Ithaca (NY) Schools Superintendent Says Students Of Color Summit “Open To Everyone” – Reacting To Equal Protection Project Demand
My response: “I am glad that Dr. Brown has stated that the SOCU Summit will be open to all. That message of openness needs to be promoted vigorously and immediately to the ICSD community, because a contrary message of exclusion has been communicated previously, as detailed in our Letter to ICSD.”
On Tuesday morning, May 28, 2024, the Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) delivered a letter (full embed at bottom of post) to the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown and Board of Education President Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell, regarding the Student of Color United (SOCU) Summit 2024, scheduled for May 31, 2024.
In the letter, we detailed substantial evidence that for 2021-2023, the SOCU Summits were limited to students and staff ‘of color’ and that the 2024 Summit promoted the same racial exclusion. See our post for all the specifics, Ithaca (NY) Public Schools Must Desegregate “Students of Color” Summit, Demands Equal Protection Project.
Given the evidence we presented, and additional evidence we have asked for through a Freedom of Information Law request filed contemporaneously with the letter, we wrote:
“It appears that these 2021-2023 annual Students of Color United summits were promoted and conducted as racially exclusionary, and that SOCU 2024 is following in that path. We don’t think you will seriously dispute this.”
Among other things, we called on the Superintendent to
“… publicly denounce and renounce past and planned segregationist programs, and open up the upcoming SOCU Summit to all students and staff without regard to race.
It is particularly important for you to do this promptly and publicly, because based on past practice and current promotions, white students and staff likely would be dissuaded from attending on the assumption they are not invited. ICSD needs not only to open the SOCU Summit to all students and staff, ICSD needs to inform all students and staff that the racial barrier has been removed.”
As of this writing, we have not received a response from ICSD.
At a Board of Education meeting last night, May 28, 2024, however, Dr. Brown presented his report to the Board (starting at 1:02:20), the first part of which had to do with criticism he has received over school performance. Then he turned to EPP’s letter (without naming us)(starting at 1:04.25), raising a straw man argument addressing attempts to stop affinity groups, an argument not made in our letter. Our point, addressed in the law laid out in the letter, addressed racial exclusion in public schools. We have not challengd whether ICSD can have affinity events, but because it is a public school, the events have to be open to everyone regardless of race. As our letter pointed out in detail, ICSD does not appear to have lived to that standard. Dr. Brown did not address the specifics in our letter at all.
He did, however, deny that any students ever were excluded from any event based on identity or race, and proclaimed that the SOCU 2024 Summit was “open to everyone” (starting at 1:05:50)
“No program in this school district excludes young people based on ethnicity or any other reason…. I’ve said publicly, we do not exclude anybody …. we want everybody else to know that they can come too. So no, we do not exclude based on identity or race. It’s open to everyone.”
When watching Dr. Brown’s statement, I kept thinking back the words quoted in our letter spoken by a Board of Education member at a public meeting after the first Student of Color United Summit in 2021:
“We’ve had some people ask us as a Board, I’m sure Dr. Brown has heard this, why would we support something that separates young people out by the color of their skin?”
And to the line quoted in our letter from an email/message from a supervisory-level ISCD staff member regarding SOCU 2024:
“Allies are not invited to this event.”
I was contacted by a reporter for a local NPR affiliate, who first called my attention to Dr. Brown’s comments, and requested my response. Here is the response I sent her:
“In our letter to ICSD, the Equal Protection Project documented the racially exclusionary history of the Students of Color United Summits, and the promotion of this year’s Summit as limited to students and staff ‘of color.’ Dr. Brown did not address the substance of our letter in his public comments. Nonetheless, I am glad that Dr. Brown has stated that the SOCU Summit will be open to all. That message of openness needs to be promoted vigorously and immediately to the ICSD community, because a contrary message of exclusion has been communicated previously, as detailed in our Letter to ICSD.”
Time and investigation will shed more light and reveal more evidence. We will continue to investigate and follow up on this issue, as long as it takes.
UPDATE 5-30-2024
The following mass email was sent by ICSD:
From: ICSD Communications <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, May 30, 2024 at 09:12
Subject: SOCU Summit is tomorrow, Friday, May 31!
To: ICSD Communications <[email protected]>Greetings Students and Staff,
The Students of Color United (SOCU) Summit will be held this Friday, May 31, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Ithaca High School.
Please know that SOCU is open to all of our secondary students. We apologize for any previous communication that included exclusionary language about the event. Anyone who wishes to attend on Friday is welcome!
Let the front office at your school know if you want to attend by the end of the day today, Thursday, May 30, and transportation will be provided as necessary.
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Comments
if you believe that then you are playing ostrich
the left lets you know and everyone know that the event(s) is for poc only
then the blacklash happens and they say ohh sorry
but how many non poc really want to show up to a “angry” environment
To quote a line in the professors letter: ” burning down your neighbors house is still arson even if [your] ultimate intention is to improve the view.”. I would like to think the professor is happy that the he kept the match from being struck this year.
But to be clear, i do not disagree with your post.
Open to Everyone?
Here you go!
https://youtu.be/n1roQFn627Y
Explicitly disavow the letter everybody has already seen, or you’re a gaslighting liar.
When Judy Pastel was Superintendent, Kintes ( an item of apparel) were given out at graduation only to Black students. I don’t know if this practice has continued but it would be again another form of discrimination based on skin color. You can have affinity groups sure, but not those based on legally prohibited discrimination. Suggest the EPP insist on an audit of practices at ICSD as there may be other violations.
As if anyone that was not a “POC” would ever apply to go to a “students of color summit”, simply based on the assumption that they are excluded based on their race.
This lying liar is lying to you. Which I’m sure you know.
If this event that supposedly supports/affirms scholarship, joy and artful expression of the Students of the school district was always an inclusive event and was never a separate segregated event limited to POC then why hold it/describe it and title it as Student of Color United Summit?
The Superintendent doesn’t make a convincing argument by retroactively claiming that this event was always open to everyone, that all Students and Staff were always welcome much less invited. As always simple word substitution will demonstrate the lack of seriousness in his claims about these neo segregationist events; swap POC for White and the dynamics change so profoundly that even woke, lefty weirdo tribalists immediately understand it B/C they will always claim it isn’t the same. Even they recoil from that flavor of tribalism.
“It’s open to everyone now that we’ve been caught.”
Affirmative action – racial discrimination to make up for racial discrimination.
Let’s hope that Christopher Rufo is paying attention. I await another story of rampant plagiarism. I can tell by a glance that Brown earned neither his degree nor his position on merit.
DEI A Didn’t Earn It
Got his position because of the color of his skin. and the ability to spout the latest DEI lunacy. Guaranteed.
So why isn’t he forced to resign?
Because racially discriminating against White people is viewed by many as nothing wrong or illegal. And that’s just what I think the school board thinks. They did nothing wrong or illegal by promoting a “blacks only” event using school funds and facilities. And after all, seems as if they got away with it in previous years. So why the fuss this year. And that’s why these people get to keep their jobs.
I really have no problem with an event like this, with one condition attached. That Ithaca City School District (ICSD) Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown and Board of Education President Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell also allow a “Whites Only” event to be sponsored and funded by the school board and that it take place on school property (IHS Campus). But of course, that would never happen. Not in a million years.
>>Mary Grover ICSD Assistant Superintendent of Inclusion<<
You can come to the immediate conclusion that when a school district has an Assistant Superintendent of Inclusion that DEI principles are being pushed hard at that district to the disadvantage of White and Asian students. So I’m more than sure that this discriminatory Student of Color United (SOCU) Summit 2024 is just the tip of there iceberg when it comes to the DEI shenanigans the Ithaca school board is pulling on White & Asian students.
dont forget
mostly WHITE PEOPLE MADE THESE LAWS TO APPEASE THE VIOLENT
SO NOW AFFIMRACTION DEI etc etc are so deep into our normalized day-to-day
it would take a major commitment by good people to be prepared to DEFEND the country should common sense return and those laws are sent to the dustbin
I saw THIS posted in Ithaca Public Schools’ Facebook page where they were sure to see it:
“ I’ve read that you are planning to hold a segregated “people of color” summit .
Isn’t that racist and also, frankly, against our civil rights laws?
Are you begging to be exposed as racist and subjected to a massive civil rights lawsuit?
Perhaps you should reconsider.🙄”
Forget. it, Jake. It’s Ithaca.
This reminds me of long ago when the ICSD hired a POC as superintendent while he was still suing his previous district for discrimination.
Ithaca called it a “Students of Color ” event so the world would know it was open to everyone.
The “students of color” moniker must be renamed as a “students” summit. Injecting the word “color” makes it a racist event.