Carmel parents and grandparents turned out en masse to a four-hour Carmel Clay School Board meeting Monday night to debate the district’s recent hiring of a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer.
In December, the Carmel Clay School District announced its decision to hire the district’s first such officer. Terri Roberts-Leonard, formerly the director of diversity and inclusion at Franklin College, started work on Jan. 19.
Roberts-Leonard’s duties include “recruiting and supporting a diverse staff, ensuring a positive educational experience for a diverse student body, and creating a safe and welcoming environment.”
The hiring was announced about four months after a group called Carmel Against Racial Injustice raised concerns over reports of racism at Carmel High School and asked the school district to take action.
But some Carmel parents say the school district is overstepping its bounds and pushing left-wing idealogy that is rooted in Marxism and racist ideologies that teach black children they are victims and white children they are oppressors. They want the school district to get back to a more rigid and traditional academic curriculum rather than focusing on political and social matters that parents can be teaching their children about at home.
A number of parents spoke at the meeting Monday night. Mock n’ Rob highlighted the comments of a woman named “Lauren,” who delivered an impassioned speech against left-wing ideologies being pushed by educators in the Carmel Clay School District.
Here’s a transcript of Lauren’s comments:
“Hello, my name is Lauren. I am the mother to a 3rd, 5th, and 7th grader in Clay Township and I am here to speak on my growing concern of the curriculum that I’m seeing roll out, especially at the middle school level.
“All year in my son’s 7th-grade language arts class I have witnessed a pushing of left-wing ideology most recently last week my son’s teacher gave an assignment to choose from 7 topics to write a paper and give a presentation on. Some of the topics for immigration climate change gender and sexuality, and gun control – quite polarizing topics, I might add.
“Each topic had research links to help form the children’s opinions to then be able to write. Every single link led to a left-wing source.
“My son was so worried that he would get a bad grade if his paper didn’t line up with the ideology of the teacher that he wrote her an email. He wanted to make sure the assignment was getting graded.
“It should not be like this, and I’m going more concerned that in the wake of our liberal progressivism that critical race theory is next.
“If there is a racist law or a racist practice, I’ll be the first to stand by you and oppose it in champion the tearing down of such a thing, but those don’t exist anymore. Our institutions are not racist.
“If we were wrought with racism, we never would have had a black president, a black vice president, or a black Supreme Court Justice.
“Currently more than 1/3 of America’s top 100 cities are governed by African Americans. As CNN headline from just six days ago noted, black women are gaining political power in U.S. cities. There are three black senators and 57 black Congress members in office, which makes the 117th Congress the most racially and ethnically diverse ever and that is something to be celebrated, and I think we all think that’s a good thing.
“Our country has recognized the sins of our past through constitutional amendments that have instituted programs to help reconcile the wrongdoing: affirmative action, (inaudible) funding, and government contracts to minority-owned businesses to name a few. Also, African Americans are not underrepresented in community positions of power like law enforcement.
“Facts cannot be ignored. This ideology that white people are born as racist oppressors and black people are born as victims is not true if it were, Africans, Jamaicans, Haitians, etc. would not be immigrating here by the millions. They wouldn’t choose to live in a country designed to tear them down.
“Critical race theory is not based in fact and is not simply revising history to give kids another perspective. No, it is a movement based in Marxism, designed to tear down our country from within so it can be rebuilt on Marxist principles. That’s the end game and that is why we cannot have it in our schools.”
Click below to hear the audio of Lauren’s speech with Mock n’ Rob’s comments.
https://omny.fm/shows/mock-rob/recapping-last-nights-carmel-school-board-meeting
