Segregation continues to make a comeback in the U.S., under the guise of “affinity groups,” where white people are separated from people of color in order to be told how privileged they are, while people of color are allowed to discuss how white people are racist.
The latest example occurred at Madison West High School in Madison, Wisconsin, where families of students were invited to discuss “all the police brutality and violence that is going on,” according to a copy of the email reviewed The Federalist. The email also said that it is “very necessary to have space for our families to discuss and process.”
The email provided two separate links for Zoom meetings: One for parents “of color” and the other for white parents, the Federalist reported.
In response to the email, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) sent a letter to Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Carlton Jenkins about the harms of segregation.
“Racial segregation is never beneficial or benign. It is our hope that the leadership at MMSD take this opportunity to commit the school district to the principle of equality and end all racial segregation immediately,” Dan Lennington, WILL deputy counsel, told the Federalist.
Following the letter, West High School Principal Karen Boran issued an apology of sorts, telling the Wisconsin State Journal the email “did not convey our intention in a manner that supports our core values” and adding that the “wording in the communication we sent lacked clarity.”
The outlet reported that Boran said the school’s intention was to provide Madison West parents the ability to join “affinity spaces” to discuss police brutality against non-white people. Boran told the outlet that the spaces were offered so that people with similar identities and backgrounds could openly discuss the topic.
“Affinity groups” or “spaces,” as Boran called them, are the latest fad in so-called anti-racism trainings, segregating white people from people of color and providing different discussion topics based on race.
As the Federalist reported, this is the second time Madison West has had to answer for segregating people by the color of their skin. Last summer, the school hosted “virtual discussion spaces” for students and staff separated by skin color. The goal of these virtual discussions was to “process the pain our community is feeling at this present moment” and “work towards being an anti-racist community.”
Again, the school provided separate links for Zoom meetings according to skin color. An email from the school obtained by WILL told students and staff to “join the Zoom space where you most closely identify,” which the law firm said alienated students who did not fit into such racial categories. At the time, WILL sent Boran a letter informing her that such segregation is illegal under federal law, but Boran didn’t apologize for that incident.
As The Daily Wire has reported previously, affinity groups are the latest version of segregation. At Michigan State University, a teaching conference scrubbed an explanation of affinity groups from its website. The website previously said:
Affinity (or caucus) groups provide spaces for people to work within their own identity groups. To advance racial equity, there is work for white people and people of color to do separately and together. For white people, an affinity group provides time and space to work explicitly and intentionally on understanding white culture and white privilege and to increase one’s critical analysis around these concepts. For people of color, a caucus is a place to work with peers to address the impact of racism, to interrupt experiences of internalized racism, and to create a space for healing and working for individual and collective liberation.
There will be an affinity group for white folx [sic] and an affinity group for people of color. The focus of the affinity groups will align with the theme of our featured keynote speakers listed below. Each group will be led by trained facilitators to engage in dialogue utilizing a set of prompts.