Diverse group of VA parents join to protect their children from radical ideology

ASHBURN, Va. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing an ethnically and religiously diverse group of nine parents and their children filed a motion Friday asking the court to halt Albemarle County School Board’s enforcement of its discriminatory policy and indoctrination of students in radical ideology. ADF attorneys filed the lawsuit, C.I. v. Albemarle County School Board, in December.

In 2019, the school board enacted a policy based in critical race theory, a radical ideology that requires 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 goes so far as to declare that every core subject must include teaching through its new ideological lens that emphasizes racial and religious stereotypes. It then squelches debate on the issue by mislabeling any opinion not aligned with its radical ideology as “racist” and threatens to punish dissent based on its redefinition of “racism.”

“Parents have the fundamental right to know what their kids are being taught in public schools and to express their dissent when policies and curriculum are compelling their kids to accept harmful ideologies,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights. “Public schools should never promote race-based division among kids, but that is exactly what Albemarle County is doing. The school board’s so-called ‘Anti-Racism’ policy is in fact teaching children how to be racist—it mandates treating one another differently based on one’s race. The ethnically and religiously diverse group of parents and students we represent are asking the court to halt the discriminatory policy and stop the school board from further violating their children’s constitutional rights.”

The motion filed in the Albemarle County Circuit Court asks the school board to “refrain from implementing, enforcing, or engaging in policies, practices, and conduct that…

1. inculcate racial stereotypes and treat students differently based on race;
2. demean, punish, and threaten to punish students for articulating viewpoints that differ or dissent from the ideology imposed by the policy;
3. require students to adopt and affirm the ideology imposed by the Policy, including racially discriminatory views;
4. inculcate religious stereotypes and treat students differently based on religion; or
5. are hostile to [our clients’] religious beliefs.”

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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