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<p>Minnesota’s second-largest public school district told invitees to this month’s “Equity Summit” to keep quiet about the event, citing “current political attacks on equity.”</p>
<p>Saint Paul Public Schools plans to hold this year’s “Beyond OUR Walls: Equity Summit” on Saturday, April 26, at one of the district’s high schools.</p>
<p>“I am reaching out to personally invite you, as an identified person/organization who may have interest or benefit from attending,” Edairra McCalister, the district’s Equity Specialist at its Office of Equity, wrote to invitees in a March 10 email obtained by The Daily Wire.</p>
<p>The email included “communication guidelines” to keep summit attendees “safe while holding to our commitment to equity.”</p>
<p>“Current political attacks on equity have real, potentially harmful consequences for our students, staff, and families,” McCalister wrote.</p>
<p>“We ask that you DO NOT share to social media or public-facing platforms (e.g. Facebook, X, community bulletins or newsletters, district websites open to the public),” she wrote.</p>
<p>However, McCalister encouraged attendees, “please DO send directly to trusted people and groups who are committed to equity who may want to submit a workshop or attend.”</p>
<p>Trusted people and groups include those who are “committed” to “racial and gender equity” and “social justice.”</p>
<p>McCalister appears to have started her position as the district’s equity specialist in January, just as President Donald Trump took office, according to her LinkedIn.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-signs-order-defunding-schools-teaching-gender-ideology-crt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> executive orders prohibiting federal funding for school districts that promote a “discriminatory equity ideology,” which <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">includes</a> the idea that the United States is fundamentally racist or that one race is “inherently racist” either “consciously or unconsciously.”</p>
<p>Saint Paul Public Schools’ Equity Office links to a “racial equity” policy aimed at confronting “institutional racism.” A “Justice for George Floyd” page <a href="https://www.spps.org/about/departments/equity/justice-for-george-floyd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">links</a> to a list of resources on how to talk to children about “racism” and whiteness” that includes materials on “implicit bias.”</p>
<p>The Equity Office also <a href="https://www.spps.org/about/departments/equity/out-for-equity/gender-inclusion-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">links</a> to a “gender inclusion policy” that allows trans-identifying students to use the bathrooms and play on the sports teams of the opposite sex, which Trump’s executive order also prohibits.</p>
<p>Asked why invitees were asked not to share the event on social media, the school district said it decided to market the event more directly this year in order to increase turnout.</p>
<p>“Our previous marketing strategies for this event did not yield as high of a participation as we had hoped,” Saint Paul Public Schools said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “This is an event centered around youth and youth-serving organizations, and we realized our greatest recruiting efforts came through talking to and communicating directly with those who are interested.”</p>
<p>“It is important that we have networks and positive relationships in place for youth to be able to feel comfortable exercising their leadership,” the school district said.</p>
<p>In previous years, the school district has appeared <a href="https://www.spps.org/about/departments/equity/programming/beyond-our-walls-spps-equity-summit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eager</a> to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/youthprise/p/C6Ec7Q9OO7W/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promote</a> the Equity Summit. A few mentions of this year’s event do <a href="https://www.spps.org/about/departments/equity/announcements" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appear</a> on the district’s website. It is open to the general public, specifically “educators, students, parents, leaders, and community members,” according to the email.</p>
<p>The summit’s theme for this year is “From Harm to Healing, From Hope to Action.”</p>
<p>This year, the keynote speaker will be Dr. Bettina Love, an academic who <a href="https://bettinalove.com/bio/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">talks</a> about “systemic racism” in public schools and has <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-teachers-we-cannot-go-back-to-the-way-things-were/2020/04" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> standardized testing.</p>
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Minnesota Public Schools Told Invitees To Keep Quiet About ‘Equity’ Summit
