The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Evanston/Skokie School District 65 over alleged discrimination in its policies Thursday.
According to a DOE press release, the investigation is in response to a complaint filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of Stacy Deemar, a drama teacher in the district.
The Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents discrimination and exclusion based on one’s race, color or national origin in programming that receives federal funding.
The complaint alleged that the district practices racial segregation by having teachers participate in “privilege walks,” in which they step forward to respond to questions about their race and identity, and training seminars aimed at increasing “racial literacy.”
The complaint said district-sponsored teacher and student affinity groups are restrictive based on race. It also mentioned a book elementary students read that associates “whiteness” with the devil.
Teachers and students’ subjection to these alleged policies “shocks the conscience,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in the press release.
“Amid a dismal academic achievement record, the District appears to focus on unlawfully segregating students by race, instructing students to step forward and others to step back on the basis of race, and associating ‘whiteness’ with the devil,” Trainor said.
This is the second complaint of this nature filed by Deemar about District 65. The first complaint was filed in 2021, also by SLF, and was dismissed by a federal judge in 2024.
In a statement to The Daily, District 65 Communications Manager Hannah Dillow wrote that the district will work with the OCR to ensure a “just and expeditious resolution.”
“The District will continue to fulfill the intent and promise of equal protection and nondiscrimination embodied in the Constitution and our nation’s civil rights laws,” Dillow wrote in the statement. “The complaint misrepresents our District’s lawful and important professional learning and student-focused initiatives that are designed to advance the work of ensuring that all students have access and opportunity to a robust, high quality education.”
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