VA parents appeal their case challenging schools’ racially divisive indoctrination of students

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a diverse group of parents and their children in a lawsuit against the Albemarle County School Board appealed to the Virginia Court of Appeals Monday after a lower court dismissed their case.

In the lawsuit, C.I. v. Albemarle County School Board, the parents are challenging the school board’s enforcement of a discriminatory policy that indoctrinates students in racially divisive ideology.

“Parents’ fundamental right to direct their children’s education must include the right to protect their children from radical policies that sow racial division among students,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert. “Public schools can’t demean or divide students based on their race, religion, or ethnicity, but that is exactly what Albemarle County Public Schools is doing. We urge the court to take a hard look at the school district’s discriminatory policy and consider these families’ challenge to it.”

In 2019, the school 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 based on race and by compelling them to affirm and support ideas contrary to their deeply held moral and religious beliefs.

The school district has even declared that every core subject—from social studies to math and literature—must include teaching through its new ideological lens that emphasizes racial and religious stereotypes. It then squelches debate on the issue by stamping any opinion not aligned with its radical ideology 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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