Michele Exner, of Parents Defending Education, says the organization submitted public information requests in an attempt to uncover where race-based questions are being used in a school district's human resources department.
It found examples of DEI-related hiring practices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington state.
In the Poudre School District, in northern Colorado, a job applicant can expect two DEI-related questions (pictured at top) during the interview from a bank of nine questions. Those questions are sprinkled with phrases such as “implicit bias,” “anti-racism,” and “microaggression,” which presumably must be answered correctly in order to be considered for a job.
"We have found that there are at least 20 school districts from around the country that use ideological training and race-based preferences in their hiring/retention practices," Exner tells AFN.
Exner says Parents Defending Education opposes DEI-related hiring and promotions because that process attempts to fill quotas in a classroom instead of hiring the best teachers for the school.
Exner, who is black, says she finds it “demeaning” that a public school would view her skin color as a reason she qualifies for a job opening.
“That is an insult to people like me,” she says, “and I think the many minorities out there as well."
Under the rules of DEI ideology, however, Exner might get a interview as a potential minority hire at Poudre only to be turned down if she gives an unacceptable answer to the nine questions, such as “What does anti-racism mean to you?”
For an HR person trained in DEI, that seemingly simple question can be used to screen applicants who are unfamiliar with “not racist” vs. “anti-racist.” A person trained in DEI ideology, however, would know the acceptable answer a fellow ideologue is looking for.
