A Seattle-area School Board is defending its decision to offer racially segregated meetings to help select a new superintendent. The defense is racist.
A Seattle-area school board is defending its decision to offer racially segregated meetings to help select a new superintendent. The board president claims non-white parents feel more comfortable “surrounded by other people similar to them.” The defense is condescending and racist.
The Issaquah School Board is holding several meetings with parents as they pick a superintendent to replace the retiring Ron Thiele. One of the meetings, however, was meant for white parents to self-select out of attendance. It was labeled “Meeting for Parents/Guardians of Color and Parents/Guardians with Students of Color.”
As parents showed up to testify at last Thursday’s school board meeting, board president Anne Moore defended the decision to hold a separate — but presumably equal — meeting.
Moore claimed that some “historically marginalized families” in Issaquah feel “uncomfortable” in meetings. To mitigate their supposed discomfort, she said a meeting “surrounded by other people similar to them, makes it easier.” Yet she also claims it isn’t an example of racial segregation, a claim that conflicts with the very reason she gives for holding a meeting for “parents of color.”
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Despite the criticism, the board wasn’t retreating. In fact, board president Moore defended and justified the racially segregated meeting.
First, she apologized to anyone who thought a meeting labeled, “Meeting for Parents/Guardians of Color,” was “an indication of segregation.” It was merely the board’s attempt to keep “historically marginalized families” from feeling uncomfortable around white people.
“It was really an intent from the board to be able to hear from our historically marginalized families,” Moore declared. “We wanted to be able to have an environment where they could share freely and honestly and feel vulnerable. And so we’ve heard from those families before, and we understand that sometimes the environment isn’t comfortable. So having them surrounded by other people similar to them, makes it easier.”
Moore did not indicate why “marginalized families,” in a city where the median home price is $1,187,495, would feel uncomfortable around white people. The school district itself is near evenly split with white students (49.6%) and non-white students (50.4%).
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The board did, indeed, change the language of the meeting. It made it worse.
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I’m not sure what’s more disturbing here: that the school board unapologetically justifies racial segregation, or that kids will see this and think it’s right. And if this is happening at a public school board meeting, what do you think is happening in a private classroom setting?
