Grapevine-Colleyville school board to consider district policies on gender identity, CRT

The Grapevine-Colleyville school board will consider new policies that would prevent teachers from including material on gender, equity and other issues and limit what pronouns can be used in schools, according to the board’s posted agenda.

In one proposed amended policy on the agenda, the district says that it will not “promote, require, or encourage the use of titles or pronoun identifiers for students, teachers or any other persons ... that is inconsistent with the biological sex” on a birth certificate or other government-issued record, if passed.

It would allow for district employees to use a student’s preferred pronouns other than those for their sex at birth, if the employee wants to, with the written consent of the student’s parent. It would not allow district employees to require anybody to use pronouns other that those for their sex at birth, but students and employees can use other preferred pronouns if they want to.

The proposed amendments to the policy would prohibit district employees from teaching topics of sexual orientation or gender identity unless everybody in the class has completed the fifth grade.

It would not allow any teaching or promotion of “gender fluidity,” including “the view that biological sex is merely a social construct, espouses the view that it is possible for a person to be any gender or none (i.e. non-binary) based solely on that person’s feeling or preferences or espouses the view that an individual’s biological sex should be changed to ‘match’ a self-believed gender that is different from the person’s biological sex,” according to the proposed policy.

The proposed amendments to the policy would also restate Texas Education Code rules that do not allow students to compete in UIL competitions in the district that are not designated for the biological sex listed on the students’ birth certificates.

Banning the 1619 Project

The proposed amendments to a section of policy regarding what can and cannot be taught in the district would expressly prohibit any teaching or discussion about the 1619 Project, or Critical Race Theory (CRT).

It would also prohibit requiring employees or students to receive instruction that promotes racial or sexual superiority or suggests or states that “an individual, by virtue of that individual’s race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” or that a person should face discrimination based on any demographic category into which they might fit.

The new prohibitions would also include prohibitions on teaching that an individual’s “moral character, standing or worth” is dependent upon their race or sex.

The amendments also ban teaching that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility, blame or guilt for actions committed by other members of the same race or sex; meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race or group to oppress members of another race or group; the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the united states; or with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”