EXTRA - Racial Equity Departments Disappear?

Episode 19

See our Show Notes

[00:00:00] Jasmine Pulido: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess. Today we're bringing you a breaking story that has major implications for racial equity in Seattle Public Schools. 

[00:00:20] Christie Robertson: Over the past few days, families have noticed something alarming. Two departments dedicated to racial equity have disappeared from the SPS website. We are here to investigate what happened, why, and what it means for SPS. 

So yeah, Jasmine. starting on Monday, some families started noticing that the Department of African American Male Achievement and the Department of Racial Equity Advancement were both missing from the Seattle Public Schools website.

[00:00:42] Jasmine Pulido: Oh my gosh. Aren't those the two major departments that are related to racial equity in the district?

[00:00:50] Christie Robertson: Yep.And they're the only ones that are gone. I went into an archive, and I found a list of departments from early January. And the departments that are listed now is every single department that was listed in January minus those two departments. So they're even removed from the directory listing.

If you go do a Google search for Department of Racial Equity, DREA, or the African American Male Achievement, AAMA, and click on the links, it just takes you to a 404 error not found page.

[00:01:28] Jasmine Pulido: Whoa. 

[00:01:30] Christie Robertson: They're just, it's all been taken down. 

The couple of ends that are left hanging are – there's a school board policy, 0030, that's all about racial equity. That did not go down, which kind of makes sense to me because I don't think that the school district is able to change school board policy without a vote of the school board. So that is still there, and it refers to using a racial equity tool, which now does not exist on the SPS website.

And then another loose end is the Alliance for Education, which is a large foundation that funds initiatives in Seattle Public Schools. One of the biggest things that they fund is the department of African-American Male Achievement with its 10 employees. 

If you go to the Alliance for Education webpage, alliance4ed.org, it's right on their front page saying that they invest $3.7 million plus in that department. And there's a link to learn more about the investment. And then on that page, you can get to the 404 on the SPS website.

[00:02:48] Jasmine Pulido: So this started on Monday.

[00:02:53] Christie Robertson: I think they might have been gone even before that, because the most recent archive that I can find of the Department of Racial Equity, was on January 25th. And the most recent archive I can find of the Department of African American Male Achievement is from January 23rd.

Notice anything about those dates?

[00:03:14] Jasmine Pulido: I was thinking about executive orders.

[00:03:17] Christie Robertson: Yeah, the anti DEI executive order from Trump came on the day of his inauguration, January 20th. That executive order was called "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing." So three and five days later were the last archives of those websites.  

At first I was like, could there be some other explanation for this that's not related? But for those two and only those two departments to be missing, and for them to be completely scrubbed from the whole website? I just can't see how it's not related to that executive order. 

[00:03:51] Jasmine Pulido: But I guess what I'm wondering is, how could it be under federal jurisdiction to do that? We just came out with a rundown episode where we were talking about what influence the federal government has on our district. 

[00:04:05] Christie Robertson: Right. The main directive was to eliminate DEI related offices, positions, and policies in the federal government. It did not contain any directives to school districts, which are largely governed by state legislatures and local school boards.

 So this seems to me like a classic example of obeying in advance. It's the opposite of what it seems like the state superintendent, and the state attorney general are doing, where they are standing up and saying, “No, we are not changing what we're doing in Washington. We believe in equity. We are going to stand up for the people in our state. And we'll take you to court if it comes to it.“

But some organizations are trying to play it safe, or don't want to draw attention, 

[00:05:01] Jasmine Pulido: So you think that it might be something that is being preemptively done just to erase the tracks that we have those departments? Not necessarily that those departments have disappeared and that they just fired racial equity related departments?

[00:05:16] Christie Robertson: No, no, I don't think they've done that. At least not yet, I guess. A list of central staff that I got recently shows 10 employees of the African American Male Achievement Department. And at every school board meeting, there's a list of what they call “separations”, basically people who have left. And I haven't seen any signs of anybody leaving.

And if I look at the African American Male Achievement team contact page that's archived on the way back machine from January, you can see the employees that probably still work there? And if you go to their pages on LinkedIn, it appears that they still work for that department. There's just no signs of that department on the SPS website.

And we're reporting this as we're just learning about it. And I guess some of the next things we'll want to do to follow up is maybe just contact somebody in the department and...

[00:06:16] Jasmine Pulido: And see if there's any other further information.

Yeah, that seems really concerning.

[00:06:22] Christie Robertson: I'm having a big reaction here because what's happening at the federal level is scary enough. But I think in our region we feel that we are in a bit of a bubble. That we are in a very liberal city, in a very liberal state, and surrounded by a lot of people who think like us. And so it just really alarms me that something like this can happen here in the Seattle Public School district.

Also alarming is that there was no announcement or anything. 

[00:06:50] Jasmine Pulido: Right.

[00:06:55] Christie Robertson: They're just gone. Potentially they've been down a month and we're just realizing this. No rationale. No...

[00:07:01] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I'm baffled. I mean, we were getting those newsletters... School Beat? And they would often, amplify stories in regards to those departments. So seeing that completely reversed, especially knowing the values that continue to be focused on in our meetings that we attend... I just can't wrap my mind around that.

[00:07:30] Christie Robertson: I know! And the values that I think so many board directors, and also senior staff share around this.

[00:07:36] Jasmine Pulido: Absolutely.  

Is there anything else we want to say about this?

[00:07:40] Christie Robertson: I guess the key thing that I want to know is: how did this happen? How was that decision made and executed without, as far as we can tell, the school board knowing? Any announcements? Who made the decision to hide these two departments? 

And we will be digging more into this. And I think we can leave it at that.

[00:08:04] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. We'll continue to keep you updated on what we find out. But if you have information, questions, or concerns we want to hear from you, and stay tuned. We'll be back with more information hopefully soon.  

[00:08:23] Christie Robertson: That was Jasmine Pulido. I'm Christy Robertson. Thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.