A parental rights group on Wednesday filed a civil rights complaint against a South Carolina school district over teacher groups that “appear to exclude individuals based on their race.”
Parents Defending Education filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights for the Department of Education over multiple racially-focused “affinity groups” hosted by the Charleston County School District. The complaint, first shared with The Daily Wire, says that the groups violate federal civil rights laws by limiting participation by race.
The groups in question are the “Hispanic Latino Affinity Group” and the “Black Educator Affinity Group.”
“Charleston County School District has affinity group programming that is not open to all. The District allows only some teachers to participate in affinity group programming and participation is based on their race,” the complaint reads. “Descriptions of individual affinity groups in the District appear to exclude individuals based on their race.”
According to the district’s website, the Black Educator Affinity Group is “a space for black educators to connect to one another, support one another, and celebrate one another in a safe space.”
The mission of the Hispanic Latino Affinity Group is to promote “professional development and career advancement opportunities” for Hispanic and Latino employees in the district and to “create a Hispanic-Latino Affinity committee to support recruitment, retention, and innovation among CCSD Hispanic-Latino employees.”
“Both affinity groups encourage hiring employees based on race and offer professional development opportunities exclusively for black and Hispanic-Latino employees,” the complaint says. “Furthermore, while other Districts ensures affinity group bodies are accessible to all teachers, Charleston County School District evades responsibility for the practices of its affinity groups, stating that ‘each affinity group establishes its own mission and goal.’”
The complaint argues that the affinity groups could run afoul of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits federal funding from going toward entities practicing racial discrimination, and the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Parents Defending Education President Nicole Neily told The Daily Wire that it would continue to challenge districts like Charleston that promote racially-focused programs and opportunities.
“It’s grotesque that districts continue to separate teachers, students, and community members on the basis of skin color, and PDE will continue to file complaints about these types of racially segregated programs until such practices end,” she said. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire — and sadly, when a school spends finite time and resources organizing events like this, we often see other discriminatory practices on the books as well.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January directing all federal funding to be cut off for school districts that promote racial and gender ideology in an effort to go after the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at schools across the country.
