The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today opened an investigation into the Evanston-Skokie School District 65 (the District) for allegedly violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This investigation is based on a complaint filed with OCR by the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) on behalf of a teacher, Dr. Stacy Deemar, in the District. According to the complaint, Evanston-Skokie School District 65 engages in racial segregation and stereotyping through such policies and practices as “privilege walks” and District-sponsored segregated affinity groups.
“The policies and practices to which the District allegedly subjects students and teachers shocks the conscience. Amid a dismal academic achievement record, the District appears to focus on unlawfully segregating students by race, instructing students to step forward and others to step back on the basis of race, and associating ‘whiteness’ with the devil. If true, how is this conceivable in America today?” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “After four long years of the Biden Administration’s tolerance for this kind of conduct, the American people returned President Trump to office to end this madness and enforce Title VI. This Department of Education will not allow districts that receive federal funding to become safe spaces for racial segregation or any other unlawful discriminatory practices.”
“SLF is thankful that the Trump Administration recognizes that enough is enough and, following Dr. Deemar’s new OCR complaint, has launched an investigation into unconscionable racial discrimination in District 65 - Evanston, IL,” said Southeastern Legal Foundation Executive Director Kimberly Hermann. “Ever since the wrongful withdrawal four years ago of the Department of Education’s finding that District 65’s racial segregation, equity training, discipline policy, and other racially discriminatory policies violated America’s civil rights laws, Dr. Deemar has waited patiently for the harms inflicted by the Biden Administration to be rectified. For the sake of our children and our country, the time to restore equality and reclaim civil liberties is now.”
Background:
The District’s policies and practices included in the SLF complaint which allegedly constitute racial discrimination and stereotyping include:
- Directing staff and students to participate in racially segregated “privilege walks”;
- Sponsoring “affinity groups” for both students and staff that are formally restricted on the basis of race, including one for staff divided between “individuals of color” and those who identify as “White”;
- Training seminars to increase “racial literacy,” including one that employed racial stereotypes including concepts such as “white talk” and “color commentary” to describe how those of different races communicate. “White talk” is characterized as “loud, authoritative...[and] controlling,” while “color commentary” is described as “silent respect... and disconnect”;
- Pressuring educators to “acknowledge white skin privilege” and “fully examine the cultural implications of Whiteness in schools”;
- Instructing students as young as four years old to be “activist[s] and...actively anti-racist” and “understand that our country has a racist history and is grounded in white privilege”;
- Instructing all teachers from Pre-K through fifth grade to read aloud and probe students about a book which compares “whiteness” to signing a deal with the devil. An image from the book depicts a white man with a devil’s tail holding a “whiteness” contract, which says that “WHITENESS” gets “to mess endlessly with the lives of... humans of COLOR for the purpose of profit”; and
- Employing lesson plans for third through fifth grade students urging readers to “disrupt the Western nuclear family dynamics.”
SLF is representing Dr. Stacy Deemar, a drama teacher in the District, in her second complaint filed with OCR. In 2019, Dr. Deemar filed a Title VI complaint against the District with OCR, and OCR, toward the end of President Trump’s first term, determined that the District violated Title VI. The Biden Administration, however, dismissed Dr. Deemar’s complaint in 2024. SLF alleges that the District continued its discriminatory policies and practices after that complaint’s dismissal.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (1964) prohibits discrimination on the bases of race, color, and national origin in education programs and activities receiving federal funding. Institutions’ violation of Title VI can result in loss of federal funds.