Ohio School Cancels Entirely Voluntary 'Diversity Day' Because New School Board Ran Against 'CRT'

Good lord this is pathetic.

Students at a suburban Cincinnati high school were disappointed this week when they learned the day before their annual Racial Diversity Awareness Day that the event would have to be postponed in order to allow more "parental review" of the speakers and topics. This did not come at the request of any actual parents, many of whom were disappointed to find out that the event had been postponed.

For six years, students at Turpin High School in Anderson Township, Ohio, have been organizing the event to celebrate diversity at the school. It is entirely voluntary, and students who participate in the activities and talks all have to get permission slips signed by their parents, even if they are 18 years old. It is hard to imagine any normal person having a problem with this (outside of the ridiculous requirement that parents sign permission slips for something kids aren't even leaving campus for). No one has ever had a problem with it before. But now? Now the school board has four new members, all of whom ran on an "anti-critical race theory" platform, and things are apparently changing .

The school board sent out the following missive on Thursday afternoon, citing a supposed district "practice" of providing parents with information about guest speakers:

We regret that the event has been postponed. The district’s practice for guest speakers requires staff to provide families with information about the speaker and topics being covered in advance of the event. Unfortunately, that did not happen in this case. We are working to reschedule the event.

Again, attendance at this event was entirely voluntary. One would imagine that any parents who would have a problem with their kid attending Diversity Day events would just not sign the permission slip. But this does not really seem to be about parents at all.

According to school board member Leslie Rasmussen, who opposed postponing the event, the school board had received 15 emails, in total, complaining about the event.

Via Cincinnati Enquirer :

Rasmussen said most emails stated diversity day is essentially critical race theory . She said she does not think the event involves CRT. She said she explained to one person that the event was opt-in, no one had to go and a permission slip was required.

She also said that none of the emails were from parents saying felt they were deceived, and she was not even sure any were sent from people with children at Turpin High School.

Rasmussen said that she did get about 40 emails from actual students who were disappointed that the event was canceled — but clearly their wishes are not as important to certain members of the school board as the wishes of random racists from the internet.

Senior Claire Mengel, one of the Diversity Day organizers, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that she believes that this only happened because of the new school board members:

"There is no precedent for this policy in the district," Claire said. "It is clear that the difference in the board's behavior towards diversity day is because some members of the board do not support our efforts to make Turpin a more welcoming and inclusive environment."

Claire said the late notice for postponing the event was unacceptable, and diversity day was set for Thursday because it was a late-arrival day and would be less disruptive for teachers. Guest speakers will also have to be asked to reschedule.

"This 'postponing' has created many logistical problems that I am worried the school board will use to say that there is no way to reschedule the event this year," Claire said.

Linda Hausfeld, one of the new members, said in a statement that this was all just about making sure that parents were "included" and "understand what is being discussed with their child during events." Hausfeld also has a history of not being able to "understand" things, which she may be projecting on other, more capable, parents.

As she said at an anti-Critical Race Theory protest outside the school last year:

"They're our kids too and we should have a say," said Linda Hausfeld, an organizer of the event, regarding the curriculum.

Hausfeld said she wants board members to think twice about critical race theory.

"Step up for the children and the parents of this community and put a halt to CRT right now until you can talk to us about it so we can better understand what this is all about," she said.

To be clear, critical race theory is not being taught in this or any other high school. It is a conceptual framework that is part of the curriculum in some law school courses and other college level courses. It's not that hard and if Linda Hausfeld really wanted to "understand" it, she could have looked it up.

Given Hausfeld's critical race theory obsession, it's just incredible that her big debut of this new "practice" (that definitely exists across the board and not just for events dealing with racism) just so happened to coincide with Diversity Day.

This is what happens when these people take over school boards. Students can't even hold a nice event celebrating diversity now because a bunch of white adults are terrified that it will somehow involved critical race theory, despite the fact that they have absolutely no idea what critical race theory even is. Of course it doesn't matter; to them, "talking about racism existing" is "critical race theory." That's what they want to ban probably while simultaneously complaining about threats to free speech.

[ Cincinnati Enquirer ]

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