These Southlake protesters want the Carroll ISD to formally address racism, bullying
Several dozen parents protested outside a Carroll school board meeting in Southlake Wednesday, calling for the district to implement a diversity policy that addresses what they say is decades of racism and bullying on campuses.
Many of the protesters carried signs featuring quotations from some of the roughly 500 Carroll students who have submitted testimonials of their experiences while at the schools.
One sign read “A boy called me his favorite slave,” and another said “I was told all gays should be put on a secluded island so they can starve and die off.”
The parents stood silently outside the school board meeting room.
Many protesters said they intended to address the board, which on Wednesday night was expected to swear in two new board members who were supported by other area residents who opposed the diversity plan.
New board members Hannah Smith and Cameron Bryan were overwhelmingly supported by organizations such as Texas Values and Southlake Families. Those board members and other opponents of the diversity plan — also referred to as a Cultural Competence Action Plan — said it pushed a leftist ideology, and incorrectly characterized the Carroll district as a fundamentally racist community.
Southlake Families’ website says about the diversity plan: “The disagreement over CCAP is not whether bullying or racism should be addressed and dealt with appropriately, but whether CCAP, an overreaching and highly political plan seeking to indoctrinate children according to extremely liberal beliefs, is the answer.”
Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, told the Star-Telegram in an email that the diversity plan would support sexual orientation and gender identity ideologies that are controversial within the community, “thereby taking sides against some students and turning the hallways into an LGBT political warzone.”
But Ann Christopher, who moved to Southlake in 1990 and only recently moved to Grapevine, said her daughter was bullied frequently because of her skin color while attending Carroll schools in the 1990s. She said a third-grade boy used an ethnic slur toward her daughter — who is now grown and living north of Dallas — and, although the boy was suspended for several days because of the incident, when he returned to class he continued to harass the girl without further punishment.
“This district still fosters the same attitudes it did when I got here in 1990, and they are even less interested in addressing these issues today than they were back then,” she said.
One of the protest organizers, Andrea Curreri, said the participants purposefully kept quiet as they gathered outside the board room, to ensure that the attention was focused on the signs carrying testimonials from former students who were victims of bullying and racist behavior.
The event was loosely organized by several local organizations, including the student-led Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition, Love Every Dragon and Cultural and Racial Equity for Every Dragon (CREED).
“We have 500 testimonials collected,” Curreri said, “and we’re still counting.”
