North Cook News

New Trier Township High School will hold an All-School Seminar Day during February, though some of the scheduled workshops are causing a bit of controversy -- and bringing up an important question about what diversity actually means.

Laurie Higgins, a writer at the Illinois Family Institute, wrote an article titled, “New Trier High School Avoids Diversity Like The Plague.”

In her article, she gives examples of some of the seminars being offered that focus on minorities and gender issues, but she also points out what is missing from these seminars that claim to be about diversity. Higgins told North Cook News she believes the conservative voice is missing.

Laurie Higgins says educational views that do not follow the progressive narrative are often not accepted. | File photo

“The seminar organizers should include resources from both progressive and conservative resources for each of the topics, spending approximately equal time on both perspectives,” Higgins said. “For example, they could include resources from Thomas Sowell, Carol Swain, Shelby Steele, Jason Riley and Heather MacDonald, all of whom are well-respected scholars who write about race."

Sowell, Swain, Steele and Riley are black.

Higgins worked as an educator for years. During that time, she came to understand that conservative voices are often censored.

“I describe the type of censorship that occurs in public schools on a number of controversial cultural issues as de facto censorship,” she said. “Conservatives both in schools and in communities at large are vilified into silence for criticizing such de facto censorship.”

Higgins thinks views that do not follow the progressive narrative are often not accepted, and dissenting views are not given equal time in academia. Progressives and conservatives look at social issues in different ways and they see solutions to those issues differently, as well.

“Conservatives and progressives disagree about many things regarding how to begin to improve both the challenging conditions many minorities face and how to improve race relations,” Higgins said. “Conservatives and progressives hold different assumptions about gender dysphoria and how society should respond to those who suffer from it. These views are silenced by 'progressive' ideologues in public schools because they disagree and they control schools. They silence dissent through ad hominem attacks on conservative views and conservatives.”

Students' views are supposed to be challenged in school. They should be introduced to multiple viewpoints, some that agree with their own and others that don’t. When talking about diversity in school, Higgins believes there should be a place for all views.

“When challenged about such lack of ideological diversity, progressives often argue that students are free to disagree,” she said. “But that’s not the issue. The issue is are conservative students entitled to have their views informed and reinforced by the voices of experts, or it that an opportunity reserved for just progressive students? Will only the views of conservative students be challenged by the voices of experts, or will the views of progressive students be challenged as well?”