An Ohio school district’s decision to cancel Diversity Day celebrations—twice—has sparked a bitter feud in the suburban community, leaving students and parents asking why white school board members continue to press pause on the celebration.
Diversity Day has been an annual event in the Forest Hills School District—a Cincinnati suburb—since 2017, Fox19 Cincinnati reported. It was originally scheduled for March of the current school year, but was postponed to May 18 due to a permission slip issue and “parent review,” according to Fox19.
Then at a meeting last Sunday, the school board chose to move the event again—but without a new date.
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“Employees were told that it had been canceled but not told why. This requires an explanation,” community member Kenny Bierschenk wrote under an unrelated post on the Forest Hills School District Facebook page.
“How to tell people you are racist without saying it,” another community member responded.
During the crowded meeting Sunday, school board members, with the exception of only one who declined to participate in the vote, opposed Turpin High School’s Diversity Day, expressing hesitations about the day happening during school hours and being funded with taxpayer dollars.
“I would like to see this offered to everybody either on the weekend or outside of school time, not on the taxpayer dime,” said board member Sara Jonas. “This day is for students to basically examine their privilege and to become aware of their own microaggressions and implicit bias, and focus on black and white race relations.”
Jonas equated the activities that would be presented on Diversity Day to Critical Race Theory and discredited an exercise that had students “step to the line” if they could relate to various racial-socio-economic scenarios.
“‘Has any woman or man in your family, including yourself, ever been physically or sexually assaulted in any way?’” Jonas read from the exercise. “To me, I don’t understand how this is the business of students, staff, or leaders in this exercise. And it’s also important to note that one of the guest speakers on their mission statement is, ‘Unite and ignite people for racial justice.’ How is this not political indoctrination to the students?”
After the room of mostly white attendees applauded, board member Linda Hausfeld read what she said was a student testimony that criticized Diversity Day as an extra credit opportunity that “academically penalizes those whose parents do not grant permission.”
Board members claimed that the permission slip issue cited as the reason for the initial cancellation did not give accurate descriptions of the event.
“You all lied about the reason for interfering with Diversity Day. You said it was because of the process…that people didn’t have enough information on the permission slips,” said Dr. Leslie Rasmussen, a Latina and the only board member to dissent with canceling the celebration. She claimed that students didn’t need any special permission for other events, and board members never had to approve other similar activities.
“There is no way I’d ever touch Diversity Day,” she said.
Rasmussen cited testimony that she said came from a Black student, who said that postponing the celebration made him feel unworthy to be part of the school district. She slammed board members for their lack of professionalism in canceling the event so close to the day, and she questioned how inviting guides from Cincinnati’s Freedom Center to speak about the nation’s history of enslavement and abolition was political. She argued other board members’ views of the celebration as overly political was another form of indoctrination as they were pushing their dislike of diversity on students by not teaching them about it.
Board members eventually voted to ban Diversity Day from being held during school hours and from utilizing public funds, according to Local12 Cincinnati. However, on Monday, WCPO9 Cincinnati reported dozens of students and parents protested the decision.
“It's just been a whole disregard of the effort put in by students and that passion that we have,” Turpin High School student Casey Lupariello told WCPO. “The day itself is only focused on reflecting on how diversity looks in our lives and how it looks outside of the Turpin High School/Cincinnati bubble, giving students a much more informed way of issues regarding diversity in the real world.”
Community members also took to social media to slam the decision to pull Diversity Day.
“You should be ashamed. [Forest Hills] is dead set on making its schools a hostile environment for minority children. This would not make me feel welcome if I were a minority in FHSD,” a Twitter user wrote.
“If the Forest Hills School Board in Anderson Township thinks that they can cancel Diversity Day at Turpin High School without any backlash, they are sorely mistaken!” another user tweeted.
“[Forest Hills School District] school board has shamed every student in the district,” another community member tweeted. “Banning diversity is pathetic. Hopefully the students at Turpin High School will protest this decision and these 4 school board members. They should all resign.”
Forest Hills School District has not released a public comment about protests against the board’s vote. However, in a statement to The Daily Beast, the district said it stands by the board’s decision that “Racial Diversity Day at Turpin High School shall not proceed during school hours and shall not be conducted or further organized during school hours or through the use of school or taxpayer resources.”
