Good evening. My name is Joseph Boyle. I am a concerned taxpayer and resident of District 11, a parent of District 11 graduates, former D11 teacher, and the chapter leader of the El Paso/Teller County Chapter of FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. I speak on behalf of FAIR this evening.
FAIR is a fast-growing, non-partisan, nation-wide network of local communities standing together for pro-human values. Although not all attendees present here tonight are members, I hope that many will learn more and join our chapter.
FAIR stands for pro-human anti-racism. We aim to counter intolerance in all of its forms by appealing to the universal concepts of fairness, understanding and our common humanity. We believe in equal rights for all individuals, regardless of their immutable traits or the circumstances of their birth. We support respectful disagreement and open inquiry across diverse perspectives.
Our national board of advisors is incredibly diverse. It includes those who are left of center and those who are right of center, those who are of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and other religious faiths as well as those of no particular religious faith at all. Our national board of advisors, and those of us in local chapters across the country, includes those of all ethnicities and national origins who disagree on many issues, but all agree on promoting pro-human values of fairness, understanding, and common humanity as a means of countering racism and intolerance.
Standing for pro-human values means that we must stand against the intolerant, divisive, and regressive ideology that has appeared in District 11. Whether we call this ideology Critical Race Theory (CRT) or something else — like Race Consciousness, Action Civics, Cultural Competency, and of course, the current District 11 administration’s word “Equity” — the reality is that the ideology cynically makes the color of a person’s skin or other immutable traits the determining factor in a person’s life. It locks people into an identity group of oppressor or oppressed, which denies each person’s complex and unique personality and humanity. The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism rejects this deeply divisive and dehumanizing neo-racism and offers a more constructive approach to countering racism and intolerance.
Some District 11 officials have publicly claimed to be “perplexed” that any such practice as CRT exists at all, much less in K-12 education. Sadly, it is simply not possible to take that claim seriously, as evidenced by the actions of the current administration.
Over the past 18 months, the current D11 administration has spent substantial amounts of district funds to conduct an “Equity Audit.” This equity audit counted each individual human being in the district – student, teacher, staff member, and school administrator – according to skin color, and then further reduced them to numbers to be placed on graphs. Viewing our humanity through only the lens of skin color is dehumanizing and demoralizing, and it reveals the district to be using taxpayer money for neo-racist programs.
During the August 6th work session, which was video-recorded, the District DEI officer responded to common sense questions about the audit with hostile and condescending responses. The DEI officer also made a pointed demand for ideological conformity. Such public demands reflect the ideological capture of District 11, leaving teachers and other staff members who depend on D11 for their livelihoods forced to comply with this rigid and intolerant orthodoxy. We stand with district employees who justifiably fear retribution from the current administration if they dare speak up.
One current board member stated that “mindsets can change. Either the mindset of the people can change, or the people with the minds can be changed.”
Indeed, many families within D11’s boundaries have changed “the people with the minds”. At great sacrifice to themselves, many have moved their children out of D11 schools and into less hostile schools or taken on the burden of educating their children themselves. The current administration is, of course, aware of this, and has responded with slick advertising campaigns, paid for with taxpayer dollars, designed to lure parents back, while at the same time, continuing to push its divisive and harmful ideology.
I believe that those of us in the FAIR community, who are retired and whose kids are grown, or who otherwise don’t currently have kids in school, have a special duty to speak up and help our FAIR members and others who are working so desperately hard to try to raise their kids (the future of our country) in this unbelievably crazed, world, and who now have a hostile school district to contend with on top of it all.
As members of FAIR, we each pledge to seek to understand opinions and behaviors we do not necessarily agree with, but we also pledge that every person has a unique identity, that our shared humanity is precious, and that it is up to all of us to defend and protect the civic culture that unites us. We must, therefore oppose the race-essentialist ideology and programs in District 11, as well as in El Paso and Teller Counties, across our state, and across our nation.
We advocate for learning environments in which students and faculty are treated as unique people, not as representatives of a group. We will continue to counter neo-racist ideology in District 11 with pro-human ideas of understanding, fairness and shared humanity in order to inspire and build a better future for all.
Thank you.