Feds Launch Civil Rights Investigation After Election of School Board Members Who Oppose CRT
Following the election of three conservatives to a Texas school board, the U.S. Department of Education opened three investigations into allegations of racial and gender discrimination in the district.
An Education Department spokesperson confirmed the Office of Civil Rights investigation into the Carroll Independent School District, located in Southlake, north of Dallas.
The spokesperson said the investigations are related to alleged discrimination based on “race, color, national origin, or sex” but did not offer further details, The Texas Tribune reported.
In May, two candidates backed by the conservative Southlake Families PAC, which is opposed to critical race theory, won seats on the CISD school board, according to NBC News.
Congratulations to Southlake’s new mayor John Huffman, city council members Amy Torres Lepp and Randy Robbins, and school board trustees Hannah Smith and Cam Bryan! pic.twitter.com/8LK2pnnpqi
— Shawn McCaskill (@ShawnMcCaskill1) May 2, 2021
A third Southlake Families-endorsed candidate, Andrew Yeager, won convincingly in a special election this month, creating a conservative majority on the school board.
Congrats Andrew! This was a hard fought race. We look forward to watching you keep the faith of the students and voters as you fight for all Dragons. #ProtectTheTradition pic.twitter.com/e98XzBIzTd
— Southlake Families (@SouthlakeFamPAC) November 3, 2021
CISD’s so-called Diversity Council released a document called the Cultural Competence Action Plan in August 2020.
“Contrary to its name, the District Diversity Council supports very little diversity of thought,” the Southlake Families website says. “This biased committee came up with their 34-page document, containing a 153-point action plan, that includes some of the most extreme liberal positions in the history of Texas public education.”
“No parent wants a child to be bullied or to experience acts of racism. The disagreement over CCAP is not whether bullying or racism should be addressed and dealt with appropriately, but whether CCAP, an overreaching and highly political plan seeking to indoctrinate children according to extremely liberal beliefs, is the answer.”
The proposal would mandate “diversity and inclusion” training and establish an “equity and inclusion grievance process system through which students can report instances of discrimination.”
A county judge granted a restraining order in December blocking CCAP from going forward.
NBC reported that Yeager’s victory is seen as the death knell for the plan.
Throughout his campaign, Yeager warned that implementing CCAP and bowing to the additional demands of the student activist group Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition would tarnish CISD’s “tradition of excellence.”
It is one of the top-performing districts in Texas, according to NBC.
“If these demands were implemented, this would no longer be an excellent school district,” Yeager said at an October forum. “This would be a school district that would be placing equity over excellence.”
The district’s former school board president, Buddy Luce, said the Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition helped prompt the Education Department to launch its investigations into CISD, according to KXAS.
“The credit goes to a group of Carroll alumni and the Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition who documented hundreds of testimonies by students on what’s going on, and the way that’s been swept under the rug is, I think, the reason why I think the Department of Education Civil Rights Division is having to take this action.”
Karen Fitzgerald, a CISD spokeswoman, said the district is “fully cooperating” with the investigations.
Southlake Mayor John Huffman said in a Wednesday statement, “I don’t think I am alone in wondering if this investigation is retaliation for our voters rejecting the pro-CRT CCAP plan, especially since the threat to involve the federal government was made by some CCAP supporters to the media.”
“As Mayor, I can tell you that Southlake is a wonderful, welcoming community,” he added.
“We see it in the diversity of our business leadership, our community events and our everyday interactions with our friends and neighbors. Many of the issues raised in the national media took place years ago. The stories that seek to weaponize them all these years later do not accurately represent the values of our community.”
A version of this article originally appeared on Patriot Project.
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