![]() ![]() Private schools that have embraced DEI are frequently also those with the strongest academic reputations and the best records of placing graduates in Ivy League and other elite colleges - which themselves have been criticized as bastions of wokeness. “If a person doesn’t like what is being taught, they can go somewhere else,” Ludwig said. After all, the parents made the decision to send their children to that school. When it comes to parents challenging private school curricula they see as misguided, Steven Ludwig, a Philadelphia-based education lawyer, said he doesn’t see a viable legal path. If the handbook lays out guidelines for infractions but doesn’t have a disclaimer that “we maintain the flexibility to handle them the way we think is necessary under the circumstances,” the school may be legally exposed, she said. ![]() Johnson said suits focused narrowly on unequal or arbitrary discipline can succeed. ![]() Then, last year, a New York appeals court revived a breach-of-contract claim, keeping out allegations of slander, libel and emotional distress.Ī lawyer for Spence declined to comment, and lawyers for the Parkers didn’t respond to requests for comment. According to the suit, the school admitted to the Parkers that it “had gotten it wrong” and that Spence failed to convene a “community standards committee” as stipulated in their enrollment contract. They allege that Spence disciplined the girl before even seeing the post and perpetuated a “false narrative” after they saw it. The Parkers say their daughter was mocking, not exhibiting, racism. Her punishment was a half day of “in-home reflection,” and the school had multiple grade-wide assemblies to go over what she had done, according to the Parkers’ lawsuit. Manhattan’s US$60,000-a-year Spence School, Gwyneth Paltrow’s alma mater, was sued in 2019 by Adam and Michelle Parker after their daughter was disciplined for posting on Instagram a text exchange in which she and some friends joked about dressing up as enslaved and indigenous people for Halloween. In the current environment, that can have political overtones. Many of the disputes arise out of school disciplinary action, Johnson said. The process sometimes starts off with “a 10-page, single-space letter addressing everything that the parent thought the school did wrong to try to justify a repayment of tuition,” she said. When parents do sue private schools, it’s usually for breach of contract, according to New Hampshire education lawyer Linda Johnson, who represents independent schools and consults with them on managing their legal risk. “Private schools are bound by their own policies and not the US Constitution,” said Jennifer Rippner, a law lecturer at Indiana University, Bloomington’s School of Education. Parents largely waive those rights when they enroll their kids in private schools. Public school parents can argue that the government is infringing on their First Amendment rights by forcing DEI or similar instruction on their children. Parents determined to challenge private school teaching and policies face a number of obstacles. “The majority of parents want their children to attend a school that is diverse and inclusive,” Lee said, “and the majority of Americans understand that we have a very tragic legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and racial subjugation that we’re still dealing with in this country.” Jin Hee Lee, director of strategic initiatives at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, said the pitched legal and political battles are painting a “misleading” picture about opposition to DEI instruction. ![]() “There is an increased appetite for parents using the legal process to fight for their kids in a way that just wasn’t as prevalent before,” said Sara Goldsmith Schwartz, of Andover, Massachusetts-based Schwartz Hannum PC, who frequently represents private schools.ĭavid Pivtorak, a lawyer for Eisenberg, also said he believes legal complaints against private schools over DEI have increased, though he added that the true number may be understated because of arbitration clauses like the one at Brentwood. Target closed its stores throughout the US after the death of George Floyd sparked demonstrations across the country. A pedestrian partially wearing a protective mask on Jwalks near a boarded up Target store in Washington, DC. ![]()
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