Oconomowoc schools impose limits on 'privilege' discussions after parents complain

The Oconomowoc Area School District is limiting discussions about social privilege after a Martin Luther King Day exercise that touched on the subject of white privilege set off a firestorm in that predominantly white community.

Oconomowoc Superintendent Roger Rindo said he was directed by board members during a closed-door, executive session shortly after the Jan. 15 assembly not to allow future activities around the topic of privilege except in classrooms where it is related to a specific course and teachers can provide appropriate context.

"Schools are a microcosm of their communities. And we had parents in our community who felt like the concept of privilege went a little far, particularly for some of our younger students," Rindo said last week.

"It doesn't mean we can't teach children about diversity with the other 900 ways we can approach it."

That is troubling for Oconomowoc parent Amanda Hart, whose online petition calling on the district to maintain programming like the MLK Day assembly had attracted almost 1,000 signatures as of Friday.

"I don't know how you can have a discussion about race without also discussing (privilege) to give our students a complete picture," said Hart, a lesbian mother of three, including two biracial foster children.

"Even if you don't agree with the concept of white privilege," she said, "it's part of helping students become critical thinkers."

The timing of the board's edict, just weeks before the February resignation of Principal Joseph Moylan, has fueled speculation that Moylan was pushed out in part for allowing the student-led exercise during the assembly Jan. 15.

Board member Steven Zimmer, a friend and supporter of Moylan, also resigned, in protest. He said last week that he "disagreed with the way board members used the MLK Day assembly to push (Moylan) out."

"I was not going to be part of the personal politics and vendettas of people on the board who wanted him out," Zimmer said.

Rindo and school board president Donald Wiemer have declined to discuss Moylan's departure, calling it a personnel matter. But they acknowledge reining in discussions of privilege in response to complaints about the MLK Day event.

The Oconomowoc controversy erupted in January after a break-out session in which students were invited to fill out and discuss a "privilege aptitude test." Created by the National Civil Rights Museum, the test is designed to illustrate the ways in which some groups enjoy advantages that others do not.

While some of the questions focused on race — for example, "When I go to a store, people believe I am trustworthy and I will not steal something" — others touched on privileges related to gender, physical ability and more.

The idea that skin color carries an advantage touched a nerve among some students and parents in the district, where almost 90% of the students are white. Several parents complained, fueled by conservative talk radio. Parents who supported the discussion also weighed in.

But Rindo quashed a proposal by a student club that focuses on equality to follow up with a "privilege walk" — similar to the exercises that have gone viral on social media — saying in an email that the district has to be "prudent and mindful of the context in which we live and work."

"Our board is fine with discussions about diversity ... but white privilege is a lightning rod for some parents," said Wiemer, the board president who also serves as village manager and chief of police for the Village of Oconomowoc Lake, a small, affluent enclave on the southeast side of the district.

"We have poor people in Oconomowoc who are saying they're not privileged ... and people that say, 'Don, we worked our butts off to have what we have,'" Wiemer said.

Those are common reactions, said the Rev. Craig Howard, former executive director of the Presbytery of Milwaukee, who led a church-wide conversation about race that touched on issues of privilege during his tenure.

Privilege, he said, is often seen as a zero-sum game or a finite pie; for some to gain, others must lose. Those who have it, he said, often cannot or will not acknowledge the social and familial structures that sometimes underlie their progress.

He points, for example, to the way in which most Americans built wealth in the 20th century, through home ownership. That was often limited to whites through practices of red-lining and federally backed mortgages that could be accessed only for homes in white neighborhoods.

"Even if you don't feel the advantage, you don't feel the disadvantage," Howard said. "As you know, when the wind is at your back, you don't even know there's a wind."

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Oconomowoc is not the first school district or community to struggle with the notion of privilege or race relations. Parents have complained about privilege exercises at schools in the West Bend and Delavan-Darien districts in recent years.

Minority students have reported incidents of racial bullying at rural Wisconsin schools. And this month, the Franklin School District in Milwaukee County, which disciplined students for racist behaviors in two incidents since January, said it will mark Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a holiday beginning next year.

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Hart, the Oconomowoc mom who drafted the online petition, believes her community is more welcoming and open to discussion than the controversy suggests.

"If I can live in this district and feel accepted in my community, that's an indicator," Hart said. "The main focus of the petition is being a louder voice for these types of programs than against."