By Corinne Hogseth
Tonight (April 28, 2021) is the first of two planned workshops to be run by Visions, Inc. Visions is part of the cottage industry that has sprung up to profit on the unrest across the country, much of it driven by anti-racist organizations pushing critical race theory into our government and our schools. More information can be found here.
A great deal of secrecy surrounds these meetings. We already have Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) committees in both towns and an assistant superintendent of DEI, who is also the 4th highest paid employee in the school district. (Ironically, she is also a white woman from Acton. So much for diversity.) So, with all these local “experts”, why are we spending nearly $5,000 for these external consultants?
How were the participants selected? They include:
- the School Committee chair who bullied them all into a rushed vote to kill the Colonial, which precipitated the rupture in our community,
- the two so-called victims from the school committee,
- the superintendent of schools,
- the heads of Acton and Boxborough DEI Committees,
- various appointed and elected officials,
- some former committee members and local clergy.
There is no one on this list I recognize as even moderately right-of-center, so clearly there was no intent to hear voices from across the ideological spectrum. There was no open invitation to the public for participants. Clearly, the lack of ideological diversity on the panel is part of the plan. They were hand-selected, but by whom?
Why the secrecy? No public participation, no public viewing, no recording? The contract, signed by Peter Light but the cost split between the towns and the district, would seem to prohibit the sharing of any of the materials provided by Visions to the participants. How will the taxpayers know if we got our money’s worth? How will we evaluate this vendor?
Finally, and most importantly, what is the OBJECTIVE of this meeting? From ramming thru the decision to kill the Colonial to posting libelous, incendiary and hateful comments all over local Facebook pages, roughly half of the participants are guilty of CAUSING the problems in this town. If you disagree with a black woman, you’re a racist. If you disagree with a rabbi, you’re an anti-Semite. How are these people to be trusted to set the tone for any conversations going forward in this town?
With the impactful letter written by Simon Li as he resigned from the Acton DEIC, it would seem there’s a lot of disagreement over what D, E and I even mean. One thing is clear, though. The more attention given to DEI, the less tolerance there is for diversity of opinion or inclusion of anyone who doesn’t hew to the hateful, illiberal rhetoric spewed by the local Facebook mob who waged a campaign of disinformation to impact the recent election for the Acton Select Board. The Town should not spend one nickel of taxpayer money to fund anything related to so-called diversity, equity, or inclusion until the objectives are clearly defined and determined to be necessary by Town Meeting.
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