A white middle school teacher says she is asking a federal court to end a pervasive hostile learning and working environment for white students and teachers at Evanston/Skokie School District 65, not to ban books or shut down classroom discussion surrounding race.
“District 65 did not just assign materials to read and reflect upon; it implemented race-based policies and procedures designed to stereotype and stigmatize, and it relied on reading and training materials to reinforce those policies,” the teacher’s attorneys wrote in a brief recently filed in Chicago federal court.
“By assigning characteristics to racial groups, District 65 is not simply offering students access to ideas about race; it is establishing an orthodoxy that stigmatizes racial groups.”
In coming weeks, a federal judge in Chicago will decide if District 65 teacher Stacy Deemar will be allowed to continue with her discrimination action against the school district in Chicago’s near north suburbs.
Deemar filed suit in June 2021. The lawsuit claimed District 65’s implementation of new teacher training programs and new curriculum in recent years, to promote “anti-racism” in classrooms has created a hostile environment for white students and educators and encourages racism and discrimination among students and staff against white people.
District 65 operates 18 schools, with more than 8,000 students from preschool to eighth grade.
According to court documents, Deemar has worked at the district since 2002, and is considered a part time faculty member.
The lawsuit names as defendants various District 65 administrators, identified as Superintendent Devon Horton, Deputy Superintendent Latarsha Green, and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Stacy Beardsley.
Deemar has asserted District 65’s anti-racism programs and curriculum remind her and others at the school that they are white, “on a daily basis,” while at the same time assigning “exclusively negative characteristics to whiteness, such as racism, oppression, and evil.”
She claims District 65’s programs violate her rights to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, while also illegally discriminating against her on the basis of race.
The school district, however, has attempted to flip the script in the case.
Nearly a year ago, District 65 filed a motion to dismiss the suit. In that motion, District 65 conversely claims Deemar’s lawsuit will shut down discussions about race in the districts’ classrooms and faculty meetings, and would actually violate the free speech rights of the school district and its teachers, under the First Amendment, to set curriculum and lead those race discussions.
The district asserted Deemar’s lawsuits “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.”
Noting the unusual nature of the case, the federal judge who had been presiding over the case ordered attorneys for both sides to present arguments to help guide judgment on the district’s dismissal request.
Specifically, U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. asked both sides to weigh in on the question of how much weight to assign to particular cases cited by the school district.
In one of those cases, known as Monteiro v Tempe Union High School District, the San Francisco-based U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1998 in favor of a school district in a case brought by a group of Black families who objected to teachers using certain books which contained racial slurs and other profanity.
In that decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled, in part, that allowing such lawsuits to continue would lead to a “significant chilling effect on a school district’s willingness to assign books with themes, characters, snippets of dialogue, or words that might offend the sensibilities of any number of persons or groups.”
Judge Dow also directed both sides to discuss the significance of a 1992 decision from the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in the case known as Sherman v Community Consolidated School District 21.
In that decision, the appellate court broadly ruled, while schools can’t force students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, those students can’t stop teachers from leading the Pledge, nor stop others from reciting the Pledge in their presence.
Further, the Seventh Circuit stated government “retains the right to set curriculum in its own schools and insist that those who cannot accept the result exercise their right … (to) select private education at their own expense.”
Neither of the decisions appeared to directly address how a school district’s policies, programs and curriculum choices might create a hostile environment for district employees, like Deemar, who assert their equal protection rights have been violated.
Judge Dow has since accepted a new assignment as counselor to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Deemar’s lawsuit has been reassigned to U.S. District Judge John Tharp Jr.
In a response to Judge Dow’s questions filed Oct. 19, Deemar’s attorneys asserted Deemar’s case does not fit under the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in Monteiro or the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning in Sherman.
They asserted Deemar’s lawsuit should be treated as a “case of first impression,” or a unique legal question not yet tackled directly in federal court.
“Ms. Deemar is not asking this Court to remove books from District 65’s bookshelves,” Deemar’s lawyers wrote in their response. “She does not oppose access to ideas about race and racism.
“Instead, she opposes the ‘pall of orthodoxy.’
“District 65 casts through its consistent reinforcement that white and non-white individuals should be categorized and treated differently based on race. … District 65 does not merely grant students access to those concepts; it makes them standard operating procedure.”
In her new brief, Deemar points to the pervasive nature of race-conscious and allegedly anti-white instruction, policies and procedures at District 65 schools.
She said the district has established a policy to “abandon equality” among people of different races, instead pursuing the goal of racial “equity,” in which people of non-white races are favored over white people to address past race-driven disadvantages, particularly for people who are Black.
She noted the district demands teachers “engage students in discussions about ‘whiteness’ and ‘white culture,’ inform students that ‘treating everybody equally’ is a form of colorblindness that counts as racism, tell students that white people use colorblindness to ignore racism, and reinforce that our country’s systems and government are controlled by white people, resulting in racism.”
“… The District has taught not just one offensive lesson but dozens,” Deemar wrote. “And unlike in Monteiro, it does not just invite students and teachers to read materials but insists on discussing skin color each time. And each time, the District associates whiteness with negative stereotypes.”
Deemar conceded school districts have some latitude in creating curriculum. But Deemar argues those abilities are still limited by the Constitution and federal civil rights law.
“When a school board infringes on constitutional and civil rights, as District 65 did here, courts not only have the authority but the duty to intervene,” Deemar’s lawyers wrote.
She urged the judge to deny District 65’s motion to dismiss.
District 65 has not yet replied to Judge Dow’s questions, nor to Deemar’s brief.
Deemar is represented in the case by attorneys Braden H. Boucek, Kimberly S. Hermann and Celia H. O’Leary, of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, of Roswell, Georgia; and Whitman H. Brisky, of Mauck & Baker, of Chicago.
District 65 and its officials are represented by attorneys Nicki B. Bazer, Michael A. Warner and R. Jason Patterson, of the firm Franczek P.C., of Chicago.