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A Washington state public high school required its teachers in 2018 to undergo mandatory training in White, heterosexual male privilege.
The suburban Tumwater School District, southwest of Tacoma, hired a consultant to help the predominantly White high school faculty “examine our privilege” and learn about microaggressions at a two-hour, in-service session, according to a teacher who anonymously sent materials to the conservative advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE) on Aug. 4.
“Because everyone was terrified to contribute to the discussion we were supposed to be having, lest we offend someone with one of the many micro-aggressions we had just learned about, the room was awkwardly silent for most of the time,” the teacher said in a statement. “The thing is, we started with these norms about respect of others’ views, etc., but we all knew darn well that if anyone like me shared their views on it, we would be shunned.”