A leader of a parent advocacy group gave a fiery speech Thursday, slamming school board members for letting activism overshadow education in local schools.
Asra Nomani, vice president of Parents Defending Education and mother of a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), took the floor at a Thursday meeting of the Fairfax School Board.
Nomani accused the school board of pushing indoctrination on students at the county’s public schools through the critical race theory and calling the “mostly minority students and parents” racists and “toxic” for voicing their objections. She also lamented the board’s vote to remove the “merit-based race-blind admissions test to TJ.”
I spoke from my heart to the @fcpsnews school board. Watch board chair Ricardy Anderson rage at me. Didn’t she get the memo that watching the clock is “white supremacy”? She reveals the board’s true anti-Asian animus. @ricardy4Mason, YOUR time has expired.
“I sent a note to every single one of you, and I got not a single response,” Nomani said, referring to her June 2020 message to the board members, in which she alerted them to a so-called “Occupy TJ” movement. “There was no concern about our students at that time.”
“We pled with you, as Asians, as an immigrant. I came [to the U.S.] at the age of four,” Nomani continued. “You didn’t listen to us. And now I sit here listening to these empty proclamations… about your great value of Asian-Americans.”
“Our students were told that if they do salsa dancing, it amounts to cultural appropriation and that they needed to check their racism. And that is our mostly minority, mostly Asian students,” Nomani said. “So, your empty proclamations are just that.” (RELATED: Virginia’s Largest Public School Asks Parents In ‘Anti-Racism’ Survey Whether It Should Teach Students To ‘Challenge Power And Privilege In Society’)
Nomani proceeded to blast a board member for comment about removing “the one policy that parents have to defend their students from indoctrination,” apparently referring to the school board’s Controversial Issues Policy that requires presentation of both sides of an issue when teaching controversial topics.
“If you have to remove a policy like that, how can you possibly be doing anything good?” Nomani inquired.
The parent was interrupted by Ricardy Anderson, the board chair, who ordered her to go to her seat, saying, “your time has expired!”
Nomani later tweeted, reminding Anderson of a memo, circulated before the meeting, which stated that watching the clock was rooted in “white supremacy.”