Boston-area school district settles lawsuit over 'racial affinity groups'

WASHINGTON (TND) — A recent lawsuit has brought attention to “racial affinity groups,” where students are being separated by race to talk about news events in schools.

“Racial affinity groups, they also go by safe spaces, healing spaces, but they're school-sponsored activities where children are segregated on the basis of skin color, and talk about events in the news; they're taught to process different events,” said Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education. “What it sends is this underlying message that children process emotions differently, news events differently, based on immutable characteristics, which is absolutely abhorrent that this kind of thing is being taught in our K-12 schools around the country.”

In October, Parents Defending Education sued Wellesley Public Schools outside of Boston, alleging the district has systemically and repeatedly violated students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Massachusetts Students’ Freedom of Expression Law.

“A number of other tips from the district came out where the district was also engaging in speech policing,” said Neily to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “Between the racial segregation and then the speech policing, both violations of the First and the 14th Amendment, we thought there are really egregious civil liberties violations taking place here and these students deserve better. And so we thought a federal lawsuit was the quickest and most efficient way to address the significant problems in this district.”

Wellesley Public Schools settled last week, saying the settlement “unequivocally protected” its right to organize affinity groups.

“They decided that they agree with us, that it is unconstitutional and immoral. And so going forward, when they hold these events, they will make very clear, which they did not do before, that these events are open to all students, regardless of gender, regardless of race, which is something that frankly, they should have been doing in the first place,” said Neily.

While some believe that ‘racial affinity groups’ improve diversity, Neily claims they send a “detrimental message that students, faculty, etc, process events differently on the basis of race.”

“We should want people to heal and so separating people on the basis of superficial characteristics that they cannot control sends a message,” said Neily. “There are many causes for disparities, socio-economic factors, family factors, etc. And so by just saying race, race, race, I think it oversimplifies what are often very complex problems and prevents us from coming up with a better solution.”