When Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launched Eyes on Education—an official state website that he says seeks to expose the “socialist indoctrination” of students and “hyper-psychism” in schools—the educators targeted by the site were caught completely unexpected.
Paul White is the superintendent of New Prairie United Schools, outside of South Bend. “I found out when it went live,” he says Rolling rock. But when he saw why his district was among those singled out for allegedly unacceptable policies, White was confused. “The document they had on their website about our school system was no longer in use. It had only been used for about 60 days. And it had been replaced almost two years ago.”
Rokita's office has claimed that “unacceptable curricula, policies or programs that affect children” posted on its website are fully vetted and verified. But White insists this is hogwash: “There was zero due diligence,” he says. This lack of process consideration may be a pattern.
The attorney general's website pledges that the office will use “our investigative tools, including public records requests” to investigate material it believes could violate Indiana law. But Rolling rock sent records requests to the 14 districts and educational entities highlighted in Eyes on Education, asking what the attorney general's office asked them for. None of the eight who responded had received requests for records from Rokita's office.
In New Prairie's case, the website Eyes on Education released, to public outcry, the district's old “Gender Support” policy, originally created in August 2022. That plan mandated transgender and non-conforming with gendered students to choose whether the district will discuss their school's accommodations (think: bathroom choice, pronoun changes) with parents. Based on community feedback, this policy was soon revised to make disclosure mandatory. The new policy, approved in November 2022, is still in effect. And it complies with a controversial new state law, passed in May 2023, that requires such disclosure.
At the launch of Eyes on Education, however, Rokita's team posted the old, interim district policy without any context, as if it were still in effect. With White's office suddenly besieged by calls from local media, he figured there was a simple mistake and thought the attorney general's office would be willing to correct it. To reach Rokita's office, White used the same Eyes on Education portal that allows aggrieved citizens to file a complaint.
White is provided Rolling rock with the correspondence trying to settle the matter. “Whoever sent this to you did not share the correct plan with you,” he wrote. “My recommendation is not to take every citizen's submission as gospel truth.” He pressed the attorney general's office for its apparent lack of care: “Why did no one from your office contact me to ensure the accuracy of the posted document and verify its use?”
White attached copies of the current plan, stressing that “parents will be notified in all cases when a transgender student comes forward to request a gender transition.” He asked that the old policy be removed.
The response White received shocked him. Corrine Youngs, Rokita's director of policy and legislative counsel, asked White to provide extensive “documentation evidencing the revocation of your previous policy,” as well as documents “evidencing your formal adoption of this new policy.” Having already published the outdated policy without confirming that it was still in effect, the attorney general's office was refusing to correct the record without putting White on the spot.
White didn't hold back in his response to Youngs: “It's beyond disturbing that the highest legal office in the state of Indiana … didn't review anything, didn't give me any opportunity before publication to respond, and now you've published the your website and we have to 'prove' what I submitted to you is true. This is sad and I don't respect it,” he wrote. White insisted that the submission process for Eyes on Education allows for politically motivated attacks. He wrote of the person who sent the outdated document to Rokita's office: “They clearly have an agenda, or they would be interested in the full truth.”
The updated policy was finally added on the Eyes on Education website, but without any context or explanation. The old policy still exists, now with a date attached: “Policy Revised November 2022”. White says he has received “no response” to his latest communication with the attorney general's office. A spokesperson for Rokita defended the posting of outdated material on the site in a statement to Rolling rock: “Even if a lesson plan or policy has changed, it's important for parents to see what the adults at their child's school are capable of.”
White points out that gender accommodations were not something the district created on its own, but rather the result of disputes that required the district to develop a policy. White made this clear in his letter to Youngs: “Since you are in the Attorney General's office, I assume you are also aware of federal court precedent on this matter.” Referred to a case that the US Supreme Court refused to take up, regarding an Indiana school that had to make accommodations for a transgender student. White adds, “We have no choice other than politics and federal case law [but] to work with transgender students on access to facilities and programming.”
Youngs did not respond to detailed questions about her communications with White. Instead, Rolling rock received an additional statement from Rokita's representative. “The vast majority of submissions to our portal are currently given by teachers or other school officials and are easily verified,” it reads in part. “That's why they went up without us notifying the schools.” The statement insists that “the goal of the portal is to provide transparency,” but adds: “We will not remove outdated content.” The statement claims that “the portal will really help teachers and school administrators because it will expose misinformation that may naturally exist in the public.”
White says he still doesn't know what the goal of Eyes on Education is. But as a Cuban American, he is particularly concerned by other documents highlighted on the site — posted by a nearby school district — that merely warn students about the availability of minority scholarships at local colleges. “I went to a state university in this state on one of those types of minority scholarships — and so did my mother, being a first-generation immigrant,” he says.
“That really concerned me,” he continues. “Is this local school system supposed to be struggling to highlight opportunities and choices for minority students? He seems to conclude that. I find it annoying on so many levels. I just don't understand.”
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rokita-indiana-snitch-website-education-1234978706/
