Parents Testify In Opposition to Proposed Law Advancing DEI Ideology In Rhode Island Public Schools
Rhode Island mother: “We don’t need more DEI, we need it out of the schools.”
Yesterday, March 13, 2024, Rhode Island’s House Education Committee held a hearing on H7722, a bill to promote “the integration of diversity, equity and inclusion principles into school curriculum and also in hiring practices for education staff.” Representative Camille F.J. Vella-Wilkinson introduced the bill, which so far has received scant attention in the media. Five witnesses testified during the meeting, three in opposition and two in support.
We reported on the bill earlier this week, here. The proposed legislation directs the state department of education to develop programs and materials “on how schools can best incorporate and integrate instruction on and principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), into a school’s curriculum.” Although the law will leave it up to local school committees whether to include those materials in their curricula, parents are concerned they will be under tremendous pressure to do so.
In fact, DEI materials have been in Rhode Island’s schools for a while now. The campaign to make an already diversified curriculum even more “inclusive” began several years ago, as veteran middle and high school teacher Ramona Bessinger explained here. She described a syllabus rich in “diversity, perspective, truth, and rigor,” including works like House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, essays by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and poetry by Maya Angelou alongside the classics traditionally taught in school. It worked for Bessinger and worked for her students.
That is, until the day she came to school to find it all thrown into the dumpster. In its place, teachers were given a “new, racialized curriculum and materials focused almost exclusively on an oppressor-oppressed narrative,” creating racial tensions among students and staff where none existed before, Bessinger said.
It was a purge.
And it’s not only happening in Rhode Island:
This is how history is erased. Thousands of books thrown into dumpsters, then replaced with racially divisive content.
Apparently, the same thing is happening all over the country. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 https://t.co/29tGxtn8uk pic.twitter.com/NedffFzbFl
— Ramona Bessinger🇺🇸 (@RamonaBessinger) March 12, 2024
It’s almost as if that were the endgame all along—to make the curriculum more “inclusive” by destroying it. That way no one (except normal white men) will feel left out.
In her testimony opposing the bill yesterday, Bessinger described how a DEI-driven curriculum destroyed the racial unity it promised to promote:
[*Transcript is auto-generated and cleaned up, but may contain errors.]
Since the 2020-21 school year, a drastic DEI-driven academic takeover has taken place in K-12 schools here in Rhode Island.
Family, students, and teachers were told that DEI curricula would close all racial disparity and academic gaps in our schools.
…
It has failed. The DEI initiative brought into Rhode Island schools has been disastrous and racially divisive. Racial tensions have never been greater since Angélica Infante-Green’s DEI-driven takeover of our schools.
School absenteeism, discipline, anxiety, violence, and teachers fleeing the profession is at an all time high and all of this correlates to RIDE’s [Rhode Island Department of Education’s] DEI agenda.
We need oversight and accountability for the damage inflicted by DEI in schools.
…
DEI has nothing to do with racial tolerance in closing teaching and learning gaps.
It is politically motivated takeover of our schools where historical fact is being erased. The Holocaust is either being diminished or erased. White children are being shamed. Christians discriminated against. Anti-American sentiment is praised. And racial activism is encouraged.
…
These new renditions of classic literature reflect racially divisive political ideology. Pass this bill and you’ll be codifying K-12 racism and division and animus forever.
Other opponents pointed out that DEI programs come at a cost to students and their families. Amy Rodrigues, chapter chair of Washington County’s Moms4Liberty, said the DEI bill is “grift” that would divert resources toward empowering DEI coordinators, and away from where they’re really needed—teaching students to read and write: “Bringing identity politics into every program, course, subject, and policy only serves to divide and rob our children of a proper education.”
I’ll post my entire testimony against H 7722 here since RI House Education Committee Chair Rep. McNamara denied me equal time to that of his party members and those with a different skin tone.
“Diversity is not what many people might think it is as in ethnicity or cultural… pic.twitter.com/rwHHYr0pl4
— Amy Rodrigues (@AmyGansettRep) March 14, 2024
But supporting DEI shows you care about others, Representative Megan Cotter argued during the hearing:
If everyone practiced more empathy with their interactions with others, wouldn’t that change society for the better? Don’t we want to live in a community where we have compassion for those that are different than we are?
You can’t legislate feelings, though, Rodrigues pointed out. “We already do have empathy. I don’t think it needs to be regulated.”
In support of the bill, policy analyst Elijah McLean spoke on behalf of United Way of Rhode Island. He said DEI “allows students to learn about their neighbor. It allows students to learn about the real realities of demographic populations.”
Lisa Marie Leavitt, a mother of seven from North Kingstown, was having none of it. “Our children deserve a learning opportunity that is free of frivolous and unneeded nonsense.”
Another mother, Susannah Tingley, said DEI is already present in Rhode Island’s schools, and it’s not working:
I’m a mom of three, and I’ve seen our education system change drastically from my first to my last. Our kids aren’t learning. …They’re disengaging from the politicized climate and curriculum. The K-5 Great Minds curriculum by Witt and Wisdom, used in many Rhode Island schools, is filled with dark, age-inappropriate language, conflict, and race-shaming. The social-emotional lessons teach children as young as five to be social justice activists. History books lack rigor now, clarity, and political neutrality. DEI does not allow differing opinions or equal opportunity and excludes dissent.
“We don’t need more DEI, we need it out of the schools.”
The bill has been held for further study.
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Comments
“Parents testify”. That’s all well and good, but those who advocate for DIE firmly believe that parents should have no say in what public schools teach their children.
Bessinger and Tingley sound like potential domestic terrorists. Hopefully, AG Garland will keep the RI children safe from them.
You’re obviously a pathetic excuse for a human being, Q. To say that folks who’ll take a stand to DEFEND young minds from hateful, racist political agendas under the guise of ‘learning’ should be treated as domestic terrorists only shows both your ignorance and hate for our America, not to mention disdain for children. We went for centuries and fought a Civil War to rid America of racial injustices…and spent another century or so to FINALLY change the dispicable laws that once codified that EVIL. We were uniting as a country…until…the likes of hate-filled MARXISTS (like you) began infesting the public education system to foment your EVIL HATRED. You target CHILDREN because they have no voice and when the voices of CONCERNED parents are heard and reveal your disgusting EVIL HATRED, you claim them to be domestic terrorists. If any could be called a domestic terrorist, it’s YOU AND YOUR ILK, Q. Children are precious and will not be ruined by the likes of the HATE and EVIL you and yours spew. And we can’t forget that you’re also the same who claim MURDERING THE UNBORN is ‘women’s healtcare’. I’ll pray for your Soul.
Garion60, I think that we are generally on the same side. When you have a chance, you should acquaint yourself with the notion of “sarcasm.” It would save you a lot of the time and effort you wasted above.
Tut-tut, before spouting so many CAPITALIZED WORDS you should have considered the possibility that Q’s comment was IRONY.
I’m so glad to see parents standing up for their children and education in my home state. I haven’t live sin RI for over 20 years now, but many in my family still do and their stories about the public schools there are disturbing. I am product of those public schools and while they weren’t all great in general you could get a good education in RI without shelling out for private education. But that was the 1990’s and much has changed for the worse. If change can happen for the better in RI, than there is hope for the rest of the country, as RI has always been ultra progressive and woke. Maybe this is a sign that indoctrinating children is finally the step too far that will wake people up from their complacency about DEI and its many correlates in everything in the US.
DEI will either be regulated in or out of schools there is no other way.
Either racism is fine and belongs in school, or it isn’t and needs to be banned from the schoolhouse there is no middle ground.
I am not bullish on Trump’s chances but if he wins (which I really hope he does) having the DOE on our side in fighting DEI will be one of the most important parts of the victory.
Think about the damage Democrats are doing with DOE, and think of how much good we could do using it.
And there’s the problem that will take more than Trump to fix! Where is the enumerated power that allows the Dept. of Education to even exist? We have lived in post-constitutional America at least since FDR created the regulatory bureaucracy (an unconstitutional delegation of Congress’s lawmaking power; abetted by a cowardly SCOTUS ignoring the 9th and 10th amendments following FDR’s court packing threat). Our bloated central government (no longer federal) rules by bureaucratic edict, judicial fiat, and executive diktat. If legislation is passed it is vague so the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy can manufacture power from the white space. Not even Trump is talking about destroying this Progressive leftist power structure. We can’t save liberty by tinkering around the edges of our bloated, intrusive, tyrannical, despotic DC central tyranny.
It will take more than the presidency, the presidency however will help, and is without doubt indespensible.
Do nothing with the DOE while in charge of it means we don’t get to use it to do good things but the Demcorats will return and use it for pure evil the moment they return to power.
The reason Trump isn’t discussing ending the DOE is he will be the president of Rhode Island, New Mexico and Oregon as well as Florida, North Dakota and Utah.
Maybe Democrats will agree the DOE is a bad idea if we use it effectively and we could reach out to them at that point.
Before that the DOE is a part of our government, it has massive impacts for evil when Democrats are in charge, and we need to use it for good when we are.
I have never been an unconditional Trump guy, Trump is absolutely right to want to use the power of the federal government.
That’s how Trump thought in his first term, and he was far too nice a guy. To make Florida happy, he’ll have to make Rhode Island unhappy. Let the conservatives have some clear wins, for once, even if the liberals hate it. But I don’t think Trump has that inclination.
Also, Trump won’t be as free a man this time as he was last time. He didn’t owe debts to anyone last time. Now he owes debts, at least of gratitude, to entitles like the insurance company that just fronted his bond to appeal one of the huge civil judgments against him. The Democrats and their DA’s and judges have, in fact, destroyed him. It’s a damned shame, but it’s been effective. Let’s hope he’ll use his remaining time on this earth to decide to be free anyway.
The best move regarding the DOE would be to abolish it.
And when Democrats come back they bring it back and use it, we fail to make any impact on education in this country while in charge but when they are in charge they make massive changes for evil.
Time for using the lawful power of government instead of imagining it’s abolition.
Not so easy to bring back an agency. Maybe it makes sense to use the DOE in the first couple years of a presidential term to exert power to reduce some previous excesses, but remember the career employees there are behind the agenda that’s been in place for decades. They’ll blockade reforms. Get rid of the agency early enough, so that it can’t be reinstated by Congress with a single vote. Vivek Ramaswamy outlined in one of his speeches how to eliminate agencies and fire the career employees, which has been considered difficult or impossible. He says it’s not difficult (other than politically) and a president can do it.
But I have little faith in Trump. He hasn’t even said he’ll do this. If we can do as well as getting Betsy DeVos back in a 2nd Trump term, I’ll call it a win.
Public testimony nowadays is mostly for show. It gives the comforting illusion that lawmakers have considered both sides of an issue, then leftist policies move forward as always intended—with the perverted result being dubbed democratic.
looks like as usual the real book banners are on the Marxist left, throwing out the History they do not like…