On this episode, host Dr. Sandhya Kajeepeta, TMI Senior Researcher, chronicles how school board elections and meetings were once bastions of Black political power but have now become sites of charged debates, takeovers, and infiltrated by groups outside of the actual districts. Using Charleston as a case study, Dr. Kajeepeta illustrates how school board meetings and elections became so intense and why they should matter to anyone who cares about democracy.
Guests:
Note on the episode: In the episode, Est refers to Charleston County’s search for a new superintendent. This interview was recorded in April and there have been several developments since then. In June, the district hired a new superintendent, Dr. Eric Gallien. In the first four months of his term, the school board voted to place the new superintendent on administrative leave twice. On October 5, Dr. Gallien field a lawsuit against the district for breach of contract. The five school board members who voted to suspend Dr. Gallien twice are endorsed by the national conservative group Moms for Liberty. Read news coverage about the situation here.
But school board elections are so important because these individuals are making decisions that will impact all of us, directly and indirectly, within and outside of the classroom.
Political scientist Dr. Domingo Morel has studied state takeovers of local school districts and the implications of the takeovers for Black political power. His research shows that takeovers are more likely to occur in majority-Black and majority-Latinx cities and the takeovers result in more serious consequences for the locally elected school board. Dr. Morel found that in majority-Black school districts, 33% of state takeovers involved the school board being abolished and not replaced compared to just 4% of takeovers in majority-white districts (see chart below).
It's incredibly important to have diversity of all types on a school board — racial diversity, socioeconomic diversity, educational diversity, diversity of opinion. When we start seeing school boards being taken over, ruled by a certain group of people, that's when we start running into these problems of this small group that has sort of taken over wanting to control what kind of information your children can know.
The right to free expression is a cornerstone of our democracy. Its protection is particularly critical for Black Americans and other marginalized groups who have a long history of battling infringement of this right. Over the past few years, we have watched a clear and coordinated attack on truth and a push to deny our nation’s shameful legacy of racism. States are passing laws that could ban or restrict what students in the United States can learn about our history, silence dissent, and punish those who speak the truth to counter whitewashed falsehoods.
“Outside Influence: The Origins of Anti-CRT Mania” explores the surge of book bans, anti-truth curriculum, and the fear of Critical Race Theory making its way into classrooms across the country. Host Dr. Kesha Moore traces where this mania is stemming from and how its impacting students, parents, and teachers.
This TMI brief examines the ramifications of attempts by anti-truth groups to remove or whitewash our nation’s history and legacy of racism from K-12 public school classrooms. The current efforts to silence discussions on race and its intersections with inequalities based on sexuality and gender are not the first attempts to distort and erase U.S. history. This is a centuries old war on truth that continues to evolve. Today’s attacks on truth are born out of a broader history where a small minority tries to use their power and privilege to eclipse racial justice progress.
