Horne To Report SUSD To Federal Government For Violating “No DEI” Pledge
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne announced that his office will report Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) to the federal government for violating the “No DEI” pledge signed by district Superintendent Scott Menzel. The announcement came after SUSD adopted a DEI-oriented curriculum, despite objections from parents.
Horne explained, “Today I’m announcing that I will report to the federal government that the Scottsdale School District has violated the statement they signed that they would not teach DEI. They adopted a DEI-oriented textbook, or more than one book actually, over parental objections.”
The superintendent was joined by Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan who expressed major concerns regarding the objectively anti-police narrative that the text in question indoctrinates students with.
“At a time when law enforcement agencies are expanding their focus on community outreach and de-escalation of conflicts, it is counterproductive for schools to push a misguided and inaccurate narrative that will make students fearful or suspicious of their local law enforcement officers,” Sheridan said. “The men and women who wear the uniform in Arizona, are among the bravest and most noble public servants in this great state. Many are first responders, who put their lives on the line each day to keep our youth and our communities safe.”
Horne cited several examples of what he called the “unbalanced political propaganda” in the text: “U.S. History Interactive” by the Savvas Learning Company.
“At page 1033: ‘many people, including Black Lives Matter activists argued that these separate events as Well, as well as the death of many Black people in earlier years was the result of deeply embedded racism.’ Nothing was said about what other people may be saying. Other people do not believe that racism is deeply embedded in the United States.”
“On the same page referring to the 2020 riots: protest marches were generally peaceful Horne pointed out that ‘we’ve all seen the video on television of a reporter saying that surrounded by burning buildings and attacks on police cars.’”
“At page 1025, referring to the incident at Ferguson: ‘one witness claimed that before being shot, Brown had raised his hands and said ‘don’t shoot!’ Horne pointed out: ‘To his everlasting credit, Eric Holder, the first African American United States Attorney General in history, conducted an objective investigation, and concluded that officer Wilson shot Ferguson in self-defense. Limiting the discussion to what one witness said was extremely misleading.’”
“At page 1026: ‘a basic tenet of democracy is that power should belong to the people. But what can people try if they feel they’re not being heard or if they live under an authoritarian system? Civil resistance, encompasses a broad range of lawful and nonviolent action aimed at returning power to the people. Use this video as a brief introduction.’
Horne pointed out: “the United States is a Democratic Republic. We do not have a monarch. Officials are elected by a vote of the people. This gives everyone the opportunity, if they disagree with what the government is doing, to campaign for the election of someone else. That is the solution to disagree with government policy. Students are being encouraged by the video to engage in civil resistance to a democratically elected government. The suggestion in this quotation that the United States is an authority system is a woke lie.“
“From Page 167: ‘renovations and improvements conforming to middle-class preferences has driven up the demand for housing and the cost of living in these neighborhoods, making it difficult for less affluent more vulnerable LGBTQUI plus populations to live there’.” Horne replied: “I will not comment on what QUIA plus means, but the suggestion that LGBT people are financially oppressed is extremely misleading. Many LGBT People are quite prosperous. The median income for men in same-sex marriages is $149,900. The median income for men in opposite sex married couples is $124,900.”
Horne also cited issues with a human geography book also used by SUSD: “APHUG 5: Human Geography: A Spatial Perspective, Bednarz et al., Cengage, 2022”
The text states: “Republican lawmakers in some states have packed African-American voters into a single district or small number of districts thereby creating majority Republican districts in the rest of the state.’”
Horne’s response was incredulous: “This was a civil rights project of the Democratic Party. The goal was to assure minority representation in Congress. The Republican Party had nothing to do with it.”
According to AZFamily, Scottsdale Superintendent Scott Menzel rejected Horne’s assessment saying, “To label them woke without having ever read what was the 1,250 pages in the textbook is a problem from my perspective.” Horne replied to reporters that he had read all the passages he quoted. Menzel claimed that content experts reviewed the text and made an informed recommendation conforming to Arizona state standards.
“We would never adopt a curriculum that was anti-police,” Menzel told reporters. “We do have historically situations where some people argue that we should defund the police. Here in Arizona we had people who removed school resource officers. That’s not something that we would ever contemplate, but from a historical perspective our students should be able to wrestle with why someone might have made that argument.”
In a statement released SUSD said, “Horne’s claims of indoctrination and a so-called ‘leftist curriculum being imposed’ on students are simply untrue and unsupported by fact,” without refuting the examples cited by Horne.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
