Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) has sent a letter to the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System (CMCSS) concerning a recent presentation promoted to staff about using Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to connect with students.
.@cmcssinfo owes transparency at the very least. Parents need to know what kind of learning environment CMCSS is fostering. https://t.co/5QjYaiEhKK
— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) August 14, 2023
Last month, CMCSS hosted its annual ENGAGE professional development conference in July, which included a seminar titled, “The World Needs More Purple People.”
The seminar included a presentation about how people who are white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, or Christian are considered “privileged” while people of color and those who are nonbinary, polyamorous, or pagan are “oppressed.”
The presentation also included a section which suggested there can be “trauma from language.”
The seminar also provided educators with a reading list that included the books such as “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,” the “SAFE SPACE – A Guide to Supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual KIT and Transgender Students in Your School,” “The Racial Healing Handbook,” “Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth,” and “I Take My Coffee Black.”
In a letter to Dr. Jean Luna-Vedder, the Director of Schools at CMCSS, Green compared the teachings in the seminar to “divisive CRT ideologies.”
“This type of divisive indoctrination is completely unacceptable, Green wrote. “Elementary and secondary schools are not a place for forcing political ideology upon educators and students; telling them that using words like “mommy” or “Christmas” could cause trauma is utterly ridiculous”
“The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System owes parents transparency and answers. Parents must know what kind of learning environment CMCSS is fostering for their children. Tennessee parents want their kids to learn the fundamentals: reading, writing, and arithmetic. They certainly do not want their children to be indoctrinated with pseudo-history and radical social justice theories,” Green added.
Green continued, saying he was “concerned by the lack of action CMCSS has taken and its failure to unequivocally renounce this seminar and the racist ideology of CRT.”
Green concluded by requesting answers from the school district to seven questions no later than September 1, 2023.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Rep Mark Green” by Rep. Mark Green.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a real conservative governor for a change? Mark Green for Governor ’26.
Thank you Representative Greene. The key to this is Funding. Where are the funds coming from ti indoctrinate such hate in our children?
My guess would be the Federal Dept of Indoctrination (aka Education). Us the money funneled through State Grants? If so, our Legislature should rescind the money. The Federal Department of Ed should be abolished in the appropriations process.
We appreciate what you are exposing. Now defund it please.
We are being attacked from all sides.