Meanwhile, the policies for which her group advocates for, such as End dei Portal, are a freezing speech for teachers in public schools.
Transcript:
Leila Fadel, host:
For years, Sarah Inama had a poster hanging in her classroom in Idaho-Placquer, which encouraged her sixth grade students to be kind, to be inclusive. Everyone is welcome here, they said in bright, multicolored letters.
Sarah Inama: There are images of the hands of different tones of the skin below it that have little hearts in the palm of their hands.
Fadel: She received it at a class supply store and had never attracted any attention – until recently.
(Soundbite of Music)
Inama: I just turned to my director and deputy director. I was told that they had to go through the school and have posters that have removed contradictory messages.
Fadel: When I pressed them on what was contradictory …
Inama: I was told that teachers were not allowed to have posters that show their personal or, political opinions about things, and this is now being seen as a personal opinion.
Fadel: Today, regarding the state of the first amendment: the right from which all rights are underway – eradiction of diversity, justice and inclusion in public schools.
(Soundbite of Music)
Fadel: Sarah doesn’t take the poster for a very long time.
Inama: I just woke up and I was like, I just can’t stop thinking about it. It’s just so wrong. I just felt so rude, feeling smug in it. And I just went in on Saturday with my husband and baby and returned it, and I sent an email to my director to inform him that I had done it.
Fadel: What did the principal say?
Inama: He came to my classroom and said it was considered disobedience. After returning it, one of our regional employees – our chief academic director – he told me that the political environment is touring and flowing and what may not be contradictory three or six months or nine months can be considered controversial now.
Fadel: In a statement, the school neighborhood confirmed Inama’s retelling about what happened, saying that these are not words, but the colors of the letters and the different tones of the skin of the hands they quote, “decisive to express views on specific identity groups.”
Inama: When they told me that it does not allow people to express different opinions – there are only two opinions on this poster. Either you believe that everyone is welcome here or you don’t. I was just so shocked, especially based on skin tone.
Fadel: Are they still in your classroom?
Madam: MM-HM.
Fadel: And still study at school?
Madam: MM-HM.
Fadel: Now she is not the only teacher who feels watched over hunting for diversity, justice and inclusion. When we asked you, our readers and listeners, if you feel more free or more silent at this point, a Oregon teacher writes us. She was so worried about talking that she wanted to go through her first original, E.
D: Exactly where I live and where I teach is a really small community and I definitely worry not to get a reporting.
Fadel: What she has in mind has a new portal from the Ministry of Education, called End Dei, where you can report any cases of lessons around diversity, justice and inclusion. When she first heard about it in the news, she thought it couldn’t be real. Then she looked up.
D: I was like, oh, God. Like, it literally just says, students, parents, teachers can report when you see cases. So I was like, oh God.
Fadel: The mind of the is started to compete.
D: I immediately continued to think about what I said in class today? What was asked in class today? What could be removed from the context in class today? Who is I’m angry at the moment for changing my places or something? Can anyone use this against me for something I did in the recent past? So I was quite scared.
Fadel: Can you describe how this kind of change your teaching in the classroom?
D: I want to say that the next day my kids ask me questions. There are so many times when I just have to tell them that I cannot answer this question or just change the subject. Or I think about how I will say it in a way that gives them the information they need, but also in a way that will cover my ass.
Fadel: You felt the same year ago?
D: No, I didn’t. Currently, in our current environment and our current political place, it is becoming easier and easier for certain people to have the right to the freedom of expression and others to be closed. And I think this is just a big change in what acceptable speech is and what is now considered, you know, a problem with the DEI report.
Fadel: If we did this interview for freedom of speech a year ago, would you give me your full name?
D: Yes, I would have.
Fadel: The Education Department did not respond to our repeated requests for comment on how this portal works or what criminal teachers will face. So we turned to a group that approved the final DEI portal, a right -wing intercessor group called Moms for Liberty. It was founded in the midst of a pandemic of Kovid by mothers who felt unheard and excluded by the school administrators and the school council members regarding the objections to the masking of policies and the closure of schools. One of his co -founders is Tina Deskovic, Mom in Florida, who says the portal was created to serve as need.
Tina Deskovic: Our parents across the country and people who are not even members send us an email to things they find in their school areas – practices, policies they find about it. And there really was nowhere to report it.
Fadel: If you can give me an example of the type of complaint you think the DEI portal will do it afterwards.
Deskovic: The things I have seen I know people have forwarded to the DEI portal are lessons where they divide the children by race and call, you know, the black children of the victims or the oppressed; White children are oppressors. So this would be something absolutely someone has to fill in the DEI portal.
Fadel: An executive order of, quote, “radical indoctrination at K-12 School” to end the diversity, justice and the inclusion in public schools, makes a similar claim. But we could not find examples in public schools of lessons in which the children were physically divided by race, as Deskovich described. Liberty mothers pointed out a high school in Florida for public arts, which planned separate meetings for students from colored and white students four years ago. He later canceled them and apologized.
Now getting rid of Dei is not the only problem that causes mothers for freedom. The group insists on banning books, largely on racism, discrimination, sexuality or LGBTQ rights. Members publish anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. And at a meeting of a chapter three years ago, a member spoke about shooting a school librarian. All this is the reason why the South Center for the Poverty Act has indicated the extremist group in 2023. In the midst of the pandemic, it was a loaded environment. The parents called members of the school council.
(Soundbite on an archived record)
An unidentified crowd: (chant) shame on you. Shame on you.
Fadel: There was a jump in the violent threats against school staff and the members of the school council – like this threat.
(Soundbite on an archived record)
Unidentified person: You know your home address is on the Internet, right? This can be a little scary.
Fadel: Which prompted the Association of the National School Council to request the Biden administration to intervene. Liberty mothers have identified the FBI investigation into these violent threats against members of the school council as a politically motivated campaign for the silence of parents and organizations like theirs. Again, Deskovich.
Deskovic: Parents just appeared, trying to express their opinion, sometimes, you know, it’s not really that pleasant for the school board members. They were angry with things that were happening to their children. But in no way, the shape or shape, if they had a doj, the federal government coming after them.
Fadel: You know, it is no secret that the Southern Center for Poverty Act and other organizations see mothers for freedom as an extremist organization-such as a far-right organization, which actually opposes LGBTQ+ and racially involving school curricula, that it is advocating for bans on books. What do you do from this and how is it related to what you described?
Deskovic: Me and my co-founder have served in a public school board for four years-I have been having my life during this time. We believe in the public education system. We believe in the fundamental principles of America and our government. We are not anti -government. But we absolutely have the right guaranteed in the first amendment to turn to civil servants when we think they are not on the right path.
Fadel: In just a few years, a lot has changed for mothers for freedom. With the choice of Trump, the White House doors are open to the group.
(Soundbite on an archived record)
President Donald Trump: Thank you very much.
Fadel: The members were on the signing of executive orders – one to ban transsexual athletes from the sport of women and girls; Another to dismantle the Ministry of Education.
(Soundbite on an archived record)
Trump: And it sounds weird, doesn’t it? Ministry of Education – we will remove it. And everyone knows it’s right.
Fadel: Not only does the right-wing advocate group feel more free to speak today-they look that they have the president’s ear.
Descovich: Many of these executive orders speak of the struggle that our organization and many other organizations have experienced in the last four and five years. I hope the government will be much more open. I think the people in the administration really want to see changes that will open the government more and this is good for all Americans – left, right, republican, democrat. I have a lot of hope.
Fadel: You know, I think there were people who felt like what you were standing in was dangerous for certain Americans. I’m just wondering at this point, if it’s a free speech for everyone or just a free speech for some.
Deskovic: Well, the United States Constitution guarantees free speech for everyone. And if someone in America is muted the way we have been muted in the last few years, they have to do the things we do. They must be organized. They must submit a petition to their government. We brought lawsuits and won because the legal system in America is working. It may take time, but it works. You know, I am ready to stand with someone – someone – about their right to speak.
Fadel: But the policies that its group overlap, such as the final DEI portal, cooling the speech of some teachers in public schools.
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Fadel: Morning Edition invited the education secretary Linda McMahon or Vice President JD Vance to sit with us for a free speech conversation. We haven’t heard back and this invitation is still open.
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