Rights Seminar: School and Arts Colleges

rights seminar: But New Trier, a high-achieving, 4,000-student high school regularly ranked among the nation's best, found itself stepping into the minefield of the national dialogue on race and civil rights, according to The Chronicle Herald. Some parents and conservative groups have deemed the event during Black History Month radical and divisive. When a largely white public school nestled in Chicago's wealthiest suburbs planned a daylong civil rights seminar, it drafted two National Book Award winners as keynote speakers and crafted a syllabus that would be the envy of most liberal arts colleges. Dueling petitions circulated, heated emails were exchanged and hundreds of people packed a school board meeting beyond capacity. Some educators worry their work will become more difficult after a polarizing election that's fueled divisions, even in homogenous and largely Democratic areas like the upscale Lake Michigan suburbs making up New Trier. While New Trier's demographics and resources aren't reflective of many public schools, the debate highlights the complications of teaching civil rights when much of the country struggles to discuss race. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.