A controversial day-long racial seminar, "Understanding Today’s Struggles for Racial Civil Rights," at New Trier High School, has caught the attention of a Chicago-based public-interest litigation center's president.
"Our goal is to stop governments from taking away peoples' rights," Liberty Justice Center President Pat Hughes said during a recent edition of the conservative radio talk show Illinois Rising. "I've actually started to take a hard look at this from a legal perspective and whether what New Trier is doing is incorrect legally. People need to stand up against this type of indoctrination."
Hughes, who was acting as co-host with Dan Proft on the radio show, said he has two high school-aged children. "I would never, never allow them to participate in this," Hughes said. "Never. Because it's political indoctrination."
That was the oft-repeated opinion of many among the approximately 800 people who attended the New Trier High School board meeting Monday, Feb. 20, in the high school's auditorium, where the Feb. 28 racial seminar was on the agenda. ABC 7 Eyewitness News reported that so many attended the meeting that the local fire marshal was called in.
Many opponents attending the board meeting complained that the mandatory seminar is too liberal and fails to provide a conservative voice. Opponents of the seminar have set up a website and two petitions are circulating to allow students to opt out if their parents approve.
Ahead of the meeting, school Superintendent Linda Yonke issued a statement saying the seminar provides opportunities to study race in-depth.
"We respect that there are different views about how best to talk about issues concerning race, but we are confident that the keynote speeches, a common lesson led by faculty members, and attendance at two of the more than 100 workshop sessions offered will provide our students with a positive experience that examines issues from multiple perspectives," Yonke said in her statement.
The controversy had already been at a low simmer for weeks before the board meeting and was creeping into national headlines. A Wall Street Journal editorial published Feb. 17 ran with the headline "It’s Racial Indoctrination Day at an Upscale Chicagoland School".
Seminars of this type have been happening on campuses for a while, Hughes said during his remarks on Illinois Rising.
"If you look at the political affiliation of the people running this, they're all Democrats, trying to indoctrinate 16-, 17- and 18-year-old kids who are either voters or are going to be voters into a leftist cause and, frankly, a political party cause, a Democrat cause," Hughes said. "And I think what's happening here, it's great that the parents are standing up."
Hughes and Proft are co-founders of the Illinois Opportunity Project. Proft, in addition to hosting Illinois Rising, is Liberty Principles PAC chairperson and treasurer, as well as a senior fellow at the Chicago-based conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute. Illinois Rising is a presentation of the Illinois Policy Institute.
Hughes said he's not convinced that the New Trier High School seminar is legal. "I think there's a chance here that it's violating the rights of the parents and the kids," he said.
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