This is an opinion cartoon.
Diversity, adversity. Whatever. These two words are easily confused in Mountain Brook.
The problem with teacher anti-bias training, according to some parents in Alabama’s wealthiest, most segregated suburb, is that there’s way too much talk about gender and race. It’s ... uncomfortable.
Related: Mountain Brook backtracks on anti-bias training after parent criticism leads to critical race theory
Excerpts from Rebecca Griesbach’s report:
For at least a year, Mountain Brook administrators, educators and students have tried to implement diversity programming in their six schools following anti-Semitic events.
But over the summer, a vocal group of parents have pushed back against teacher anti-bias training, saying it focused too much on race and gender, and is linked to an organization with what they called politically controversial views, the Anti-Defamation League.
Mountain Brook is the state’s wealthiest suburb, and its schools, founded during a period of segregation in Jefferson County, have earned spots as among the most segregated in America. Its most recent debate about teacher training has now became entangled with a national conversation about critical race theory -- an academic concept not taught in any Alabama K-12 schools nor included in the Mountain Brook training, but which has become associated with diversity and anti-bias training in schools.
Read more: Critical race theory isn’t taught in Alabama schools. So why are we talking about it?
Some community members said they fear that this controversy will worsen depictions of the town and deter more Jewish families and families of color from living there.
Allison Padilla-Goodman, a regional organizer for the Anti-Defamation League, which has helped implement Mountain Brook’s diversity training, told AL.com the training is used by hundreds of schools across the country, including 42 in Huntsville. The backlash was the strongest she’d seen from any district, she said, and as of Sunday, it was the only district in the nation she’d seen end a partnership with the organization during her time working with them.
“What has happened in Mountain Brook over the past several weeks is by far the biggest, disappointing experience we’ve had with the school district in my history with the ADL,” she said. “I feel like they’ve made the decision to kind of live with the hate in their district and to not do anything about it.”
Related: Critical race theory and the whitewashed elephant in the classroom
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JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix.
