TX – A Texas school board has scored an overwhelming election victory to stop “critical race theory” and a new “cultural competence action plan” from being forced into classes.
The elections in Southlake on Saturday were so divisive that backers of the new anti-racism measures called on the Department of Justice to intervene — and even pop star Demi Lovato ripped opponents of the plan.
“It is horrifying to see how some of the parents … are literally FIGHTING to uphold white supremacy and are resisting the anti-racism work that is so needed,” she tweeted in January, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted.
Opponents, however, told a series of heated meetings for the Carroll school district that the plan created “diversity police” — and was effectively “reverse racism” pushing a “left-wing agenda,” the Dallas Morning News previously reported.
They even went to court and won a temporary restraining order to stop implementation, the paper noted.
Voters also sent a resounding message against the plan at the weekend election — with the two school board positions as well as mayor and city council seats going to opponents of the “cultural competence,” with each getting almost 70 percent of the vote.
“Critical Race Theory ain’t coming here,” tweeted the Southlake Families PAC that supported the victorious candidates in the wealthy suburb about 30 miles northwest of Dallas.
“This is what happens when good people stand up and say, not in my town, not on my watch,” said the group, which first started to oppose the implementation of the 34-page action plan.
Radio host Dana Loesch, who lives in the district, also celebrated the “LANDSLIDE VICTORY.”
“Parents are running institutionalized Marxist racism OUT OF THE DISTRICT,” she wrote, using the hashtag #DefeatCRT and saying that “parents showed up and fought back.”
One of the newly elected board members, lawyer Hannah Smith, called it “a referendum on those who put personal politics and divisive philosophies ahead of … students and families, and their common American heritage and Texas values.”
“The voters have come together in record-breaking numbers to restore unity,” Smith said in a statement to NBC.
“By a landslide vote, they don’t want racially divisive critical race theory taught to their children or forced on their teachers. Voters agreed with my positive vision of our community and its future.”
Only about 2 percent of the roughly 8,500 students in Southlake are black, the Dallas Morning News has noted.
However, the district started a “diversity council” — with more than 60 students, parents and staff — after viral videos in 2018 caught students chanting the N-word.
The divisive “Cultural Competence Action Plan” it produced included hiring a director of equity and inclusion, requiring cultural competency training and auditing the district curriculum to make it more racially sensitive.
