Schools across the country use affinity groups to provide a safe space for students from marginalized communities. But that’s exactly why conservatives often make them a target of their criticism – like a group of parents who are in their feelings about an after-school enrichment program geared towards empowering Black girls that they say is doing more harm than good.
Parents rights group Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a complaint asking the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate a District of Columbia Public School affinity group that focuses on “empowerment, creativity and community” for girls in first through fifth grade who identify as “Black, African, African-American, biracial, or part of the African diaspora and nonbinary students.”
PDE’s Vice President, Caroline Moore, told D.C.’s ABC affiliate WJLA that the club has “created an academic community in which students are purposely separated because of their race at a very young age.”
She continued, “it is unconscionable that this is happening in public schools, let alone in a metropolitan area, at such impressionable ages,” Moore said. “Public schools should foster all students based on their needs and encourage them to befriend all of their classmates, not just the ones who look like them.”
In their January 9 complaint, PDE suggests the “Empowerment Club” violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against discrimination on the basis of race in programs that get federal funding, as well as the 14th Amendment which prohibits denying any person “equal protection of the laws.”
However, the school system says that while the program was created based on a community need specific to students of color, it is open to anyone who wants to join.
“DC Public Schools (DCPS) remains committed to fostering environments where all students and staff feel a sense of belonging,” DCPS spokesperson Evan Lambert told WJLA. “The mentioned Empowerment Club is not a district-wide program, it was born out of a school-identified need to arrange support for students of color. As noted on the parental permission slip, the club and any others like it are open for all students to participate.”