Documents obtained by The Federalist reveal that Parish Episcopal School, an elite private school in Dallas, Texas, hosted racially segregated school clubs and targeted a student who objected. One faculty member with power over school curriculum has also expressed extreme anti-cop and anti-white sentiments, and the school has ties to far-left organizations.
Not to be confused with the Episcopal School of Dallas, a neighboring private school that The Federalist revealed has been lying to parents about the presence of racism in its classrooms, Parish Episcopal School costs nearly $20,000 for PreK and more than $30,000 for middle and high school.
A flyer from the school explains the purpose and nature of the racially segregated student groups, called “affinity groups.” It notes that the groups are open to “all upper school students” before going on to insist the groups remained racially segregated, saying “we only ask that you respect that if you do not identify as the members of that group, please do not attend that meeting group.”
Affinity groups were hosted for a number of races and sexual behaviors, including for Hispanic and African American students, as well as for those who identify as LGBTQ+. An affinity group was also hosted for white students, and was labeled “White Allies for Racial Equity.”
Racially segregated school clubs are only one of the numerous outgrowths of the leftwing orthodoxy that dominates the school.
Even trivial topics have become marred by woke identity politics. Chris Anderson, PES’s assistant head of middle school for student life, sent out an email addressing an upcoming Hawaiian-themed school spirit day. In it, he said the day “did not align with our commitment of creating a culture of belonging.”
He went on to tell students to not wear flower leis, flower headbands, grass skirts, or anything else that “would be considered insensitive to Native Hawaiians or the Hawaiian culture.”
Students Subjected To Indoctrination Seminar
More recently, high school students at PES were subjected to a half-day leftwing indoctrination seminar. It featured sessions including “LGBTQ-101: Pronouns and Why They Matter” which covered “terminology associated with the LGBTQ community, non-binary and transgender identities, bullying, and cultural competency.”
Another session called “Healthy Masculinity” discussed “examples of how media and peer groups enforce both healthy and toxic masculinity will be looked at and discussed.”
Despite its clear political bias, an email advertising the seminar mentioned only the tamer aspects of the conference.
Teacher Condemns All White People As Racists, Says ‘F-ck The Police‘
While the school’s diversity statement claims the institution cultivates “respect for the rich variety of people and points of view that exist in our complex global society,” remarks from social studies teacher Jania Hoover suggest such respect may be lacking not only among the school’s administration, but among faculty as well.
Hoover condemned both police officers and those who support them in a post where she exclaimed “F-ck the police” (profanity altered for publication). She followed up the vitriolic statement with more hatred, saying “If you believe the police are good because YOU know a good one, f-ck you too.”
In addition to anti-police bias, the teacher also has publicly expressed anti-white bias. In one post reflecting on a conference she attended called Be About It, Hoover condemned all white people as racist, noting that “Even well-meaning white people are complicit in racism and white supremacy.” She also states, “I was wary when I saw white people hosting, but most of the speakers are black.”
Hoover isn’t just a teacher at Parish Episcopal School. The institution has trusted her to develop curriculum as a subject area coordinator. In her role, she’s worked alongside the school’s Diversity Committee, according to her resume. That resume also says she has a doctorate in education.
Hoover also openly said she was preparing to teach critical race theory to her students, noting that she was doing so specifically because CRT had come under fire.
Hoover made good on her commitment to teaching the divisive theory. A slide from Hoover also reveals a QR code that leads to a document that lists several CRT resources that Hoover uses in class.
One such resource is the Zinn Education Project, named after Howard Zinn, a Marxist academic and activist. Another is Liberate History, which provides teachers with lesson plans that are explicitly grounded in CRT.
Yet another is Teaching Tolerance, a project of the activist Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been renamed Learning for Justice. It also seeks to embed CRT in America’s schools.
School Teams Up With Far-Left Organizations
In an email sent out the week of the 4th of July, Monaco decried his alleged privilege while also saying that his celebration of Independence Day came with “a pang of discomfort.”
He also went on to implore parents to read a report published by the school in 2019 titled “We Are Parish: Building a Culture of Belonging.” It described the leftward direction that the school intended to take, complete with anti-bias training and the “diversification” of choosing people according to skin color for the school’s administration, faculty, staff, and board. It also included a glossary with terms like “asexual,” “microaggression,” “LGBTQAAI,” and “privilege.”
Most notably, the report discussed PES’s partnership with or general interest in a variety of left-wing organizations, including the aforementioned Teaching Tolerance. Another organization the Christian school looked to as it sought to modify its curriculum was GSLEN, which works to endanger women by advocating for men who identify as transgender to be able to use women’s restrooms.
GSLEN also organizes LGBT clubs on K-12 campuses and hosts events celebrating transgenderism. The organization even published a guide intended for minors for changing one’s name during transgender transition. This same document promoted a number of unhealthy ways to address children’s gender dysphoria.
Multiple representatives of the Anti-Defamation League were also consulted as Parish plotted its move to the left. While the ADL posits itself as an authority on racial hatred, it defines racism as “The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people,” a politically motivated definition that reinforces the anti-white idea that white people cannot be victims of racial hatred.
The Parish Episcopal School also made these changes despite recognizing in its report that previous identity-based programming events were criticized as “agenda-laden and shaming” by some “non-minority members of the Upper School community.”
School Condemns One Of Its Own Students
Here’s how one student was treated by the school’s leadership when he took a vocal stand against identity politics by selecting a statement from Theodore Roosevelt as his senior quote.
It read, “In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans,” a clear display of a belief in a unifying American identity that cuts across the racial fault lines the left has so effectively seized upon. The quote was originally approved by the school, and, as the student later explained, was not motivated by animosity.
Following outrage from some students, the administration mercilessly attacked their own student, issuing a letter of condemnation signed by Monaco that decried the high school senior’s selected quote as ethnically and racially insensitive and “inarguably offensive.”
It even went on to announce that the administration had launched an investigation into the situation and that the school “does not condone any sort of hate or bias act.” The quote was taken off of social media and did not appear in the yearbook, in a move that not only caved into politically motivated demands but also legitimized an attack on the expression of their own student.
A Cross-Sector Crisis
While much of the conversation about critical race theory has been relegated to government-run schools, the state of Parish Episcopal School, just like that of the Episcopal School of Dallas, proves that the effort to indoctrinate America’s youth is broad. Both schools are associated with the leftwing National Association of Independent Schools.
This dynamic highlights the importance of parents fighting back against any educational institution that has dedicated itself to the indoctrination of students. It also underscores that destructive far-left ideology affects the entire education sector, as well as extending far outside government institutions.
Neither Hoover nor Monaco responded to a request for comment.