The program, called “Deep Equity,” is offered by Corwin Press, a subsidiary of SAGE. According to its website, the program was developed by Gary Howard, a self-proclaimed civil rights activist with experience in “social justice, equity, education, and diversity.”
A social justice schooling program meant to train teachers in eliminating racial disparities between students also instructs them how to treat individuals who disagree with the program’s ideas, ordering them to “explicitly reject and resist” parents and other outsiders who take issue with the curriculum’s content.
A spokesperson for the company refused to directly address this mandate even after being asked about it multiple times.
The program, called “Deep Equity,” is offered by Corwin Press, a subsidiary of SAGE. According to its website, the program was developed by Gary Howard, a self-proclaimed civil rights activist with experience in “social justice, equity, education, and diversity.”
Reached via email, a Corwin spokesperson said the program “examines the diversity of schools across many dimensions—race, gender, class, language, sexual orientation, faith, ability, and more—from both a historical and lived experience.”
“It is based on the belief that the causes of educational disparities are many and complex; they are not merely based on race, but tied to a range of differences and challenges students and teachers bring to school,” the official added, writing that the program “provid[es] teachers with a fluid and holistic way of understanding cultural lenses and avoiding placing fixed identity markers on anyone.”
The program received wide attention after a major report from Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Carlson called the program’s contentions “pseudoscience” and said one teacher claimed the curriculum “forces teachers to become racial activists.”
Program Instructs Teachers on ‘Dealing with Resistance’
In addition to its extensive material on social justice, the Deep Equity program also urges participants to align against anyone who objects to the program’s claims about race and racism.
A series of slides associated with Deep Equity, available on Corwin’s website, makes this dictate unambiguous. “As leaders for Systemic Equity, we must explicitly reject and resist any attempts by anyone in our school district or in the larger community who claims that educational disparities are caused only by poverty. Inequities based on race are real…Race denial perpetuates the problem,” one slide says.
The Corwin spokesperson dodged repeated questions about this material. Responding to an initial query of several questions, among which was a question about the “reject and resist” instructions, the official wrote at one point: “Deep Equity welcomes all opinions from parents and others in the community and thrives when a variety of perspectives are discussed openly. While it is based on certain evidence-based tenets and embraces research over other forms of information, we’ve found that conflicting opinions can lead to incredibly valuable conversations.”
