Anti-white language tweaked after civil rights complaints against Harvard, WA school district

Washington's Evergreen State College, in the state capital of Olympia, endured a years-long slide after it pressured white employees to leave campus for a "Day of Absence" in 2017, soon followed by campus police warning a resistant professor they couldn't guarantee his safety and student vigilantes wandering campus with bats and batons.

The tumult not only cost the quirky alma mater of The Simpsons creator Matt Groening a half-million dollar settlement with white faculty, who alleged it "permitted, cultivated and perpetuated a racially hostile and retaliatory work environment," but may have cratered new enrollment and tanked its presidential search years later.

Now a neighboring school district risks becoming the K-12 counterpart to the Evergreen State, accused of racially segregating employees for a second year in a row following a legal warning that the action violates Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 14th Amendment and 2023 Supreme Court precedent Students for Fair Admissions.

"Unlike the prior year," North Thurston Public Schools "did not post a public flyer" for its scheduled Dec. 8 "Educators of Color Gathering," the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism told the Education Department in a civil rights complaint last week. 

Rather, "it sent a private email only to employees of color and relied on selective, informal word-of-mouth distribution," concealing the event from "general staff," FAIR said.

By excluding employees from "professional and community-building opportunities on the basis of race" and "foster[ing] division among staff," the district created an environment that "normalizes" segregation and "undermines equal access to district-sponsored benefits."

FAIR learned of the repeated racial exclusion, a sequel to November 2024's publicized "Educators of Color" event, when "multiple non-'staff of color' employees reported to FAIR that they believed they were excluded from the event," the group told supporters Friday.

"By proceeding with racially exclusive events after receiving legal guidance, the district normalized discrimination and undermined equal treatment principles that civil rights laws protect," FAIR said. Using private invitations "suggests awareness of wrongdoing, which made the violation even more egregious."

The group noted it's launching an "Educators Alliance" that will host monthly meetings to "foster schools that are more enriching and free from bias for students and educators."

The district did not respond to queries from Just the News for its response to the letter. FAIR did not answer whether it may seek to represent members in the district in a racial discrimination lawsuit, which could seek to strip administrators of qualified immunity from personal liability for violating clearly established law in SFFA.

Harvard, the losing party in SFFA, is facing a much higher profile civil rights complaint regarding a scholarship limited to "historically marginalized communities" that was created jointly by its law school's Center for Labor and a Just Economy, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and Jerry Wurf Memorial Fund.

The Equal Protection Project, founded by Cornell law professor William Jacobson, said the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is already "evaluating EPP’s Complaint for further action," even though the request is dated Sunday.

The Union Scholars program, created in 2003, is administered by AFSCME but Harvard "partners in, promotes, and provides institutional support" for it, the complaint says. Orientation is on campus and "includes training sessions led by Harvard-affiliated labor educators."

The summer program provides a $4,800 stipend, $6,000 need-based scholarship, paid housing and travel "among other benefits" for 10 students a year.

AFSCME changed the scholarship page Monday, a day after the complaint was filed. 

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which uses Greenwich Mean Time, shows the page limited the program to "students of color" as of 9:28 a.m. Eastern, but the phrase was replaced by "historically marginalized communities" – not inherently racial, and legally more defensible — by 4:58 p.m.

According to a New York Post article posted at 6 a.m. Monday, the program's AFSCME page used the phrase "students of color." AFSCME did not answer queries asking why it changed the page after the Post report, which said AFSCME didn't answer its own query.

EPP's complaint includes a screenshot from the original page, which uses "students of color," and notes a different nonprofit's page for the 2023 program also describes eligibility that way, but the complaint also links an AFSCME careers page that limits eligibility to "historically marginalized communities" and has not changed since at least late April.

"Considering that Harvard litigated the issue of race-based admissions all the way to the Supreme Court and lost, prompt and aggressive DOJ action is warranted … if necessary, imposing fines, initiating administrative proceedings to suspend or terminate federal financial assistance" and taking Harvard to court, the complaint says.

'Open to all staff members ... with an extract focus' on nonwhites

The southern end of the Puget Sound has flown under the radar relative to its northern neighbors in the Seattle area when it comes to cultural flashpoints in public schools, but it has also attracted unwelcome attention in the current administration.

The Education Department issued an enforcement letter against suburban Olympia's Tumwater School District this February based on FAIR's Title IX complaint on behalf of a female basketball player for letting a male compete against her, causing her to sit out the game and endure "intimidation and retaliation" for opposing males in girls' sports.

The district's school board actually approved a resolution the day before the feds' enforcement letter to amend Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules to create a "boys/open division" for all student athletes and a "girls category" based on sex.

Eastern Washington school districts sought federal intervention this spring to protect themselves from state rules including WIAA's that require them to flout President Trump's executive orders on gender ideology and hence risk federal funding. 

The state's reigning Democrats legislatively reversed a successful parents' bill of rights initiative this year, prompting a recent lawsuit by its proponents alleging the statute is unconstitutional and unlawfully strips parents of their right to know and make decisions about their children’s education and welfare, not limited to gender identity.

FAIR's case page for the complaint against North Thurston Public Schools includes its Nov. 20, 2024, warning to Superintendent Troy Oliver about the next day's Educators of Color event and Administrative Specialist Shawna Kiliz's Nov. 12, 2025, email on behalf of Director of Equity and Languages Antonio Sandifer, inviting "staff of color" in bold to a party.

FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris's 2024 warning notes the district's internal email invitation gets even more specific, specifying that all "BIPOC" – black, indigenous and people of color – educators should be invited. An "Equity Department" flyer also repeatedly emphasizes the event is for "educators of color."

Decided a year and half earlier, SFFA signaled "the beginning of the end for any form of differential treatment based on race," even if the district's purpose is providing "a space for employees to share common experiences and foster understanding," which ironically is likely to "reinforce stereotypes and contribute to division among employees," she said.

Kiliz's 2025 email is addressed to "Administrators, Teachers, Paraeducators, Office Professionals, Bus Drivers, Custodians, Maintenance Staff, Food Service Team Members, and all NTPS Staff of Color," in language that seems more cautious than the 2024 invitation.

"We would like to extend a personal invitation to our staff of color to join us for an evening of food, fun, and community-building event [sic]," she wrote. The end clarifies: "This event is open to all staff members in the NTPS with an extract focus [sic] on staff members of color."

Harris's letter to the Education Department last week doesn't parse the language between the 2024 and 2025 invitations.

"NTPS organized and promoted racially segregated staff events in 2024 and 2025 that invited only employees 'of color' … funded with public resources and held on district property," she wrote. The new invitation "failed to revise, rename, or open the event to all employees as FAIR urged" and left non-color staff "uninformed or believing they were excluded."

DOE's Office for Civil Rights should open a formal investigation into the past year's "race-exclusive staff events" and require it to cease "all racially segregated events, programs, or invitations" and revise policies to open all district events to employees without regard to race, Harris wrote in the letter. 

It should require administrators and Equity & Languages staff to undergo training on Title VI and Title VII compliance, require the district "to issue a corrective notice to all staff acknowledging that such events were unlawful and will not continue" and implement measures "ensuring transparency and nondiscrimination in all future staff programming."