An elementary school district, with schools in Evanston and Skokie, says a white middle school teacher shouldn’t be allowed to press her claims in court that the district’s “anti-racism” curriculum amounts to discrimination, because the teacher can’t prove the school district ever discriminated against her.
On Aug. 30, attorneys for Evanston/Skokie Community Consolidated School District 65 filed a motion in Chicago federal court, asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit filed by plaintiff Stacy Deemar.
Deemar’s “complaint is long on politically charged rhetoric regarding the supposed divisiveness of ‘anti-racism,’ ‘social justice,’ ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and ‘critical race theory,’ but falls woefully short of establishing that she has personally suffered an injury that entitles her to relief in federal court, or that would otherwise justify this court’s intervention in curriculum decisions best left to the discretion of educators,” District 65 wrote in a memorandum in support of its motion to dismiss.
Deemar, a middle school drama teacher at District 65, filed suit against the district in June. According to court documents, Deemar has worked at the district since 2002, and is now considered a part time faculty member.
The lawsuit also names as defendants District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton, Deputy Superintendent Latarsha Green, and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Stacy Bearsley.
District 65 operates 18 schools, with more than 8,000 students from preschool to eighth grade.
The complaint asserts the curriculum and training programs violate the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights laws, by actively dividing students and staff by race, and discriminating against white school staff members and students.
The complaint asserts the curriculum and training programs create an environment in which “whiteness” is treated as negative and wrong, while “non-white racial identity” carries “positive traits.”
The complaint further points to lessons that District 65 distributes to students from preschool to eighth grade that asserts, among other claims: “White people have a very, very serious problem and they should start thinking about what they should do about it.”
And the curriculum asserts that “To ‘treat everybody equally’ is a colorblind message, and ‘color blindness helps racism,’” while challenging white students to ponder how they can be white without being a part of “whiteness.”
Further, Deemar’s complaint claims District 65 segregates students and staff into skin color-based “affinity groups” to “teach them that their whole identity comes from the color of their skin.”
“They teach them not only how to be racist, but that they should be racist,” Deemar said in her complaint.
Her lawsuit doesn’t seek money damages, but rather only court orders barring District 65 from further implementing its new race-based curriculum and training programs.
District 65 responded by asking the judge to throw out Deemar’s lawsuit, asserting she had no legal right to sue.
According to District 65’s filings, the curriculum was the result of a long process which “engaged District stakeholders at all stages” to create a new system designed to close “significant gaps in income, access to resources, and educational resources between Black students and students of other races.”
In its reply, District 65 asserts the implementation of the programs and curriculum did not create a hostile work environment for Deemar, nor had Deemar “personally suffered an injury” from the district’s new system.
The district accused Deemar of misinterpreting its emphasis on race. The district conceded its new Policy and Report “does indeed state that the District ‘is committed to focusing on race as one of the first visible indicators of identity.”
But the district said it also explicitly recognizes “that the district’s students hold multiple, intersecting identities such as mental or physical ability, sexual orientation including gender identity and/or expression, religion, economic status, national origin and any other personal characteristics.”
Further, District 65 asserted Deemar did not participate in race-based discussion seminars or affinity groups, nor did she regularly attend “staff meetings … when discussions of equity and race took place,” because she was a part-time teacher.
Further, the district claimed Deemar was not personally compelled to teach assigned lessons for “Black Lives Matter Week” at her school, nor did she read from books she found objectionable, which she claimed she was forced to read to students, the district said.
The district asserts Deemar’s claims fall short of meeting a federal court standard needed to bring this kind of lawsuit.
“She merely alleges that contents of the District’s training and curriculum ‘concerned’ her and that the District’s equity based activities treated her ‘differently’ from her colleagues based on race,” District 65 said.
“… This lawsuit is a blatant attempt to use the federal courts for the improper purpose of challenging curriculum that Deemar, and others, disagree with for political and/or philosophical reasons,” the district wrote.
District 65 is represented in the action by attorneys Nicki B. Bazer, Michael A. Warner and R. Jason Patterson, of the firm Franczek P.C., of Chicago.
Deemar is represented by attorneys Kimberly S. Hermann, B. H. Boucek, and Celia H. O’Leary, of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, of Roswell, Ga.; and by attorneys Whitman H. Brisky and Terry S. Lu, of the firm of Mauck & Baker, of Chicago.