Newton North High’s student mentorship program latest target of national group
A Virginia-based conservative group has filed another civil rights lawsuit with the US Department of Education against a public school in Massachusetts.
In the March 14 complaint, Parents Defending Education alleges that a student mentoring program at Newton North High School called Dover Legacy Scholars is discriminatory because it allegedly only serves students of certain races.
The program, which has been in operation since at least 2014, is named for Inez E. Dover, Secretary of the Arts at Myrtle Baptist Church in West Newton, who is being celebrated for her work “to promote excellence and engagement among children of color in the Newton community inspire schools.”
Attached to PDE’s complaint is a screenshot of a previous description of the program on Newton North High’s website. The description invites program participants who are “Black, African American, or Hispanic ethnicity” and have at least a B-minus average in class.
However, no such description was found on the high school’s website as of Monday. The current page mentions staff mentors, academic seminars, minimum academic requirements for participation, and that the program is “designed to build community and support one another’s success.”
“It is clear that this affinity group is not open to all students attending Newton North High School,” the group claims in its complaint, urging federal education officials to investigate.
In an email to WBUR, Kathleen Smith – Newton’s interim superintendent – said she could not comment until completing a review of the Dover Legacy Scholars program.
The latest filing is part of Parents Defending Education’s ongoing legal campaign against school districts across the country against student affinity groups, diversity initiatives and what the group calls “classroom indoctrination.”
Much of the latest complaint is copied verbatim from another federal complaint the group filed against Newton North High last October for producing a stage show that highlighted stories by black and Hispanic students.
The same legal arguments appear again in the PDE’s February lawsuit against The Calculus Project, an advanced math and mentoring program at Milton Public Schools. This program, its administrators said, is open to students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, although it caters to Black and Latinx students.
Elizabeth Simpson, a sixth-grade teacher and vice president of the Newton Teachers Association, says the spate of recent complaints is creating a “culture of fear” among her peers, particularly in high schools.
“Teachers ask themselves, ‘Will the classes I teach be questioned? Will I be next with my face up? FoxNews?’” Simpson said.
Schools across the country have come under attack from politicians and conservatives in recent years, from lesson plans and reading assignments to Pride flags hanging in classrooms.
Some parents in Newton — an affluent, majority-white borough — say they are alarmed at the extent to which the diversity program is under attack.
For Sana Fadel, mother of three in the district, it seems like the local manifestation of a national culture war. She specifically cited the “anti-wake” and “don’t say gay” policies favored by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“We can’t just be smug and say … ‘We’re in Massachusetts, we’re not Florida,'” Fadel said. “This is happening in our cities.”
Alison Lobron – who has two children in the district, including a daughter in Newton North – says the PDE complaints are “troubling”. “People from outside Newton who have such good intentions are using these programs to advance their political agenda,” she said.
Lobron added that the complaints “create doubt and conversation where there shouldn’t be.” For example, she noted that Lost & Found, the show at the center of the PDE’s October complaint, was open to white students despite suggestions to the contrary by the group.
The Newton School Committee may discuss this latest filing and other concerns during a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, March 28 at 6 p.m