial suit was dismissed

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a Chicago-area school district over “alleged discrimination” in its “equity policies, programs and curriculum.”

The DOE specifically is looking into potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act based on complaints from an Evanston/Skokie School District 65 drama teacher, the Evanston RoundTable reports.

Stacy Deemar first filed suit against the district in 2021, claiming district equity policies taught (among other things) that “to be less white is to be less racially oppressive,” and “white identity is inherently racist.”

Then-Superintendent Devon Horton had said teachers shouldn’t even be licensed unless they’ve gone through anti-racist training: “If you’re not antiracist, we can’t have you in front of our students.”

The district claimed it needs anti-racism workshops in order to “establish a framework for the elimination of bias, particularly racism and cultural bias, as factors affecting student achievement and learning experiences,” and to “promote learning and working environments that welcome, respect, and value diversity.”

Part of the trainings include the so-called “privilege walks,” where participants take a step forward if they are, or have been, the beneficiary of what is deemed a “privilege.”

Such “privileges” can be “if you can legally marry the person you love” (even in the post-gay marriage era, so who specifically isn’t “privileged”?), and if you were raised in a two-parent household (for which yours truly had to step forward during an early-2000s teacher inservice “privilege walk”).

MORE: Oregon school district spends $100k per year to teach ‘white privilege’

Although a judge dismissed Deemar’s suit after a three-year “process” (noting she was not “personally subject to racial staff affinity groups,” and “not treated differently” nor “denied any tangible benefits” because of her race), the teacher refiled her complaint with Trump’s DOE with assistance from the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

The official DOE announcement about its inquiry references the “privilege walks,” elementary-level lesson plans that teach students to “understand that our country has a racist history and is grounded in white privilege,” concepts such as “white talk” and “color commentary,” and 3rd-5th grade lessons that “urge readers to disrupt Western nuclear family dynamics.”

DOE Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said “The policies and practices to which the District allegedly subjects students and teachers shocks the conscience.”

“Amid a dismal academic achievement record, the District appears to focus on unlawfully segregating students by race, instructing students to step forward and others to step back on the basis of race, and associating ‘whiteness’ with the devil,” Trainor added.

MORE: Wisconsin professors, public school leaders to help host two-day ‘white privilege symposium’

IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: Gent investigates potential wrongdoing; Shutterstock.com

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