Two Texas school board members were indicted on charges that they violated the Open Meetings Act as they discussed a racial agenda that was widely opposed by their constituents.
Carroll Independent School District (CISD) president Michelle Moore and vice president Todd Carlton were indicted by a grand jury for texts involving the school district’s “Cultural Competence Action Plan,” The Texan reported.
The board is required to meet in public, but the texts allegedly involved enough school board members that it may have amounted to a secret, unofficial meeting under the law.
In December, a judge separately instituted a restraining order prohibiting the school officials from moving forward with work related to a District Diversity Council, which in August issued a 34-page plan that included a proposal for racial training in schools that would cost $425,000 the first year, including $35,000 for speakers.
The cultural competence plan called for hiring “a Director of Equity and Inclusion” and “embed[ding] diversity and inclusion training for students as an ‘enrollment to graduation’ process in all grades.”
Carroll ISD is a high-performing and mostly white school system outside of Dallas where less than two percent of students are low-income.
The hiring of a Director of Equity would almost guarantee the adoption of more of the divisive racial beliefs that have quickly been pushed in K-12 schools by that industry, which is generally fueled by an ideology known as Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT posits that racism is present in every situation and that every subject in school should focus on it.
For example, in October, the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, school board adopted a CRT-infused “Equity Resolution” that said that “We honor that, because of the permanence of racism, a district free from oppression is not attainable.” A few months after its young people were told that they were hopelessly oppressed, Brooklyn Center became the site of riots.
The ideology is often pushed by activists regardless of the wishes of parents; in Loudoun County, Virginia, parents who opposed CRT were put on an enemies list that pledged to hack their communications and “expose these people publicly.” A counterpart of Carroll’s diversity committee in Loudoun, the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Council, said “we can and will silence the opposition.”
School bureaucrats have increasingly ignored the wishes of residents in order to push ideology that is out of the mainstream. One district in Florida even hired a contractor which held racial training sessions for parents.
But in Carroll, parents fought back before the ideology could gain a footing.
The Dallas News reported that the plans led to protests, with parents accusing elected board members of using the schools and children to promote a “left-wing agenda” with “diversity police.” A parent filed a civil suit with charges similar to those taken up by the local district attorney.
In Texas, violating the Open Meetings Act is a misdemeanor that comes with a fine of up to $500 and/or up to six months in jail.
Because educators often take jobs around the country and attend the same training programs, fringe racial rhetoric has become common in all regions. But Texas is developing a reputation for doing something about it.
When the school district of Clear Creek, Texas, hired Loudoun County’s outgoing superintendent, Virginia parents warned their Texas counterparts of what was likely to follow.
The Clear Creek school board swiftly voted to ban “divisive” racial concepts, including the use of critical race theory, in schools.
Related: How The PTA Sold Out Parents For Politics During Schools’ Biggest Crisis