DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — As the sole candidate for superintendent of DeKalb County School District waits to see if he will be appointed the role, he's also navigating a lawsuit in his former school district.
Dr. Devon Horton, who could soon become superintendent of Georgia's third largest school system, is accused of "treating individuals differently because of their race," in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 in Illinois. Stacy Deemar, a drama teacher from the district, filed the lawsuit in June 2021.
The full lawsuit can be found at the bottom of this story.
In the suit, she alleges Horton took an aggressive approach to anti-racism that made her uncomfortable and imposed race-based programming in the name of racial equity in schools. Deemar claims that such lessons divide students and staff and that District 65 "sets up a dichotomy between white and non-whites that depicts whiteness as inherently racist and a tool of oppression," even segregating faculty members into affinity groups on the basis of race.
Deemar furthers her point with a lesson plan example on "Intergenerational, Black Families and Black Villages," which teaches that Black families and villages are "the best/proper way" to have a family.
Teaching, learning about being anti-racist
The suit also outlines the 2017 requirement for teachers to undergo anti-racist training within two years, a training that's still available.
According to the lawsuit this includes:
- Teachers are required to accept that white individuals are loud, authoritative and controlling, as paraphrased by Deemar in the lawsuit.
- Required to learn that "to be less white is to be less racially oppressive."
- To denounce white privilege, court documents show.
These teachings were then to be passed on to the students.
According to the lawsuit, the curriculum for students from pre-K through eighth grade includes learning:
- What it means "to be white but not be a part of whiteness."
- White people play a large role in the problems of racism today and throughout world history.
- Colorblindness helps racism.
- Burying the truth is something white people do to ignore racism.
- Encourage students to sign a pledge to be anti-racist.
- White students should understand white privilege, internalized dominance and microaggressions.
The full lawsuit can be found at the bottom of this story.
Deemar says in the lawsuit the education teachers are forced to learn and pass on to students further reinforcing that "whiteness is loaded up with negative value connotations while positive traits as assigned to non-white racial identity."
Lawsuit alleges district is violating Civil Rights law
Deemar originally filed her complaint with the United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) claiming District 65 was segregating teacher meetings by race, imposing hiring quotas based on race, hosting racial affinity groups for staff, and the like. According to the lawsuit, OCR determined this was a Title VI violation before it suspended the letter of finding.
With the lawsuit, Deemar claims the district, and in turn, Horton, allowed this to persist and violated equal protection laws, contributed to intentional discrimination, and created a hostile environment.
She is asking a judge to declare that the acts of those listed in the suits and their policies and procedures violated her rights under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
She also wants those named in the suit "to take all affirmative steps necessary to remedy the effects of the unconstitutional, illegal, discriminatory conduct" described in the court document and to prevent such occurrences in the future.
Apart from also covering her court costs and attorney's fees, she's also asking for a payout for nominal damages in the amount of $1.
The full lawsuit can be found below: