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(Screenshot via KATU)

At least one parent is unhappy with a "white privilege survey" sent home with Aloha High School seniors earlier this week.

"The way this survey is read, it almost wants to like, shame you for being white," Jason Schmidt, the father of an Aloha High School senior told KATU Thursday.

The survey, shown by KATU, poses statements and asks students to score themselves between zero for seldom to never true to five for often true. The statements include: "I can be in the company of people of my race most of the time" and "If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of hassle-free renting or purchasing in an area in which I would want to live."

KATU says the goal of the survey, according to the school, is to create empathy and teach students how to have larger, difficult conversations.

"I feel that he should be learning actual education," Schmidt told KATU, "and not be a part of some social experiment or teacher's political agenda,"

But not all parents feel this way. Sarah Rios-Lopez told KATU that she believes it's important to talk about race. "It's a huge topic," she said, "and I think it needs to start somewhere."

"We are first of all judged by the color of our skin," she told the station.

The survey appears to be based on Peggy McIntosh's 1989 essay, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." In that essay she wrote, "I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious."

Though her essay is almost thirty years old, it's use in educational settings remains occasionally controversial.

You can watch the KATU segment here:

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker