Newton vs. DEI

In 2023, a group of parents began rallying against diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Newton Public Schools. The values were officially endorsed in a revised Newton Public Schools mission statement enacted aftre the killing of George Floyd. Even with the new focus on DEI, in the 2022/23 school year, reports of discrimination rose 55%. Clearly, the DEI mission statement and modifications to the curriculum were not actually changing much. Nevertheless, the ineffectiveness of the District’s DEI efforts did not stop ImproveNPS: a group that claimed to be dedicated to “build[ing] bridges and form[ing] healthy communication with Newton Public Schools and the community”. These values sound wonderful, but this positive verbiage hid their real goals. The group focused on creating a committee that would inform the School Board’s decisions - advocating for anti-DEI practices and policies. The petition they created to support this committee received over 300 signatures from Newton parents. Not a small number considering the size of Newton. To me, the existence of this group is rather uninteresting. Even in the most liberal cities in America, there exist right-leaning factions that believe the “woke agenda” has gone too far. According to reporting by WBGH, the only news article on the group’s now-removed website was titled “The Toxicity of DEI: A Tale From Newton, Massachusetts.” While the website is defunct, the Newsweek article is still readable at this link. I strongly encourage you all to read it. However, the framing of the group in the aforementioned article is fascinating and can tell us a lot about where the Democrats went wrong. The article starts by describing ImproveNPS’ anti-DEI attempts and then prints the line “This was the great sin that led to these parents being smeared as MAGA extremists committed to white grievance: a request for a slight modification to the DEI approach.” A line that is fascinating because it is incredibly false. It might refer to a Boston Globe article about right-wing groups in Massachusetts, but nowhere on the internet nor in the Globe article could I find ImproveNPS being described as MAGA extremists. The overarching goal of the article is to portray the group as concerned parents and not extremists or right-wingers. The article wants you to think that these are left-wingers fighting a noble fight against crazy leftists. But the group was not fighting extremism; it was fighting the wording of a mission statement (a real goal of the group). So noble, so rational. The article later repeats this argument, saying that people respond to ImproveNPS by “call[ing] liberals MAGA extremists for opposing their own extremist views.” But nobody does that. And adding the word “racial” in front of equity (another actual thing that imporveNPS was mad about) in a mission statement is not extremism. The newsweek article advertises improveNPS as the missing piece of the Democratic Party: the centrist liberal. Or a Democrat who generally accepts liberal ideology but fights the crazy leftists and accepts common sense. After losing an election to a far-right candidate, there will always be a reasonable push towards centrism. And there is an argument to be made for a more centrist Democratic Party. One that can include people who think that transwomen should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports, but does not make transphobia the official stance of the party. This logic extends to NPS. Being against “DEI” should not disqualify you from going to NPS, but rallying to change NPS’ mission statement should be rejected and laughed at for being a dramatic waste of energy. We do not need to rewrite our values; we need to be more tolerant of people with whom we disagree. The article attempted to frame the School Board as perpetuating cancel-culture against such centrism, but instead, the Board stood strong on its values. Centrism can’t just be a rewriting of our ideals. Kamala Harris tried to do that and failed. Instead of lobbying for centrists (think Joe Rogan and other popular podcasters) to vote Democrat, she refused them and adopted centrist values that appeared vaguely Republican. Even at one point, promising the most “lethal” military on the planet. Obviously, the Democratic Party needs to open its doors, or it will continue to lose, but this faction of the party, one that is anti the very values that make Liberals, Liberal, is cancerous, and in this case, a product of extreme and unburdened privilege. Parents that have to worry about the wellbeing of their children at school don’t run anti-DEI campaigns, but Newton parents do. But regardless, we do not need everyone to agree on every liberal talking point. As a former Mayor of NYC, Ed Koch stated, “If you agree with me on nine out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist”. This is a form of centrism I can get behind, but rewriting our commitment to diversity and equity is not. Blocking this action was not cancel culture, it was a rejection of illiberal ideas in a city that prides itself on genuine liberalism, not whatever improveNPS is.