California School District Hit With Calls For Investigation Into Racial Discrimination

A California school district is facing calls for the federal government to launch an investigation into its hiring practices, with one organization claiming that it systematically engages in racial discrimination through its “equity” policies.

California’s La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District, located on the coast just outside of Silicon Valley, may have engaged in racial discrimination as it sought to attract “diverse” candidates, according to Parents Defending Education (PDE).

“La Honda-Prescadero cannot discriminate based on their race when hiring or making other employment decisions,” PDE wrote in a letter to the Director and Regional Attorney of the San Jose Local Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “We ask that your office promptly investigate the allegations in this complaint, act swiftly to remedy unlawful policies and practices, and order appropriate relief.”

PDE pointed to multiple documents from the school district that outline its approach to “equity” in hiring. One such document explained that one of the district’s goals is to “achieve an increase in diversity” of new hires. “By June 2024, district and site staff shall fully implement the LHPUSD hiring policy and achieve an increase in the diversity of the workforce in at least 75% of new hires,” the document reads.

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Another district document, called “Hiring and Retaining a Diverse Staff 2024-2025,” explains how this goal might be achieved. A list of “strategies to encourage diverse candidates” instructs hiring personnel to “prioritize messaging that centers diversity/POC” and “track demography of candidate pool throughout the entire hiring process.”

The document even goes on to explain that hiring officials should be “purposeful about saying experience in lieu of degree” when advertising jobs in order to enhance the diversity of applicant pools.

The documents both appear to have been created after the district commissioned an equity audit report from an outside group, which charged $19,500 for its services. The report claimed that the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District “had room to improve how they recruit educators of color to increase the diversification of staff.”

“Research supports the importance of encouraging racially diverse candidates to remain in districts at proportional rates and provide them with equitable opportunities to progress upwards in the organization,” the equity audit commissioned by the district claims.

PDE warns that the measures taken by the school district to reengineer the demographics of their staff could run afoul of federal law. “PDE makes this investigation request as an interested third-party organization with members who are parents of school children throughout the country,” the organization explained, adding that “PDE and its members oppose racial discrimination and political indoctrination in America’s schools.”

The call for an investigation into the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District comes after PDE issued a similar call for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate  New York state’s Rochester City School District for similarly implementing an “equity policy” that appeared to create a hiring preference for “African American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American” job applicants who qualify as “staff of color.”

The La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.