Why NAIS?
June 15, 2022
One of the many unanswered questions LH leadership has refused to address is why affiliate with the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) at all? As we show on LHPSWatch.com the NAIS is a Washington DC based organization designed to transform America’s private schools and indoctrinate its students into progressive woke activists who morally rank themselves and everyone around them according to skin color and other group identities. This is patently inconsistent with LH’s mission statement and honor code (“Each Highlander is a unique child of God”) and flies in the face of the universally accepted principle of color-blind social integration, not segregation, of diverse people.
Beginning in 2020 LH openly celebrated its relationship with the NAIS on its website, then removed it when a parent asked questions. However, subsequently, LH confirmed that they still send LH faculty and children to NAIS sponsored seminars, like the People of Color Conference (PoCC) and the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) for “leadership training”. This NAIS “training” is designed to be brought back to LH and taught to children as young as Pre-K. LH leadership also adopted NAIS’s recommended “best practices” with the creation of the new DEI administrative structure. The purpose of the DEI director position and DEI Advisory Committee is to implement and enforce Woke pedagogy into LH’s curriculum and practices top to bottom. In this, and upcoming blogs, we show you the NAIS’s patently racist, Marxist and scientifically absurd pedagogy and politics by quoting their own content.
NAIS’s use of “Diversity” and “Inclusion” means Racial Re-segregation, not Colorblind Integration
In explaining the 2007 “redesign” and “refocus” of its PoCC/SDLC faculty/student seminars going forward, the NAIS explicitly acknowledged its segregationist agenda, confirming that the Woke meaning of the terms “diversity” and “inclusive” do not include people of every race. Specifically, as quoted below, PoCC/SDLC organizers complained that the “original purpose” of PoCC/SDLC was NOT “a diversity conference” inclusive of white people. They unwittingly let slip how the classically liberal, Judeo-Christian meaning of the words “diversity” and “inclusion”-where everyone is included equally regardless of skin color-are NOT the Woke/NAIS meaning of those words. Here, in their own words, is proof that “inclusion” and “diversity” are Woke cross-over words, purposefully chosen to dishonestly appeal to the non-Woke, while simultaneously masking a radically different, segregationist meaning. Woke cross-over words like these are designed to be smuggled into organizational policy and practice for use by Woke advocates in positions of institutional authority and policy making. This is how Woke advocates transform institutions and schools across the country, like LH. This deceptive manipulation of familiar words and moral concepts is crucial to understanding Woke ideology. We explained this in detail at LHPSWatch.com in the section Understanding Woke-They Share our Vocabulary but not our Dictionary. There you can also find additional resources for your own, deeper research into Woke. Here is the NAIS in their own words:
“The need to redesign the conference was borne out of several driving forces:
-the “dilemma”—the ongoing issue of what to do about the ever-growing presence of white allies at a conference designed for people of color;
-the realization that the conference focus was shifting more and more toward a diversity conference and away from its original mission.
2007 PoCC Seminar Program, p. 31 NAIS https://pocc.nais.org/Program-Archive
In addition, since 2007 the following statement, titled Which Affinity Group Should I Attend?, has appeared at the beginning of every year’s PoCC/SDLC program.
…To preserve the safety and integrity of each Affinity Group space, you should attend only those sessions that correspond with the racial and ethnic identity to which you belong. Affinity Groups at PoCC are not spaces to learn about the racial or ethnic identity of others, including that of a child, spouse, or partner. Trying to attend an Affinity Group to which you do not belong is an intrusion and you will be asked to leave out of care and respect for the members' psychological safety and well-being.
See PoCC Seminar Programs, 2007 to present, NAIS https://pocc.nais.org/Program-Archive
So many questions can be asked, but here are just a few. Notice that attendees are grouped according to race and ethnicity, based on the scientifically absurd and racist dogma that skin color determines an individual’s personal identity. The Woke doctrine of racial “affinity” assumes that individuals with the “same” skin color all think and act alike. This begs the unanswerable question posed to every racist advocate of racial segregation in human history: how much of this or that skin pigmentation determines what racial group to which one is assigned? Is it the “one drop” rule? Or the “one quarter” rule? Or maybe one’s “racial affinity” requires at least one parent of that race? Or maybe membership in the NAIS’s Woke racial categories requires both parents to be “of the same race”? Woke doctrine requires posing and answering these morally appalling questions of the darkest past.
Notice also the NAIS separates LH’s faculty/student attendees according to race, even though they may have “…a child, spouse, or partner” of a different race. The NAIS PoCC is NOT the “space[] to learn about [the] racial or ethnic identity of others”. Incredibly, according to the NAIS, and Woke, racial integration can cause psychological damage. As we said, this stuff is not just morally appalling, but scientifically absurd. As detailed at LHPSWatch.com, LH recently adopted this same objectionable exclusionary policy with respect to its student clubs in its statement Why Affinity Groups?
Similar NAIS content over the years confirms its embrace of the Woke meaning of the words “diversity” and “inclusion”. The NIAS, and Woke, explicitly reject the principal of integration and MLK’s wisdom. Just one example is a 2011 NAIS PoCC training class titled There is No Such Thing as Colorblind! Which targets 3 to 6-year-olds:
“D-7 There Is No Such Thing as Colorblind! Room 123 Racial identity development starts earlier than you think. Examine how young children’s racial identity development can be successfully supported within the context of everyday classroom life, for children ages three through six. Learn ideas for age-appropriate explicit curriculum, tools for responding to emergent situations, and suggestions for how to effectively invite parents into this important ongoing conversation”
2011 PoCC Seminar Program, NAIS https://pocc.nais.org/Program-Archive
At the 2019 PoCC the NAIS offered a workshop titled The White Elephant in the Room: Navigating the Reality of Whiteness at PoCC reiterating the above points:
“Over a decade ago, NAIS declared that the "original purpose" of the PoCC was "providing people of color in our schools a sanctuary and a 'voice.'" Since then, the number of white people at the conference has been growing at an increasingly rapid rate, which raises the question of whether this original purpose has remained intact. While conversations about white people at the PoCC are ubiquitous among attendees who are people of color, the topic can still be difficult to discuss. This panel aims to address this fraught issue by exploring ways in which we can productively navigate the reality of white people at the PoCC.”
2019 PoCC Seminar Program, NAIS https://pocc.nais.org/Program-Archive
In a future blog we will discuss the NAIS’s advocacy of other explicitly racist and absurd Woke dogmas, like “whiteness”, and show you their provably Marxist origins. But for now we ask, again: Why is LH affiliated in any way with an organization that treats people differently according to the color of their skin or embraces racist dogmas that were thoroughly refuted by science decades ago? To date, LH leadership refuses to even entertain the question, must less answer it.
Sincerely,
Concerned alumni, parents and grandparents