The Fight To Save A North Carolina School Board From Extremists

Last September, the New Hanover County Board of Education in North Carolina voted 4-3 to remove “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, from its high school curriculum.

“Stamped” is an award-winning nonfiction book, specifically written to help teens understand the concept of systemic racism. But according to the parent in the district who led the crusade against the book, it promotes anti-American sentiment and disrespect for the Bible.

The decision to remove the book — temporarily, according to the school board, though it hasn’t said anything about when the ban may be lifted — from the district’s Advanced Placement Language and Composition curriculum was one of many controversial decisions the school board has made since four Republicans won open seats in the 2022 election.

It was also the decision that made at least one parent get more involved and follow the board’s actions more closely.

“That really caught my attention,” Valerie Noel, who has four children in the district, told HuffPost. “As a former English teacher, I am very against book banning and censorship.”

The newest board members have similar views to Moms for Liberty, a far-right organization that says it promotes parental rights. The group originated in Florida in response to coronavirus-related school closures and has bloomed into a nationwide organization that supports the conservative faux moral panic du jour.

“I truly believe they’re doing everything they can to destroy our schools,” Sandy Eyles, a parent in the school district, told HuffPost. Eyles founded New Hanover County Educational Justice, a group that educates the public about what’s going on in local schools. “Our school board has been an absolute disaster.”

School board races, once quiet affairs, have become a target of far-right activists who want to remake the nation’s public schools. Across the U.S., these races have become more high-profile, with culture warriors running on platforms that demonize public schooling, attack books with LGBTQ+ and racial justice themes, and smear educators as groomers and indoctrinators.

In New Hanover County, an increasingly purple pocket of North Carolina, the board of education race is a microcosm of state politics — a close fight between the Democratic Party and a GOP that has lurched further and further right under Donald Trump.

After two years of the board’s far-right agenda, voters have a chance to dilute conservatives’ power in November. The seven-seat board currently has five Republicans, one of whom occasionally votes with Democrats. Since only three seats are up for grabs this fall, Democrats would have to wait until 2026 to attempt to flip the board — but if they sweep the election this fall, they’ll still have three guaranteed votes.

On the flip side, Republican victories in those races would mean the conservatives would have total control of the board.

Perhaps the most controversial candidate for the New Hanover board is Natosha Tew, the legislative chair of the county’s Moms for Liberty chapter. (The vice chair of the chapter was just arrested for her role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.) Tew’s campaign website says that “the foundation of my candidacy is on fixing our schools by removing the politicized ‘Woke’ curriculum.” She openly embraces anti-government conspiracy theories and has railed against the Biden administration’s changes to Title IX, the law that protects people from gender and sex-based discrimination.

“We, as Parents and concerned citizens, must remain steadfast in our mission to elect officials that recognize that there are only 2 biological sexes, and that gender ideology is cult that threatens the very fabric of our society… the family unit,” she wrote on her campaign website in July.

Tew homeschooled her daughter and does not have any experience in public education.

She gained notoriety for railing against COVID protections at school board meetings and was once removed from the meeting for going over her allocated speaking time.

Tew did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

“It’s just really scary to see people like Natosha Tew speak this hateful rhetoric,” Eyles said.

The two other Republican candidates, David Perry and Nikki Bascome, haven’t generated as much controversy, but they are still campaigning on “parental rights” — a popular catch-all term for conservatives who want influence over classrooms — and claims that students are using materials that are not age-appropriate.

New Hanover County residents don’t believe they would be moderating voices on the school board.

“I believe in public education. I want my children to have a great education and to love school,” Noel said. “If any of [the Republicans] get elected, I don’t even want to imagine what the board would be like.”

A lot of eyes are on New Hanover, and not just because of the school board. The purple county, in a crucial swing state, is considered the bellwether for North Carolina politics. Experts say it will be the county to watch when it comes to the presidential election.

The county — which now is home to 225,000 people, about half of whom live in the beachside city of Wilmington — went for Republican presidential candidates every year from 1980 to 2016. But in 2020, President Joe Biden edged out Trump by 2 points, though he lost the state overall. In the 2022 midterms, the county selected Democrat Cherri Beasley for Senate but Republican David Rouzer for the House.

And despite the Republican sweep of the county school board, the wins were by extremely thin margins.

Pat Bradford, Melissa Mason, Josie Barnhart and Peter Wildeboer all campaigned on the promise to remove “critical race theory” from the schools. (CRT is a college-level academic framework used to understand structural racism, but conservatives have co-opted the term to mean any materials dealing with racial justice.) They also vowed to ban LGBTQ+ books that they claim are sexualizing children and to restore “parental rights.”

They made good on those campaign promises as soon as they were elected.

At a February 2023 meeting, the board voted to reverse a policy that allowed middle school athletes to play on sports teams that matched their gender identity. The meeting was paused for a short period of time to allow local police to escort a member of the far-right extremist Proud Boys, who showed up at the meeting to support a reversal, out of the building.

Attacking transgender youth has become a core part of the GOP’s ideology. Over the last few years, the party has sponsored endless bills designed to keep trans students from playing on sports teams and using bathrooms that match their gender identity. They have passed legislation that bans gender-affirming health care for youth and spread lies about schools performing gender reassignment surgeries on students.

Last June, the school board voted 4-1 (two members were absent) to pass a policy restricting what teachers can hang in their classrooms, including flags, student art work and family photos. Two days later, New Hanover County Schools deleted a Facebook post celebrating Pride month, citing the new policy — and leading residents and parents to believe the rule had always been about banning Pride flags.

“Their hatred for the LGBTQ+ community is obvious,” Eyles said. “It’s scary and it’s overwhelming.”

After removing “Stamped” from classrooms, the board voted 4-2 (one member was absent) to dissolve the school district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion office in December 2023.

DEI programs have come under scrutiny by Republicans, with some even using the concept as a thinly veiled racist attack against Black politicians. State legislatures have passed laws to dismantle DEI programs in local government and higher education.

In July, the board voted 5-0 (two members were not present) to fire Charles Foust, the county’s first Black superintendent. The move came after 80% of district teachers said in a survey that their leaders were not aware of what goes on in classrooms and that administrators and the school board are not in touch with the realities of teaching.

“It’s been very frustrating, because the school board has just spent so much time and energy on culture war issues,” Noel said.

“Our board has been behaving in a very racist way,” she added.

Parents say that banning “Stamped,” cutting the DEI program and firing Foust all remind them of New Hanover County’s racist history. In 1898, white supremacists violently overthrew the duly-elected biracial government in Wilmington, killing anywhere between 60 to 300 Black people and ushering in the Jim Crow era.

Residents are also worried about what it could mean for their school board if Michele Morrow, the ultra-conservative GOP candidate for state superintendent, wins her race.

After taking her children to the rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Morrow posted now-deleted videos saying Trump should use the military to stay in power. She also called for the execution of prominent Democrats like former President Barack Obama and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

Despite having no experience in education and homeschooling her daughter, Morrow is promising to make waves in the public school system.

“Our current education system continues to detach from the values that built this country – prioritizing gender studies and leftist political indoctrination over foundational knowledge,” she posted on X (formerly Twitter) last month. “The establishment has to go.”

New Hanover education advocates believe that a Morrow win would be a boon to the New Hanover school board’s extremist agenda.

“I know [the Republican board candidates] all love Michele Morrow and they all love Trump,” said Kristina Mercier, a retired New Hanover teacher.

“If all three Republicans win, they’re going to spend the next two years doing whatever they want,” Mercier added. “They’re going to ban books and make life difficult for LGBTQ+ students and teachers.”