Mom Fights Back Against Marxist Ideology in School

Minority mother objects to mandatory propaganda.

By John Friend

A high school senior at Democracy Prep, a taxpayer-funded charter school in Las Vegas, Nev. filed a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Nevada in late December alleging his First and 14th Amendment rights were violated by the school due to its Marxist, anti-white, Critical Race Theory-based curriculum in a mandatory course titled “Sociology of Change.”

William Clark and his mother, Gabrielle, filed the lawsuit on Dec. 22 with the assistance of Schoolhouse Rights, a project of the International Organization for the Family, which “supports civil rights litigation in defense of students’ freedom of conscience in public education and the rights of parents to guide and direct the upbringing of their children,” according to the organization’s official website.

The Clarks allege in the lawsuit that William was forced “to make statements contrary to his personal conscience and beliefs, and he was retaliated against when he objected conscientiously,” Schoolhouse Rights notes in a summary of the lawsuit. This “coercive and intrusive behavior compelled [the plaintiff’s] protected speech and invaded his privacy, violating his constitutional rights under the First Amendment and his due process rights under the 14th Amendment.”

William, whose mother is black and whose deceased father was white, was apparently forced to take the controversial course in order to graduate, The Epoch Times reported. The lawsuit, filed against the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority, Democracy Prep, its school board and top officials, argues that the course and its administrators repeatedly compelled William’s speech and views “involving intimate matters of race, gender, sexuality, and religion.”

“Defendants compelled Plaintiff William to make professions about his racial, sexual, gender, and religious identities in verbal class exercises and in graded written homework assignments that were subject to the scrutiny, interrogation, and derogatory labeling of students, teachers, and school administrators,” the lawsuit contends. William was forced to “reveal his identities in a controlled yet non-private setting to scrutiny and official labeling” in an effort to coerce him to “accept and affirm politicized and discriminatory principals and statements that he cannot in conscience affirm.” Furthermore, William was threatened with material harm, including “a failing grade and non-graduation if he failed to comply with their requirements.”

The controversial course and its administrators are guided by the far-left Marxist-inspired principles of “Intersectionality” and “Critical Race Theory,” which urge students to shun and openly combat so-called oppressive traditional structures of society, including traditional family arrangements, religious and philosophical beliefs and practices, and certain racial, ethnic, or gender identities. Critical Race Theory specifically targets traditional Western civilization, insisting that the foundational building blocks, ideas, and structures underpinning society are inherently “racist” or “oppressive” towards minorities. The lawsuit notes that certain “racial, sexual, gender, and religious identities” are “officially singled out in the programming as inherently problematic and assigned pejorative moral attributes.”

Critical Race Theory advocates insist that racism is the combination of prejudice and power; therefore, minorities and people of color cannot be racist—only white people can. They argue that whites “internalize their privilege” while “oppressed people”—sexual and racial or ethnic minorities—“ internalize their oppression.” The course sought to instill these types of Marxist ideas and attitudes in its students.

Parents and students across the country are outraged with the far-left indoctrination increasingly prevalent in schools, and some are finally taking legal measures to fight back.

“I was outraged that this was being taught at all, but principally that they were asking my son to reveal identities that are protected,” Ms. Clark, William’s mother, explained to Fox News in a recent interview. “You can’t do that at a job; you shouldn’t be able to do it at a school. It put a target on my son’s back—if somebody didn’t like what he had to say, it put him in danger.”

Schoolhouse Rights has described the Clarks’ legal endeavor as potentially “landmark litigation” that could have repercussions for school districts and students across the country.

“We believe this civil rights case to be the first of its kind across the nation,” the organization states on its official website, indicating the potential impact of the suit.

John friend is a freelance writer based in California.