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Public Records Requests Related to School "Diversity/Equity/Inclusion" Programs
An interesting new Pennsylvania administrative decision on the subject.
Too detailed for me to go into detail here, but check it out if you're interested in the subject: Scheinler v. S. Lehigh Sch. Dist., decided last week by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. The request covered matters such as:
All Records discussing whether it is reasonable, necessary, appropriate, advisable, or acceptable to label an SLSD student as "oppressed" or as an " "oppressor" based on the color of their skin or their race.
All Records relating to how SLSD defines, may define, uses, or interprets the terms "diversity," "equity," and "inclusion" (in their various forms) ….
All Records relating to the operation, findings, requests to, and recommendations of the "Equity" sub-committee ….
All Records confirming, disconfirming, acknowledging, or otherwise discussing whether there is systemic racism within SLSD in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
All Records relating to potential or planned changes to SLSD curriculum based on, relating to, or reflecting any aspect of CRT/DEI, including, without limitation, preliminary drafts or discussions of any such changes, by whom they were created, and why….
Keep in mind, of course, that public records laws differ from state to state, and that the federal FOIA generally applies just to federal agencies.
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The student body at the schools served by Southern Lehigh School District is 84.6% White, 1.6% Black, 6.5% Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander, 6.4% Hispanic/Latino, 0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.1% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
Whats the purpose of CRT in the district ?
To put those 84.6% in their proper place.
Y’all do realize any use of CRT is right now purely speculative, right? In fact, it’s being conflated with diversity and inclusion, which is in no way the same thing.
Sarcastr0
February.27.2022 at 8:50 am
Flag Comment Mute User
“Y’all do realize any use of CRT is right now purely speculative, right? In fact, it’s being conflated with diversity and inclusion, which is in no way the same thing.”
You are torturing the english language
Calling CRT diversity and inclusion doesnt make it diversity and inclusion. There is vastly more CRT going on in education than you and the rest of the racists / progressives are willing to admit.
1) Yeah, CRT is not the same thing as diversity or inclusion. But this request thinks they are the same: All Records relating to potential or planned changes to SLSD curriculum based on, relating to, or reflecting any aspect of CRT/DEI, including, without limitation, preliminary drafts or discussions of any such changes, by whom they were created, and why….
2) No one ever has any evidence for their claims, just exactly what you just did.
In the Southern Lehigh School District (SLSD), it was quite clear that the DEI project was based on and driven by CRT. In the proposal from the DEI consultant, all of the citations supporting the proposal were to the seminal writings in CRT literature by key CRT authors. There is a right way to do “diversity” and “tolerance” training, and a wrong way. SLSD’s was/is the wrong way. FAIR (the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism) is very much on the right track in this area, in my opinion.
Ah, when one’s only principle is ‘owning the libs!’
Maybe I’m missing something, but wasn’t it Princeton that showed itself to be lacking in principles?
It may not succeed, but in my opinion, the records request was well done. Even if it is refused, publicity about the questions asked may well cause the public to think about the issues.
Lathering the rubes.
The UCLA law prof,
lathering his rubes.
When requests reflect
clingers’ pique, respect is due;
bigots have rights, too.
The decision says:
1. Email from an alumnus is not privileged under FERPA.
2. The school has to search deleted email and non-email records, not only the inboxes of administators.
3. This request is too vague: “All Records relating to the use by SLSD employees or agents (including, without limitation, members of the SLSD School Board) of electronic systems not authorized by SLSD (e.g., outside e-mail services or messaging platforms) to communicate regarding SLSD matters, as well as any guidance or corrective action SLSD has taken with respect to the same.”
4. An agency can not redact part of a record simply because it does not fall within the scope of the request. So (my example) if a sentence of an email said “We’re going to indoctrinate those kids with some CRT and then we’re going to put saltpeter in the school lunches” the whole sentence must be provided if either half is requested. On the other hand, given “We’re going to indoctrinate those kids with some CRT and Billy G. flunked his makeup exam again” the second half would be properly redacted to comply with student privacy rules.
This is an administrative decision only. In Massachusetts administrative orders to release records only influence agencies that are being lazy. The ones who want to keep records secret ignore the orders.
#4 sure sounds like common sense. Are you sure you got it right?
Seems like the school should just talk about diveristy, eqiuty, and incusion in their covered records then they’ll also be able to claim the search returned 0 hits.
To me that they failed to include e-mail sent from/to the requester that would have come up as responsive seems like a giant red flag. Can’t imagine anything was more related to what he’s asking about than e-mails they exchanged about it. They just happened to delete those emails? Not buying it. They’ll no doubt find it now… how could one verify it was deleted when they say it was?
I can’t help but assume that the penalties for deliberately excluding responsive requests without them being legally exempt are virtually non-existent, if everyone is assuming good faith despite red flags.
Remember, conservatives have been the traditional enemy of FOIA laws.
Conservatives have goals, not principles.
https://rollcall.com/2004/10/20/cornyn-takes-up-foia-fight/
Funny how DIE appeared everywhere at once. Every corporate HR dept started to push this, govt agencies, academia, K-12..these things don’t just occur spontaneously. I wonder who supported this?
The district should have rushed to settle this case as soon as the lawyers saw the emails and messages between the school board saying ‘we got to do something about all the Asians getting in that school’.
I meant this comment in Ilya’s post about TJ highschool in Virginia.
Open Records requests are different from discovery. In my demand of the Lower Merion School District for the content of its Equity Curriculum, I was totally stonewalled. I could not even get the amount of money the district spent on an expensive law firm to stonewall me. No amount of specificity was enough to find a record. I wanted to know if kindergarten girls were being made to stand up, to confess to their white privilege, and that they were the cause of the disparities in underperforming diverses.
I reported the school to the child welfare authorities. The diverse investigator demanded I do her job, of course. She wanted the name of the student and the dates this abuse took place. I did not have them.
It is on to federal court now. I am including all the officials who suborned the cover up, including the child protective services, the magistrate who supported the cover up of the school records and sided with the school in his hearing.
All woke is child emotional abuse.
There is a lot more to this story. The original records request was triggered by a failure of the superintendent at the time to answer even basic questions about the district’s “DEI” activities. For example, she refused to even define what “equity” means when used in district documents. The documents produced thus far have shown all sorts of wrongdoing relating to the hiring of a diversity consultant (conflicts of interest, FERPA violations, etc.) and related matters. When these particular records were brought to the school board’s attention, it triggered an investigation by an outside law firm, the results of which are due shortly. Ugly stuff, and more to come.