District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton, deputy superintendent LaTarsha Green and assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Stacy Beardsley are defendants in an Illinois lawsuit challenging critical race theory. | File Photo
District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton, deputy superintendent LaTarsha Green and assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Stacy Beardsley are defendants in an Illinois lawsuit challenging critical race theory. | File Photo
Christopher Rufo isn’t alone in feeling the need to take a stand opposing critical race theory (CRT).
District 65 grade school teacher Stacy Deemer recently filed suit in federal court against the Evanston/Skokie Community Consolidated district alleging discrimination over its critical race theory teachings.
"What I'm concerned about, and what millions of parents are really concerned about, is things that are happening in hundreds of public schools in Illinois and Chicago, where they’re teaching children as young as kindergarten that whiteness is the devil and attempts to lure people into it with the promise of stolen land and stolen riches,” Rufo said during a recent appearance on MSNBC.
Christopher Rufo
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Deemar, who has been employed by the district for nearly two decades, charges the district’s commitment to “anti-racism” in its curriculum, policies and programs actively teaches students to be racist.
In also naming District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton, deputy superintendent LaTarsha Green and assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Stacy Beardsley as defendants, attorneys for Deemar further argue the new curriculum stands in clear and blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution and the federal civil rights laws of white school staff members and students.
“Throughout its curriculum and programming, District 65 promotes and reinforces a view of race essentialism that divides Americans into oppressor and oppressed based solely on their skin color,” Deemar’s complaint charges. “District 65 sets up a dichotomy between white and non-white races that depicts whiteness as inherently racist and a tool of oppression.”
The complaint also calls attention to lessons that District 65 distributes to students from preschool to eighth grade including the assertion: “White people have a very, very serious problem and they should start thinking about what they should do about it.”
The Evanston/Skokie District operates 18 schools serving more than 7,000 students from preschool to eighth grade.
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