Parents Defending Education, a national parents group supported by some Wellesley families, has followed up a May civil rights complaint against Wellesley Public Schools filed with the U.S. Department of Education with a federal lawsuit (embedded below) reemphasizing concerns about the school system’s approach to handling racial and bias issues.
The group seeks to end the practice of affinity groups that it says exclude students and staff based on race and ethnicity. WPS has stood by affinity groups.
The suit also takes aim at Wellesley Public Schools’ bias incident reporting policy, claiming this puts a chilling effect on free speech and allows students to police others.
Parents Defending Education has filed complaints elsewhere in the country, and encourages people to submit incident reports with it.
The lawsuit grabbed the attention of national media, including the Wall Street Journal, which published an editorial titled “Woke Wellesley Public Schools.”
A new local group called Wellesley Concerned Parents highlights the same issues as those included in the lawsuit, and describes itself as an organization focused on “restoring academic excellence & freedom” to a school system that “has become a shell of its former self.”
