A leader of a parent advocacy group gave a fiery speech Thursday, slamming school board members for letting activism overshadow education in local schools.
Asra Nomani, vice president of Parents Defending Education and mother of a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), took the floor at a Thursday meeting of the Fairfax School Board.
Nomani accused the school board of pushing indoctrination on students at the county’s public schools through the critical race theory and calling the “mostly minority students and parents” racists and “toxic” for voicing their objections. She also lamented the board’s vote to remove the “merit-based race-blind admissions test to TJ.”
“I sent a note to every single one of you, and I got not a single response,” Nomani said, referring to her June 2020 message to the board members, in which she alerted them to a so-called “Occupy TJ” movement. “There was no concern about our students at that time.”
“We pled with you, as Asians, as an immigrant. I came [to the U.S.] at the age of four,” Nomani continued. “You didn’t listen to us. And now I sit here listening to these empty proclamations… about your great value of Asian-Americans.”
“Our students were told that if they do salsa dancing, it amounts to cultural appropriation, and that they needed to check their racism. And that is our mostly minority, mostly Asian students,” Nomani said. “So, your empty proclamations are just...