A U.S.-based tutoring company on Tuesday pushed back against a conservative campaign to “destroy” it due to security fears over its Chinese owner.

In a posted online, said the parents’ rights group in recent months has misrepresented its operations, falsely claiming it has ties to the Chinese government. The company, based in New York, said the parents’ group is trying to persuade lawmakers and others that Tutor.com “is somehow a puppet of the Chinese government and a threat to national security,” according to the letter. 

Founded two decades ago, Tutor.com was acquired in 2022 by , a Beijing-based investment firm in Hong Kong, Singapore and Palo Alto, Calif. In the letter to attorneys representing Parents Defending Education, the company said the parents’ group has chosen to portray Tutor.com “as a stalking horse to advance the advocacy group’s broader political agenda.”

The effort by Parents Defending Education both echoes and influences a larger one by lawmakers nationwide to raise security concerns about companies linked to China, including fears that they could be compelled to share student data with the Chinese government.

But John Calvello, Tutor.com’s spokesperson and chief institutional officer, said the fears are misplaced.

“First and foremost, it’s important to say: We are an American company,” he said in an interview. “I want to be very clear about that. And again, as an American company, you have to abide by all U.S laws and regulations.”

Tutor.com, Calvello said, “cannot be compelled to share data” with anyone.

He noted that it had recently undergone a voluntary review by the federal , which found, in his words, “no unresolved national security concerns.”

He also said the company has a designated security officer approved by the U.S. government to ensure data security compliance. And he said all of Tutor.com’s data is housed in the United States. 

According to the watchdog site , states, school districts, colleges and even the Pentagon have spent more than $35 million on contracts with Tutor.com over the past decade. Among the largest: nearly $1.6 million in 2015 for online homework tutoring for the U.S. Defense Department and $1.1 million in 2022 for tutoring at California State East Bay.

Following the pandemic, state and school district spending on Tutor.com, as with other tutoring providers, skyrocketed. In December, the New Hampshire Department of Education said it would through Tutor.com to every student in fourth- through twelfth grades, as well as to those prepping for GED exams. 

But many lawmakers have also sought to minimize China’s influence in both K-12 and higher education.

After Congress in 2018 targeted the nearly 100 Confucius Institutes on U.S. college campuses, restricting federal funding at schools with programs, their number dropped to fewer than five, according to a 2023 U.S. Government Accountability Office . 

In 2024, lawmakers are seeking to ban TikTok due to the social media application’s Chinese ownership. Primavera is a minority investor in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. ByteDance also owns the AI-powered homework helper .

But Tutor.com has been the subject of much of the scrutiny around student data. In February, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, Lloyd Austin, saying the Pentagon’s relationship with Tutor.com is “ill-advised, reckless, and a danger to U.S. national security.”

Cotton said the Pentagon should end its dealings with the company, suggesting that students’ personal data, such as location, IP addresses and the contents of tutoring sessions, could be released to the Chinese government. He said the U.S. is “paying to expose our military and their children’s private information to the Chinese Communist Party.”

In March, Manny Diaz, Jr., Florida’s commissioner of education, to public K-12 and higher education leaders statewide, saying Tutor.com’s ties to “foreign countries of concern” may compromise student data privacy. Diaz said the State Board of Education had adopted rules to protect student data “to keep it out of the hands of bad actors,” adding that school districts, charter schools and state colleges “must take the necessary steps to protect their students from nefarious foreign actors such as the Chinese Communist Party.”

And last month, 13 lawmakers, led by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, saying Tutor.com “poses a significant national security threat.” They asked what measures the department had taken to assess “the potential national security risks associated with Tutor.com’s relationship.”

A spokesperson for Cardona did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Neily recently that Tutor.com’s Chinese ties are “something that just seemed to have slipped past the goalies.”

During a segment on the company, the show’s host alleged that providers like Tutor.com can gather data from even the youngest students and “adapt what they need to teach these kids to make sure they’re good, functional little robots.” He asked Neily, “Is that the plan?” 

She replied, “That very much seems to be the plan,” adding, “Let’s be honest, this data is not being secured by America’s best and brightest.”

Neily did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tutor.com’s Calvello said much of the alarm around the company’s Chinese ties stems from the parents’ group, which he said has been “promoting falsehoods” that lawmakers and others have amplified. As a result, he said, a few school districts have been under pressure to drop the service, with critics quoting the parents’ group’s materials. 

“We’re prepared to pursue legal avenues to protect our reputation and operations from false claims,” he said.

With schools continuing to find themselves caught in emotional debates over students’ access to controversial books, the U.S. Department of Education has hired a new official to oversee its response to content challenges and take action if it finds that removing materials violated students’ civil rights.  

Matt Nosanchuk, a former Obama administration official and nonprofit leader whose work has focused on the Jewish and LGBTQ communities, started his job Monday as a deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights. In the coming weeks, he’ll lead training sessions for schools and libraries on the shifting legal landscape related to restricting books available to students. The American Library Association will host the  Sept. 26.

“Across the country, communities are seeing a rise in efforts to ban books — efforts that are often designed to empty libraries and classrooms of literature about LGBTQ people, people of color, people of faith, key historical events and more,” a department official said in an email to reporters Thursday. “These efforts are a threat to student’s rights and freedoms.”

The move comes as conservative groups continue to push for the removal of books they argue are inappropriate for students and GOP leaders take action against districts with books that include sexual content or discuss historical racism. 

“The Department of Education has decided to lawlessly leverage its civil rights enforcement power to coerce school districts into keeping pornography in their libraries,” said Max Eden, a research fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. 

, an advocacy organization, found almost 1,500 instances of book bans affecting 874 unique titles last school year. In many cases, parents complained that the books were too advanced or graphic for younger readers. But civil rights officials say removing a book just because it has LGBTQ characters or discusses racial violence is a form of discrimination.

In a first-of-its-kind resolution in May, the department found that a Georgia district may have created a “hostile environment” when it withdrew several books with LGBTQ and Black characters following parent complaints. The agreement required the Forsyth County Schools to notify students of its library book review process and survey middle and high school students about harassment based on race or sex and whether they feel comfortable reporting it. 

Some parent leaders applauded the appointment. 

“Leadership and energy on this has been a long time coming,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. She hopes “to see real action and resources for children, parents and families who have been caught in the crossfire of this hate-filled political campaign for far too long.”

In Florida, for example, a new states that districts must remove books that contain “sexual conduct” if the material is determined to be inappropriate. Those who disagree with a district’s decision to keep a book on the shelves can ask for a review by a special magistrate.

“That’s one more level of control from the state to overturn what they don’t like,” said Melissa Erickson, executive director of Alliance for Public Schools, a nonprofit. She’s expressed concerns about the ability of conservative-leaning school boards to dictate what’s taught in the classroom.

In 2021, some parents in the Williamson County, Tennessee, district sought to remove the children’s book “Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story,” an autobiography about Bridges’s experience as the first Black student to desegregate an all-white school in New Orleans. They objected to the word “injustice” and a reference to “a large crowd of angry white people.”

In Oklahoma, the state that said officials can downgrade a district’s accreditation if it has books with “sexualized content” that an average person might find unfit for students. The rule followed state Superintendent Ryan Walters’s claims that some included books such as “Gender Queer” and “Flamer” that feature graphic illustrations of sex. In several cases, the books had already been removed.

Some advocates say they’ve been unfairly criticized for supporting the rights of parents to restrict their children from access to explicit material.

“When people ask questions they’re crucified,” Nicki Neily, president and founder of Parents Defending Education, testified Tuesday in a . “Pretending that objections to minors accessing explicit sexual content is a threat to liberty and literature is a straw man and a distraction from real concerns about the quality of children’s education and whether students are safe in school.”

Margaret Crespo, superintendent in residence for ILO Group, an organization that supports women leaders in education, said Nosanchuk’s hiring is likely to rankle those who think the federal government should stay out of local school board matters.

She resigned in August as superintendent of the Laramie County School District 1, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where board members pushed for a policy in which books with sexually explicit content would be off limits unless to children without parents’ prior permission. The school board is .  

But Crespo acknowledged the department’s assistance could be helpful to districts.

“Many don’t have policy or state statute to guide the conversation,” she said, “and are struggling to meet the needs of all students.”

“No one would touch what I touched because they thought someone that looked like me must have been, like, riddled with disease,” Adii said. One peer told her to change her skin color like pop superstar Michael Jackson did.

After that experience, she went through the rest of elementary and middle school “actively trying to rid myself of any association” with what she perceived as “Black stereotypes.” She studied hard and chose not to wear the Batik clothing she bought when visiting her father’s relatives in Indonesia. Being different weighed on her.

But when, as a high school junior, she first attended a club meeting for students of color to connect with each other, she felt an instant sense of relief. It was the only time in her life she had been in a room with no white people, she realized, other than with family. The group was created to allow Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous students to share about their experiences navigating the over 90% white, 800-person school.

“It felt so validating to just be in a room where you don’t have to give this huge backstory or explain yourself,” Adii said. “It made me feel like all of these little experiences, it’s not just happening to me. All these people can relate.”

Gatherings like the one described by the high school senior — often called “affinity groups” — have long been a strategy that schools, universities and workplaces employ to support community members who are from minority identities. But recently, those programs have become the target of pushback from conservative parent organizations, part of a wider GOP effort to oppose equity measures in K-12 education.

In early January, Parents Defending Education, a national nonprofit formed in 2021 to counter what it sees as indoctrination in schools, filed three federal civil rights complaints alleging that school-based affinity groups for people of color unfairly discriminate against white students and educators. The approach serves to “segregate” youth by race, violating the Civil Rights Act and the equal protections clause of the 14th Amendment, the organization’s letters say.

“Public schools that maintain policies or programs that discriminate against students on the basis of race are unconstitutional, period,” spokesperson Erika Sanzi wrote to ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ in an email. 

Those complaints come on the heels of the organization has filed since 2021 against districts in , , , , and over similar opportunities for students and educators of color. In the 2021-22 school year, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received more complaints than ever before, . Some 2,900 of those alleged racial discrimination, but federal officials do not track how many claimed discrimination against white students.

Two of Parents Defending Education’s most recent complaints concern student groups in majority-white school districts — Ashland, Oregon and Shelburne, Vermont — and the third flags a staff group in Portland, Maine, where just over half of all students are youth of color compared to just 14% of all educators.

“Within such a homogenous workforce, affinity groups are one way to help people who may experience marginalization feel welcome and supported,” said Barrett Wilkinson, director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Portland Public Schools. The group for teachers of color has run since 2017 when it was founded by educators, he said, and “the district absolutely supports it and is proud of these kinds of efforts.”

Legal landscape

While affinity groups can be formed around any number of identities — religion, sexual orientation or political outlook, for example — school-based gatherings for students of a specific race or races may fall into murky legal water, scholars say.

According to Derek Black, education law professor at the University of South Carolina, there are two central considerations for determining the constitutionality of race-based affinity groups. First, does the program actually exclude certain students or educators based on race? And second, if so, does the race-conscious policy serve to remedy existing inequities?

Some affinity groups, while catered to students of certain races, do not actually exclude those of other identities. In Shelburne, Vermont, district spokesperson Bonnie Birdsall said all existing affinity groups, including the one for people of color and a sexuality and gender alliance, welcome “any student who would like to be involved.”

Others, however, are open only to students of certain races. Those programs are subject to “strict scrutiny,” said Black. A 2015 from the Obama administration’s Office for Civil Rights found an Illinois high school’s assembly for only Black students in the wake of was unconstitutional.

That precedent, when applied to the question around affinity groups, is “persuasive, but not exactly on point,” said Maryam Ahranjani, professor at the University of New Mexico’s School of Law. Affinity groups have a different structure and purpose than assemblies, she points out, and the Obama-era decision is “not binding law.”

When school-based programs are racially differentiated, their legality may depend on whether they serve to fix prior injustice, said Black, which can create “a legitimate, compelling interest” for their existence in the eyes of the law.

“The state can clearly engage in race-conscious actions 
 to remedy discrimination,” the law professor said.

Though the toll can be hard to quantify, researchers have that students of color in predominantly white schools typically face challenges such as a lack of curricular materials that reflect their racial identity and more strict disciplinary punishments than their white peers.

Thus, it matters whether racially differentiated affinity groups actually help address those problems, Black said. Over a dozen academic studies examine the gatherings, and most find wide-reaching benefits, including participants reporting , and .

The legal landscape could shift, however, should the U.S. Supreme Court, as is widely expected, this spring in higher education admissions — another race-based policy meant to address longstanding disparities. Such a ruling would “chip away” at the legal basis for race-conscious policies in schools, Ahranjani said.

The U.S. Department of Education said it could not comment on when the agency expects to issue a response to the Parents Defending Education complaints or what actions it may take.

When asked whether her organization would consider filing a lawsuit should it disagree with the agency’s response, Sanzi replied that “a number of options exist to remedy racial discrimination in public schools.”

‘Doesn’t hurt me one iota’

Jesse Tauriac is chief diversity officer and an associate professor of psychology at Lasell University. There, he leads several affinity groups on campus — including gatherings for first-generation students, student athletes, students of color and for conservative students at the predominantly liberal school.

The groups spur “more candid and frank” conversations, he said, and afterward, students “feel better equipped to engage and speak with people who have different perspectives.”

A student who participated in the group for conservatives on campus wrote an email to Tauriac after the experience: “As a conservative student who didn’t always believe that diversity and inclusion meant including my voice, you have proved me wrong.”

Whether affinity groups gather students of one political stripe or a shared racial identity, some familiar with the model say it confuses them why those who don’t share in those attributes or experiences would want to join.

Wilkinson, the director of equity for Portland schools, who is white, said it “wouldn’t occur” to him to want to participate in the district’s group for staff of color. “Why would I insert myself in that way?” he said.

Gail Burnett, an English as a second language teacher in Portland, penned an in the Portland Press Herald.

“As a white person, I don’t qualify for the [Black, Indigenous, people of color] Community Circle. I’m not offended by this any more than I would be offended if I found out that I couldn’t join a men’s support group or a group for staff members who are left-handed, or survivors of child abuse, or flute players. This is about them, not me. It doesn’t hurt me one iota,” she wrote.

However, Sanzi explained that her organization filed the complaints because “racial discrimination hurts everyone whether they are being included or excluded based on their skin color.”

Blake Jordan is a senior at Southern Oregon University and an active participant at his school’s Black Student Union. The college is in the same small city as the Ashland School District named in the legal complaint. His organization “focuses on Black experiences,” but is open to students of any race who want to learn about Black history, art and culture.

“I don’t think it’s the correct approach to make strong divisions along identities,” Jordan said. He acknowledged, however, that there’s a difference between higher education, where students generally have the maturity to center Black students’ voices in the club, and K-12, where white youth “might change the dynamic” by failing to fully listen to the experiences of their peers of color.

Adii, in Vermont, has tried to think about what it would mean for her high school’s affinity group to welcome white students. During the school day, she’s the only person of color in most of her classrooms. In those settings, she feels “a lot less apt to speak up around ideas of race, because I don’t really want to get met with pity from white people 
 and I also don’t want to feel invalidated,” she said.

The gathering for students of color, 40 minutes twice per week during a free period, is the only time she’s surrounded by people who directly relate to her experiences. Having white peers in the room could “undermine” the club’s purpose, she said.

“The conversations would just have to completely change and we’d have to kind of cater what we were doing based off white people — and that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.”

The U.S. Department of Education on Monday abruptly disbanded a parent council created to include families in federal decisions about pandemic recovery efforts.

That action led conservative parent groups to drop a contentious lawsuit filed in July against Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, arguing members he picked to serve on the council only represented liberal-leaning organizations.

The department “has decided to not move forward with the National Parents and Families Engagement Council,” according to a statement. “The Department will continue connecting with individual parents and families across the country, including through townhalls, and providing parents and families with a wide array of tools and resources to use to support our students.”

One of the driving forces behind the council’s creation had harsh words for the department Monday, saying it “folded like a deck of cards in a moment that called for leadership.”

Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, another group on the council, said both the plaintiffs and the department claimed to be acting in the interests of parents, “but in actuality neither have done anything tangible to prove it” and were using parents “as pawns in their convoluted culture wars.”

The department announced the council in June, with plans for an initial meeting before the new school year. Parent representatives were expected to share their experiences with remote learning and thoughts on how to help students get back on track academically and emotionally.

But plans remained idle after Parents Defending Education, Fight for Schools and Families and America First Legal Foundation filed their suit. The three plaintiffs argued that the council violated a federal law that requires official advisory committees to include diverse viewpoints and for the department to publicly announce meetings. Department of Justice attorneys countered that the council was meant to act more as a “sounding board” and was not intended to serve in an advisory capacity.

In September, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the plaintiffs on some points, but told the parties to gather more information on the council’s actual duties. If they did not meet a Monday deadline to provide that information, Lamberth promised to dismiss the case.

On Friday, five Republican senators joined the fray, sending Cardona that echoed the concerns expressed in the lawsuit. 

“The uniformly partisan members of the Council demonstrate this administration’s commitment to putting the interest of unions, teachers and non-education associations, and the radical left above students and parents,” according to the letter. It was signed by Sen. Bill Cassidy, slated to become ranking member of the Senate education committee, Sen Richard Burr of North Carolina, the current ranking Republican, and three others. 

The senators noted that President Joe Biden spoke at of the National Action Network, one of the groups chosen to serve on the council, and that LaWanda Toney, a former official at the National PTA, another organization represented, has been in the department.

They asked Cardona how the organizations were chosen, whether officials communicated with representatives over issues such as mask mandates and critical race theory, and if there was any requirement that participants have “human children.”

“Mitt Romney has met my children,” said Rodrigues of the National Parents Union, referring to one the GOP signers. She initially called the letter “a last gasp effort” to keep the lawsuit alive, but that was before the department abandoned its plans.

The administration had two options — “disband its parent council or allow for viewpoint diversity on the council,” Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, said in a . “They chose to disband it. It’s telling but not surprising that they chose ideology and groupthink over a balanced representation of views.”

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In federal court Wednesday, Chris Edelman, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, said it would likely be mid-September before the meets “to better understand how schools and students are coping as they adjust back to the classroom.”

And that’s only if Judge Royce Lamberth, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, allows the council to proceed without having to start from scratch. 

On Wednesday, Lamberth denied the plaintiffs’ request to put an immediate stop to the council’s activities, promising to rule before the group meets on whether it violated federal law. 

Under , there are three ways to establish a federal advisory committee — by statute, presidential order or through a federal agency. The agency involved has to place a notice in the Federal Register, appoint an administrator to the committee and establish a charter outlining the group’s purpose and how often it will meet. The department hasn’t taken those steps.

The department had planned to hold the first meeting with parent representatives this summer. Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, one of the groups involved, expected it in July.

After issuing an initial press release, the department put up a second that included an email to get updates on the council’s work. The notice said the council “meets to discuss how children are recovering,” prompting the plaintiffs, three conservative organizations, to argue the department was violating the law. To this date, however, there have not been any meetings.

The lawsuit, filed July 6, argues that the council violated the law’s requirement that groups giving agencies input on potential rules or legislation be “fairly balanced.” Cardona, they contend, chose organizations that would fall in line with the department’s agenda.

“The department chose organizations 
 based on their ability to develop camaraderie so that they would give good advice as a group,” said Christopher Mills, an attorney for the plaintiffs — the , a conservative nonprofit led by former Trump administration officials, , a political action committee in Loudoun County, Virginia, and , a watchdog group opposed to teaching and curriculum focused on race and gender.

But Edelman countered that the group will function more as a “sounding board” for the department, that membership will change over time and that the council won’t weigh in on specific policy.

In the initial announcement, Cardona described the council as an effort to ensure students “have the academic and mental health support they need to recover from the pandemic and thrive in the future.” For Cardona, who initially faced criticism for making public comments that emphasized the pandemic’s burden on educators, the council offers a chance for parents to have a more visible role as the department attempts to rebuild trust between schools and families.

“To have the leadership of the secretary’s office leaning in with good intentions is 
 an epic win for all parents across the country,” said Ashara Baker, a mother of a first grader at a Rochester, New York, charter school who was appointed to the council by the National Parents Union. As far as getting the group started, she said, “The sooner the better.”

She called the lawsuit “a distraction.”

Other committees challenged 

The department currently has , according to its website, including the President’s Advisory Commission on Hispanic Prosperity and the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Tuesday’s Federal Register, for example, included a meeting for the National Advisory Council on Indian Education.

Education officials aren’t the only members of the Biden administration who have faced challenges related to advisory committee membership. A former member of an Environmental Protection Agency committee , arguing that the agency removed industry representatives in an attempt to “sideline anyone who might dissent from the president’s climate-change agenda.” They argued that the committee wasn’t “fairly balanced” as the law requires.

In March, a district court judge denied the plaintiff’s request to stop the committee from meeting.

The Trump administration, however, had to disband a after a federal judge sided with an environmental advocacy group in a 2018 lawsuit. The plaintiffs argued that potential profiteers from the import of hides, heads and tusks from Africa stacked the committee.

The makeup of the education department’s parent council is a key focus of the current lawsuit. Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, expressed , calling the chosen groups “Biden fans” who are “glaringly out-of-step with the majority of frustrated parents who have been showing up in huge numbers to school board meetings across red and blue America.”

Sanzi and Rodrigues have over the Department of Justice’s warning last fall about against school officials and board members.

It’s unclear whether Parents Defending Education or Fight for Schools and Families wants to be part of the parent council. Sanzi told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ in an email that she didn’t think the group would address any parent concerns over curriculum.

But the groups on the list — including Fathers Incorporated, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Military Family Association — won’t necessarily determine what the parents have to say, said Patience Peabody, executive director of the Flamboyan Foundation, which supports family engagement efforts, especially in the District of Columbia schools.

“The member organizations are among the many voices. They are the facilitators. They are bringing the real stories and voices to the table,” she said, adding that the council “only works if that happens.”

Baker, for example, is a charter school parent, but said a lot of families have children in both charter and traditional schools. After remote learning, she said her daughter is still “struggling with letters” and hasn’t begun to recognize entire words. Her charter school didn’t provide tutoring, so she paid for it herself. 

“Whether it’s a charter, or district or private school,” she said, “we’re all doing our best and doing what’s going to get our kids across the finish line.”

“They wanted more evidence that she had gone,” said the trans student’s father, Jeff Walker. “I said, ‘I’ll send you media, pictures, an invitation from the White House.’ They still did not excuse the absence.”

The episode would certainly be in keeping with the spirit of laws signed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, that restrict trans students’ lives in and out of school. , similar to legislation in Texas and Arkansas, targets doctors who provide trans health services, like the prescription of puberty blockers, to minors. keeps trans students out of bathrooms and locker room facilities that match their gender identity. Like Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” legislation, it also prohibits discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in the elementary grades.

Such legislation might soon be on a collision course with federal law, as the U.S. Department of Education puts the finishing touches on a long-awaited rewrite of Title IX. That update is widely expected to codify the rights of trans students for the first time. Department officials have already said that Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination and harassment in programs receiving federal funds, will echo the in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which extended protections against sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace to LGBTQ employees.

A department spokesperson said Tuesday that it expects to release the new rule in May. 

Alabama is among 15 Republican-led states it. In the last year, a dozen states have passed bills prohibiting trans females from competing in girls’ and women’s sports. But the wave of legislation targeting LGBTQ students has since spread to encompass “just about every moment of their daily lives,” Sam Ames, director of advocacy and government affairs for the nonprofit Trevor Project, said earlier this month during a .

Experts expect the rule to put school districts in the center of what will likely be a long legal battle.

Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called it “a very unenviable place.”

“It sets up a big showdown between states and the federal government,” he said during a , “and schools will be caught in between the two forces.” 

Parents Defending Education, a nonprofit leading the campaign against what it calls districts’ “indoctrination” of students on issues of race and gender, organized the event to inform parents about the upcoming rule. Eden also warned of an unpleasant tug-of-war between schools that teach gender as a “fluid construct” and parents who oppose references to gender identity in the classroom.

“It gets to a fundamental question of what is a human being,” he said. “If a school says one thing and Mommy and Daddy say another thing, a kid has to pick, and that’s not a fun place to put an 8-year-old.” 

The public is clearly divided over such policies. A from the University of Chicago and the AP-NORC Center showed that allowing trans students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity receives the most support from Democrats (52%) Hispanic adults (35%) and those with a college degree (45%). Nine percent of Republicans supported such policies. Forty-seven percent of those who voted in a recent school board election and follow news about their local board were opposed, compared to 35% who don’t follow such issues.

The tension is already on display in Oklahoma, where Attorney General John O’Connor told the that it’s illegal to let a trans girl use the girls’ restroom, while state education officials say it’s a matter for the district to decide. 

For districts that could face similar directives in the future, “federal law always wins,” said W. Scott Lewis, co-founder of the Association of Title IX Administrators. “The writing is on the wall. This is a protected class.” 

That might change if federal courts weigh in against the department. Two current federal cases involving trans athletes — one in and another in — could work their way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite Republicans’ questioning, newly confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson declined to comment on the issue during recent confirmation hearings.

While the education department’s interpretation of the Bostock ruling doesn’t mention sports, the Biden administration made its position known in filed last year in a West Virginia case. The plaintiff, a transgender girl who wants to compete with girls on her middle school cross country team, is challenging the state’s 2021 law banning students born as male from participating in girls’ sports. 

“Although the regulations allow recipients to operate or sponsor separate teams based on sex, the regulations do not define ‘sex’ or address how students who are transgender should be assigned to such teams,” the brief said. “When assigning students to single-sex sports teams, a recipient must still comply with the statutory prohibition against discrimination based on sex in Title IX itself.”

In a year marking Title IX’s 50th anniversary, some experts say the administration’s position could undermine years of work toward achieving equity in women’s sports. 

“Imagine you go to a meet to watch an event called ‘the Girls’ 100,’ which includes both males and females — some of whom identify as girls, some as boys, some as nonbinary. Specifically, what is it that makes the assembled individuals all ‘girls’ so that having them compete in a separate event from the ‘boys’ is defensible?” asked Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a Duke University law professor and co-director of the Center for Sports Law and Policy.

Some of the males could be on testosterone suppression, while some of the females are taking testosterone, she explained, adding that “such a field would only rarely allow a female who is not taking testosterone to win in a category that was originally designed for her, to secure her equal access to the social goods that flow from competitive sport.”

Lewis, with the Title IX administrators organization, predicted the issue will reach the court during its next term.

“They can’t let it sit any longer,” he said. 

The issue could also play out in Congress if Republicans regain control during upcoming midterm elections. But any legislation aimed at Title IX “will be entirely symbolic,” because it would need 60 votes in the Senate to pass initially and President Joe Biden would veto it, said R. Shep Melnick, a political science professor at Boston College.

“Congress has rarely amended Title IX, and never on a major substantive issue,” he said. “The conflict will play out in the administrative and judicial arenas.”  

‘Breaking a confidentiality’

Even before Biden took office, he pledged to revise the Trump administration’s Title IX rule, which increased protections for those unfairly accused of sexual misconduct. Once in office, he ordered the department to begin the lengthy process of rescinding the rule and restoring elements of Obama-era guidance that directed schools and colleges to address sexual assault.​

Those changes, already controversial, were quickly overshadowed by the administration’s efforts to incorporate the rights of LGBTQ students into Title IX. During a weeklong public hearing last year, the department invited comment from those experiencing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, further signaling that the rule — which will be put out for public comment upon its release — would address those issues.

It’s unclear whether the regulation will include detailed guidance about issues like preferred names and pronouns or sex-specific school uniforms, but advocates for trans students hope the department will supplement the rule with examples of how districts can address those issues. 

Schools should “make it clear what nondiscrimination looks like” said Asaf Orr, senior staff attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “Dictating that teachers can’t discuss anything related to gender identity is fostering a school environment that is not welcoming to LGBTQ students.”

Walker, who described his daughter Harleigh as “100% girl,” is a plaintiff in challenging Alabama’s new Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, which criminalizes transgender health services for children. He’s also concerned that requiring Harleigh to use the boys’ restroom will “open her up to assault.”

“My fear is some administrator at her school will try to make an example out of her,” he said. “They say this is going to protect my child. It’s not going to protect anyone.”

While the Alabama provision, which only applies to K-5, doesn’t affect Magic City Acceptance Academy, a Birmingham-area charter school that serves many LGBTQ students, Principal Michael Wilson said he’s concerned about a requirement for school officials to inform parents if students question their gender identity. 

“You’re breaking a confidentiality, a relationship that you have formed with kids,” he said, noting recent data showing increases in LGBTQ students seriously considering or attempting suicide.

The education department’s webinar highlighted what some schools are already doing to support trans students.

Sam Long, a trans biology teacher at Denver South High School in Colorado, talked about working with two other LGBTQ educators to “clean up” teaching materials on reproduction. 

“We can be more accurate and be more inclusive,” he said. “It’s ovaries that produce eggs. We’re acknowledging that not all women produce eggs, and also not all egg producers are women.”

Rebekah Bruesehoff, a trans student and activist from New Jersey, said she’s always “looking for clues” throughout her school — like preferred pronouns on a teacher’s ID badge — to see which educators are more accepting.

“I don’t just walk into class at the beginning of the year and announce that I’m transgender,” said the ninth grader, who described herself as a “total nerd” who loves school, plays field hockey and participates in musical theater. “It’s one tiny part of who I am, but there’s so much more to me.”

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To wind down after a chaotic school year, Austin Ambrose, who teaches third grade in Nampa, Idaho, purchased some fun reads he hoped would keep his students engaged until summer break — and like much good children’s literature, provide a window into another culture.

One title, , tells a Harry Potter-type story set in Brooklyn featuring a young Black boy. But when the book turned up on a , one family at Gem Prep, a charter school, argued it ran afoul of the prohibiting schools from promoting critical race theory.

Under the school’s policy, Ambrose had to offer the student an alternative book to read.

“I told them, ‘I’m only trying to expose your child to different cultures and experiences,’” he said. “These conversations are going to help them when they get into the real world because they are going to meet people who are different from them.”

Idaho is among nine states so far to ban critical race theory — which holds that racism is baked into U.S. systems and institutions to purposely keep people of color at a disadvantage. Lawmakers in at least 20 more states have proposed similar laws to block what they see as a dangerously divisive form of indoctrination. But for many teachers, the backlash feels like a new kind of McCarthyism, one where they fear being harassed, for a wide array of classroom activities. It doesn’t help that the clash comes as school leaders are struggling to help students — many of them lagging up to a year behind in core subjects — bounce back from the pandemic. To that end, educators are steering an unprecedented influx of federal funds toward their recovery.

“It’s a huge distraction at a time when we can’t afford a distraction,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “This has been a year the majority of students were not exposed to the kind of learning they should have been exposed to. Now you’re going to paralyze teachers because they are afraid to teach.”

The furor is hard to miss.

The Nevada Family Alliance wants teachers to wear to prevent them from “going rogue and presenting their own political ideas.” A mother in South Kingston, Rhode Island, to learn how the district teaches race and gender issues. And a conservative watchdog group, maintains an “indoctrination map” showing districts influenced by critical race theory.

In suburban St. Louis, tensions over issues of race and curriculum have grown so fraught that educators feared for their physical safety.

Several Rockwood School District administrators had private security officers stationed at their homes. In June, school officials spent nearly $5,000, according to district spokeswoman Mary LaPak, to place private security for two weeks at the home of a district literacy coordinator, who instructed teachers in an April email to remove a lesson plan for a “culture and identity” unit from the online classroom management system “so parents cannot see it.”

In a letter, the local teachers union called on district officials to protect educators from “personal attacks and outright threats of violence” following the backlash. Parents argued the district was teaching critical race theory and “making white kids feel bad about their privilege,” according to the email.

‘Eye of the beholder’

That’s a lot of mileage for an idea most Americans hadn’t even heard of until six months ago.

In that brief span, critical race theory emerged from grad school obscurity to become something of a Rorschach splatter of our anxious political moment. Some see little more than an attempt to reclaim episodes of Black history like the 1921 Tulsa race massacre or the long practice of Jim Crow redlining. For those who decry it, at school board meetings and , it encompasses a host of ills, from anti-bias training to that other “CRT” — culturally responsive teaching, the integration of students’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds into the classroom. Some have lumped social-emotional learning and restorative discipline into the mix.

Because it can be so hard to define, Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian at the University of Pennsylvania, called the dust-up over critical race theory “scarier” than similar controversies, such as the recent clash over teaching The New York Times Magazine’s .

“The 1619 Project is a thing you can look up; it’s a very specific document with a curriculum attached to it,” he said. “Critical race theory isn’t in that category. It’s kind of in the eye of the beholder. And if that eye has watched a lot of Fox News, it’s going to behold a lot of critical race theory.”

Fox has used the term times so far in 2021, according to the Washington Post. And conservative organizations such as continue to highlight schools that focus on students’ racial or gender differences. found that least 165 such “grassroots” groups have sprung up over the past year, many with ties to GOP strategists.

Republicans see it as a winning strategy they can ride into the 2022 midterms. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, expects the fight to keep playing out in school board elections.

“We’ve gone through different waves, but school board races are very unequal terrain because the right spends so much time focused on them,” she said.

In Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools, a conservative group, Fight for Schools, has launched over board members’ support for equity-related initiatives of Lilit Vanetsyan, an educator in neighboring Fairfax County Public Schools, went viral when she appeared before the Loudoun board to declare that classrooms had become “indoctrination camps.” While the Fairfax district confirmed she is an employee, she also runs a Instagram account and is a correspondent for the Right Side Broadcasting Network.

In Tennessee, a chapter of , a group seeking more parental influence over school policies, opposes teachers’ use of the autobiography . Bridges wrote the 2009 book, which is aimed at second graders, about her experience as one of the first Black students to attend all-white schools in New Orleans. According to local news reports, the group objected to the book showing a crowd of “angry white people” protesting integration.

When parents equate key aspects of the civil rights movement with critical race theory, they “have become very confused,” said Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach at Parents Defending Education, a nonprofit at the center of efforts to resist what they see as “harmful” political agendas in the classroom. (The organization’s website does not identify funders, and Nicole Neily, the group’s president, declined to to name them out of concern for “donor privacy.”)

Sanzi said she’s not necessarily in favor of the GOP-backed legislation because she’s “still hanging on to the belief that we beat bad ideas with better ideas.” But she does question the messages some young elementary students are getting about their “whiteness.”

At an elementary school in Bellevue, Washington, for example, a for the 2020-21 school year said that students would “have explicit conversations about race, equity, and access,” and that fourth and fifth graders would be responsible for implementing schoolwide anti-racist strategies. The plan has since expired and the district said it allows parents to opt their children out of “identity-related discussions.”

“These are children who believe in Santa Claus and put their teeth under their pillow,” Sanzi said.

At outside Columbus, Ohio, the confusion ran so deep that two families asked to remove their children from a course that focuses on critical thinking.

To their parents, that sounded a lot like critical race theory.

In a February email to the school’s principal, one father who pulled his child from class said “he didn’t want his kid feeling guilty about ‘Marxist critical race theory,’” recalled Robert Estice, who teaches the required course. The class syllabus has no mention of Marxism or critical racial theory. For seventh grade, course themes include “How do I know what I know?” and “How do I interact with others to understand their perspectives?”

“I don’t want to put ideas in kids’ heads that aren’t their own ideas — that they wouldn’t have come to themselves,” Estice said.

Some educators wonder whether the laws will take away a powerful tool that teachers have to connect with students — their own personal stories.

“I was a teacher, and one of the things I loved the most was the freedom to teach,” said Tramelle Howard, a board member in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System in Louisiana, where a bill curtailing the teaching of critical race theory failed to advance in the legislature this session. “I did not shy away from my lived experience. I had white male students in my classes, and it wasn’t my job to get them to think a certain way, but to think critically.”

‘Intentional agenda’

Little of this has anything to do with actual critical race theory, the legal term coined by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1970s. It has become synonymous with a kind of racism that applies to institutions rather than individuals. It could, for example, describe police departments that disproportionately apply excessive force against African Americans.

In fact, it was one of these moments, the murder of George Floyd by a white officer in May 2020, that is most responsible for pushing critical race theory into the public consciousness. The cell phone video of Floyd’s death taken by a Black teen prompted months of protests and led many school leaders to take public stands condemning racism and calling out “white privilege.”

Some of those efforts prompted outcries not only from parents, but educators. Teachers in a New Jersey district about being required to participate in what they described as “insulting” anti-bias training. One white teacher reportedly said a presenter told her she was a “inherently racist” and a “white supremacist.”

And in the Virginia Beach Public Schools, where some board members are pushing to ban critical race theory, Superintendent Aaron Spence agreed that his district went too far when literacy coaches attended a February training in which a video speaker said white educators should say “of course I’m racist.” Such approaches, he said, alienate teachers when “the whole goal of equity is to keep everybody in the room.”

With public comments over critical race theory dominating the last three board meetings and staff members frequently responding to calls and emails from residents, he called the uproar an “intentional agenda of distraction” that “takes us away from the real work of addressing the challenges we face in public education.”

In September, former President Donald Trump put his stamp on the issue with an banning federal employees from receiving any training about critical race theory, further contributing to the perception that it promotes anti-American ideas. President Joe Biden reversed the order, but its language became a template for state bills to come.

Just last week, Republicans on the peppered Education Secretary Miguel Cardona with questions about critical race theory, specifically a notice for a that references the 1619 Project and the work of Boston University’s Ibram X. Kendi, a leading author in the field. (The department has since removed the references.)

Named last year as one of most influential people, Kendi won the National Book Award for . With such accolades, he is among speakers who can command over $20,000 an hour to address school districts on the issue. Kendi, like others, argues that everyone is born into a society founded on racism and that it requires to reverse disparities. He advocates for a , which would create an anti-racism agency to evaluate all local, state and federal policies to ensure they don’t contribute to inequity.

During the virtual hearing, some committee members tried to get Cardona to denounce Kendi’s work. “Do you realize how radical and how out of touch this guy is?” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin asked.

Virginia Rep. Bob Good pushed Cardona to ensure that the federal government wouldn’t legally challenge state laws banning critical race theory. While Good was speaking, someone shouted “racist” and New Jersey Democrat Donald Norcross’s name briefly showed on the screen. Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., later noted the “inappropriate comment” and asked the members to respect each other.

Cardona said multiple times the issue has become politicized and the department doesn’t dictate curriculum, but that he trusts teachers to navigate these issues and believes culturally responsive teaching “builds community.”

Scoring ‘political points’

In states where legislation has already passed, some educators are questioning how they’ll be able to address controversial topics this fall.

“How can we learn about U.S. history without feeling distress at times?” asked Eddie Walsh, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Memphis Grizzlies Preparatory Charter School in Tennessee, one of the states that has passed anti-critical race theory legislation. “Our goal as educators isn’t to make kids guilty, but we also can’t lie to them or omit the truth when it comes to our past.”

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed this month that allows teachers to cover the history of white supremacy, including topics such as the Ku Klux Klan and the eugenics movement, which involved the forced sterilization of Black women. But it forbids instruction from causing students to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex.

Asia Klekowicz and Ryan York, co-CEOs of The Gathering Place, a San Antonio charter school with a focus on social justice, know they could be sued.

“There is a long history in the U.S. of laws being written as a way to score political points.” York said. “We welcome challenges to the way we [address these subjects].”

‘Thousands of critical conversations’

So, where do we go from here? Legislation designed to suppress the controversial philosophy’s influence is problematic for a few reasons, said Matthew Shaw, an associate law professor at Vanderbilt University. First, he said, the laws are difficult to enforce. And second, they’ve only created greater interest in the ideas they seek to wipe out.

“The irony is that trying to ban or limit critical race theory in conversations in such a public, blunt, legalistic manner has sparked thousands of critical conversations,” he said.

One of the more thoughtful exchanges occurred last week, when two Black educators addressed the National Charter School Conference. Ian Rowe, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called the debate a “massive distraction” from the fact that too many students — including white children — read below grade level.

“We want to create equality of opportunity for all our kids. Literacy has to be the anchor of that,” said Rowe, who sits on the board of the which aims to unite people based on “common humanity.” “I don’t want the whole hullabaloo around critical race theory to detract from something that is holding back kids of all races.”

He said students should know the history of racial oppression, including the Tulsa race massacre, alongside the “stories of racial resilience,” such as how Booker T. Washington founded more than 5,000 schools in Black communities throughout the South with Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears. And teachers should introduce critical race theory alongside ideas that challenge it. The problem, he added, is when it’s presented as a “sole theology.”

But at the same session, Sharif El-Mekki, CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development, described the backlash to critical race theory as “absolute hysteria.” He added that focusing on successful Black people who “made it” ignores the reality of why they had to be resilient in the first place.

“That is a pathway to the dark side without the full story,” he said.

—Reporters Beth Hawkins, Mark Keierleber, Asher Lehrer-Small, Kevin Mahnken, Marianna McMurdock, Bekah McNeel and Patrick O’Donnell contributed to this report.

Clarification: An earlier version of this story reported that Rockwood School District officials spent $2,500 to place private security guards outside two administrators’ homes. That expenditure was related to a district controversy involving the removal of the “thin blue line” flag — a police solidarity symbol that has become associated with white supremacy — from a high school team’s baseball cap.

Lead images: Getty Images, Teaching for Change/Flickr and /Instagram