New FAIR toolkit helps parents prepare for BLM at School Action Week

Next week (Feb 5th-9th) is the annual "Black Lives Matter at School Action Week." FAIR in Education has teamed up with FAIR Legal Advocacy to produce this NEW toolkit: BLM @ School Action Week.

FAIR supports true equality, inclusion, and diversity without division. We believe that the curriculum curated for "BLM @ School 'Action Week'" is divisive, discriminatory, and can lead to racially-hostile learning environments.

The Action Week Curriculum includes several elements that are based on ideological viewpoints with which reasonable minds can and do disagree, and many of which are objectively discriminatory. For example, many of the instructional materials include lessons that ascribe traits and characteristics to individuals solely on the basis of their skin color.

Discriminatory teaching materials may cause some students to feel that they are seen as embodying negative traits (e.g., “bad, ugly, and inferior”) and others to feel accused of perpetrating these hateful and demeaning stereotypes. This may make students feel unwanted in their classrooms. In some cases, the discriminatory content may be so offensive that students become limited in their participation in school activities because they instinctively withdraw from participating or choose to skip class altogether. This is the definition of a racially-hostile environment.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

If your student or a student you know has experienced a racially hostile environment at school, a complaint can be filed with the United States DOE’s Office of Civil Rights. Our Toolkit provides a framework for a complaint and a sample letter that you can send to your school administrator to share the risks associated with discriminatory teaching materials.

It is important to oppose race-essentialist and discriminatory practices and lessons in the classroom. However, it is just as important to expose students to healthier ways of thinking about race and ethnicity. That is why our Toolkit also provides suggested talking points and resources to teach your child about a unifying approach to fighting racism and highlighting our shared human identity.

Examples: “You can learn from anyone. Your teacher does not have to look like you.” + “Separate is not equal. We fought hard to end segregation in this country, and your school should not separate kids by skin color.” + “Some schools are teaching kids the dangerous idea that to fight racism, we should divide and stereotype people by skin color. We believe in Martin Luther King’s vision of how to fight racism and discrimination—equal rights for all, not judging people based on skin color, and forgiveness rather than revenge. Let’s read some of his words.”

We hope that you will find this Toolkit to be a useful and insightful resource in standing up to divisive, discriminatory ideology, teaching practices, and behavior at your child's school!