San Leandro Schools Tried to Uplift Black Boys. Now They Face a Discrimination Complaint

A conservative parents group is targeting new enrichment programming for Black boys at two San Leandro schools, alleging in a civil rights complaint that the initiative discriminates against other students.

In the complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education on Monday, Parents Defending Education said the race-based affinity programs, which it said are only open to Black students and teachers, violate equal rights protections under the Civil Rights Act and 14th Amendment.

The programs come from Kingmakers of Oakland, a nonprofit that contracted with San Leandro’s Halkin Elementary School and John Muir Middle School at the start of this school year to roll out a curriculum taught by Black male teachers to Black boys that includes “Black history, cultural knowledge, positive self-identity, literacy and academic mentoring,” according to CEO Christopher Chatmon’s proposal.

Parents Defending Education said that the specialized course and additional services, with a combined budget of nearly $75,000, “confer a benefit that is not accessible to the entire student and educator body.” The complaint alleges that the San Leandro Unified School District is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in programs and activities that receive federal funding.

Neither Kingmakers nor the San Leandro school district responded to requests for comment.

But Travis Bristol, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Education, said the district’s curriculum geared toward Black boys helps equalize the education system, which has historically failed marginalized groups.

“What these programs do is they identify the groups that have been the most marginalized based on how they perform in school, based on their experiences outside of school,” Bristol told KQED. “And they say, ‘How do we identify the groups who are at the margins? And how do we help school districts include them to bring them to the center so that they can pursue happiness?’”

The curriculum — and Kingmakers organization — grew from the Oakland Unified School District’s first-of-its-kind African American Male Achievement Program, which started in 2010. The program led to a significant reduction in the number of Black students who dropped out of high schools in Oakland, especially in ninth grade, according to research by Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis. The graduation rate among Black boys in OUSD increased from 46% in 2010 to 69% in 2019.

In San Leandro, the contract with Kingmakers gives Halkin Elementary and John Muir Middle access to the classroom curriculum and funds a facilitator position to work with both schools, as well as some annual campus events and training for school staff.

“If the curriculum improved outcomes for Black boys, why wouldn’t you want Black boys to do better in school?” Bristol asked.

In its complaint, Parents Defending Education calls itself “an interested third-party organization with members who are parents of school children throughout the country.” It is not clear whether any in the group have children in San Leandro schools.

The group cited a 2015 decision by the Department of Education finding that a Black Lives Matter assembly hosted “for African American students only” in the suburbs of Chicago violated Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights decided in that case that the district did not assess whether there were “race-neutral alternatives” to the event, and the district agreed to host programming open to all students regardless of race in the future.

Bristol said that there probably are some components of the Kingmakers’ curriculum in San Leandro that should be taught to all students.

“I believe that we owe it to white children to understand and not have a fairytale rendering of U.S. history that centers only white people and the accomplishments of white people,” he told KQED. “Such a fairytale rendering of history for white children does not set them up for success when they go to college, when they sit in my classroom at UC Berkeley, because such a rendering of history is inaccurate. And then when they [do] have to engage with an accurate telling of history, there becomes a great deal of cognitive dissonance.

“I think we see some of that playing out on the national stage.”

The complaint comes as the Trump administration’s Department of Education has called on school districts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the country. The department said it would begin assessing districts’ compliance with the demand on Feb. 28.

Craig Trainor, the department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said that DEI programs have discriminated against white and Asian students and “indoctrinated students” with a “false premise” of structural racism.

The Department of Education has already dissolved two DEI-related councils, canceled trainings, placed employees in DEI roles on paid administrative leave and withdrawn an equity action plan.

Rolling back these programs — at both the school district and federal levels — makes schools more, not less, unequal, according to Bristol.

“The whole purpose of a democracy is to ensure that everyone is included, that we have diverse perspectives, that everyone feels like they have an equitable and equal opportunity to participate and that they are included,” Bristol said. “That’s what diversity, equity, and inclusion is.

“Schools are broken, and they haven’t served the unique needs of Black boys, and in order to fix it, we have to spend special attention and target it.”