One parent from Virginia is taking a stand and speaking out against the school district’s “anti-racism” policies and curriculum, stating that the officials for the school outright ignored his concerns with the curriculum that was being taught to his child that the man claims is not constitutional and entirely racist.
Just this past week, Judge Claude Worrell, of Charlottesville Circuit Court, kicked out a case that was up against the Albemarle School District that was filed by multiple groups of parents concerned about the curriculum that they claim is racist and discriminates against the kids based on skin color.
Alliance Defending Freedom lawyers, who have pledged to take up the case on behalf of the parents, are currently waiting for a written dismissal and state that they will appeal the decision.
One of the fathers involved with this suit, Matt, spoke out about his issues with the anti-racism policies from the district and states that it has been intertwined throughout all of the classes. Matt, who previously went to the same school that his child currently attends, stated that he thinks the school is forcing the kids to focus far too much on people’s skin color.
“As a parent here, who’s against racism, I’m against this conversation because now we’re having kids who are in middle school focus on the color of their skin,” he claimed, going on to add that such divisive concepts should never be focussed on in schools, especially for kids as young as those in middle school.
Matt stated that he was able to be taken out of the homeroom class where he stated the child was being most exposed to these “divisive concepts,” but was not able to entirely protect him due to the fact that the “concepts [are] woven into every subject.”
He went on to state that his child was “personally attacked” while in an English class due to his beliefs related to a discussion.
Currently, the district’s policy can be read online, and gives simple definitions of how toey explain concepts such as “individual racism,” institutional racism,” and “anti-racism.”
The policy stated that institutional racism “occurs within institutions and organizations, such as schools, that adopt and maintain policies, practices, and procedures that often unintentionally produce inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for white people.”
Other things available for viewing on the website for the district include a document “Am I an Anti-racist?” and an anonymous alert system that allows people to go and try and issue reports about any alleged racism they think is taking place.
Phil Giaramita, one spokesperson for the school district of Albemarle County, stated that Judge Worrell “supported the division’s anti-racism policy” via his ruling.
“We obviously were pleased that the court agreed with our position that plaintiffs failed to show concrete harm to students from the policy’s implementation. As the Judge noted, there was no justiciable question for the court to decide, meaning there were no claims that could be decided based upon legal principles,” he stated.
One of the lawyers for the group of parents, Kate Anderson, stated that the kids in one of these exercises were told to put “white” and “Christian” into a “dominant box” and then forced the kids to “dismantle the box” and recite a pledge they called anti-racist.
As stated by Anderson, quite a few of the teachers were angry over this new odd focus on race instead of on actual academics, especially so as the schools are trying to get back to normal in the wake of the pandemic.
“The school policy was directed at bringing kids to view themselves and everything around them purely through the lens of race, and it was personalizing it by telling students that only white people can be racist. That all the white students are personally and individually responsible for racism,” she stated.
Anderson also highlighted that that the students from minorities were being told that they would not, and could not, succeed due to their race and inherant oppression.