Private Catholic Girls School Lies to Parents About Not Teaching Critical Race Theory

Maryvale Preparatory, a private all-girls Catholic school in Baltimore, recently sent a letter to parents lying about the presence of Critical Race Theory in response to an article from Breitbart News that exposed their diversity director for making racially inflammatory remarks targeted at white students.

The article from Breitbart News cited videos that featured Kalea Selmon, the school’s diversity director, endorsing anti-white discrimination and advocating for segregation in order to protect non-white students from what she called the “white gaze.”

Selmon shockingly endorses discrimination against white children when she says “it is absolutely okay to give black and brown students things you’re not giving white children.”

In another video, Selmon discussed leveraging racially exclusive affinity groups to find young activists, or as she calls them, “boots on the ground.”

One clip features Selmon saying that her work is motivated by what she calls “70 0ver 460,” a reference to “the number of BIPOC students” at the school.

In an attempt to do damage control, the Chair of the Board of Trustees and the President of the school sent an email to parents addressing the article.

The email did not, however, address the racially inflammatory comments made by their diversity director. Rather, the letter lied to parents about the presence of Critical Race Theory at the school, claimed that the article was inaccurate, and even said that Maryvale was being “unjustly treated.”

The letter claims, “The article inaccurately suggests that Maryvale teaches critical race theory. We do not.”

The article from Breitbart News does not suggest that Maryvale teaches Critical Race Theory. It says it outright. The article in Breitbart News reads unambiguously, “The school teaches Critical Race Theory to its students.”

The article cites lessons for middle school students such as “The Historical Construction of Race and Current Racial Identities Throughout U.S. Society,” and “Racism as a Primary ‘Institution’ of the U.S. – How We May Combat Systemic Inequality.”

These lessons clearly seek to teach the core tenets of CRT — that America and its institutions are systemically racist and that race itself is a social construct that has been used to maintain a hierarchy that privileges white people.

Breitbart News has reviewed even more resources from the school that prove that Maryvale Preparatory is teaching Critical Race Theory to its students. One page of the school’s website notes that “Pollyanna Curriculum is being introduced into the Middle School curriculum.”

Pollyanna is an education firm that created “racial literacy curriculums” for both middle school and high school students.

One aspect of the curriculum, intended for eighth graders, is titled “Racism as a Primary ‘Institution’ of the U.S. — How We Combat Systemic Inequality.” In this curriculum, “students will unpack sophisticated ideas like white privilege and white supremacy.”

Another part of the curriculum, intended for sixth graders, is called “The Historical Construction of Race and Current Racial Identities Throughout U.S. Society.” It claims that “race is a social construct, designed to provide some people with advantage and to create a disadvantaged status.” The curriculum also cites infamous Critical Race Theorist Robin DiAngelo as a source.

According to Pollyanna’s website, their racial literacy curriculum is meant to encourage “a movement to empower people of color to reject racist socialization and to empower White people to be allies for racial justice work” as well as to “challenge structures and practices of racial inequality and racist ideas that assign inferiority to some and superiority to others.”

Pollyanna’s “racial literacy” Critical Race Theory curriculum begins in kindergarten and goes all the way through high school.