Parents, kids ask Virginia Supreme Court to help end racially divisive school board policy

WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys

WHAT: Available for media interviews following hearing in Ibañez v. Albemarle County School Board

WHEN: Immediately following the hearing, which begins at 9 a.m. EDT, Wed., August 28

WHERE: Supreme Court of Virginia, 100 N. 9th St., Richmond; or listen to the livestream. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Specialist Hattie Troutman at (771) 200-7630.

RICHMOND, Va. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a diverse group of parents and their children will be available for media interviews Wednesday following a hearing in Ibañez v. Albemarle County School Board at the Supreme Court of Virginia.

In the case, five families are suing the Albemarle County School Board for implementing a discriminatory policy that creates a race-based hostile environment in local schools and violates students’ free speech rights. ADF attorneys are asking the Supreme Court of Virginia to hear the families’ case after a lower court dismissed it, and the Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed that dismissal.

“All students have a right to equal treatment in the classroom, regardless of their race. Public schools hurt kids and infringe that right by imposing demeaning racial stereotypes on them in classroom activities like the Albemarle County School Board has done—and continues to do,” said ADF Senior Counsel Vincent Wagner, who will be arguing before the court. “The school board also threatens to punish students who disagree with its stereotyped viewpoint or who simply wish to remain silent instead of speaking the board’s message. The Virginia Constitution protects students from conduct like this. We are urging the Supreme Court of Virginia to allow all students to learn in the best possible environment, free from discriminatory policies like this one.”

The families are challenging the school board’s in-class implementation of a discriminatory policy that indoctrinates students in, and compels them to say they agree with, racially hostile stereotypes. In 2019, the board enacted a policy that requires schools to take actions based in critical race theory, a radical ideology that forces students and teachers to view everything and everybody through the lens of race. The policy violates students’ civil rights by treating them differently and stereotyping them based on race, and by compelling them to affirm and support the board’s ideology, even if it is contrary to their deeply held moral and religious beliefs.

Parents in the school district are not allowed to opt their children out of the policy’s implementation, and the school labels any opinion not aligned with the curriculum as “racist” and threatens to punish dissent based on its redefinition of “racism.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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