Testimony of Heather Fleming, Founder of Missouri Equity Education Partnership
Joint Committee on Education
Submitted Aug. 23, 2021

Hello.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of parents, educators, and DEI professionals throughout the state of MO.  My name is Heather Fleming, and I am the founder and director of In Purpose Educational Services. My work is concentrated on making our state a more inclusive place to live, work, and thrive for all citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation, ability level, mental health status, or any other difference that we find amongst citizens of our community.  Ultimately, it is about identifying our commonalities and accommodating and appreciating our differences.

I am here today to speak in favor of inclusive education across our schools, our institutions, our businesses, our recreational facilities, and our government. I am motivated by my belief in the ability of Missouri citizens to support one another and uphold our social contract -- to focus not only on our rights, but our responsibilities to one another.

I also believe in our children’s ability to learn, develop, and innovate in order to prepare for and adapt to the challenges of an ever-changing community and state.  I believe the incredible educators of this state can teach with the compassion, empathy, competence, and ethical positioning necessary to prepare the next generation of leaders to ensure the success of our communities and future. Finally, I believe in the ability of this body to do what’s best for the citizens of Missouri, particularly our children. 

On April 26, 2021, I founded the MO Equity Education Partnership, a non-profit organization advocating for inclusive education and the accurate presentation of equity work. When the conversations about critical race theory began to appear in our political discourse, many of us who work in the DEI fields asked, “Why are we talking about CRT when that is not what we teach?” CRT is taught in universities and law schools to examine laws and institutions through a critical lens based upon race. 

In my years educating students and providing DEI training, I never taught about critical race theory.  In listening to opponents of so-called CRT, I realized there was a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is, and the people who were most vocal about it were, in fact, speaking against any diversity, equity, and inclusion training. They were using CRT as an umbrella term to include any critical examination of the dynamics of race in our classrooms and society. They were fighting against the discomfort associated with discussing issues of race, while claiming that CRT promotes and encourages Marxism and Communism. This is simply not true - it does not promote or encourage either of these philosophies.

I became increasingly alarmed when I saw the amendment to HB 1141 that stated that in discussing history, we could not name things for what they were or examine concepts through racial lenses.  The attempts to silence educators from addressing race in the classroom meant the following:

1. We could not discuss slavery, the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment, the Women’s Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement or any other event or time frame in our history while identifying the “people, entities, or institutions as inherently, immutably, or systematically sexist, racist, biased, privileged, or oppressed.”

2. We could not examine current or past events by “classifying persons into groups” or “defining a person’s identity.”  This would mean not mentioning race when teaching about then-Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney’s assertion in the Dred Scott decision that a black man “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” -- that people of African descent "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States".

3. We could not assign “blame to categories of persons, regardless of the actions of particular individuals.” This meant that we could not place incidents like Germany’s Kristallnacht, Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday, or the murder of Emmett Till or, more recently, Breonna Taylor, into a greater cultural, social, and political context to help students better understand the nuanced circumstances that connected them to greater patterns found in our society.

The irony is that, in trying to implement this law, you were proving the theory you opposed to be correct.

More than that, it has proven to be unnecessary.  At the July 19th Joint Committee on Education hearing, Sen. Karla Eslinger requested that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education survey school districts, asking two questions: do they teach CRT and does their curriculum include the 1619 Project.  Of the 425 districts that responded, only three stated they had any elements of either. Each statement was heavily clarified: No educator was pushing an agenda but instead making use of available, credible resources to support the learning standards mandated by the state of Missouri. 

So, why are we here? 

In townhalls that I’ve attended with some of you on the panel, the issue of school choice has been a central topic of discussion.  In the effort to support school choice, some have discredited our public schools, educators, and scholars, and to ascribe motives and goals to them that are not true.  When I was in the classroom, I did not wish to indoctrinate my students. Instead, I tried to teach them that each person’s experience was valid and worthy of being honored. 

What this means is that your experience, Mr. Schroer, in private school at Trinity High School, holds as much worth as mine in public school at St. Charles West.  That your experience in Shelbina, Ms. O’Laughlin, is as important as my experience in St. Charles. That your children’s homeschool education, Mr. Koenig, is as consequential as my children’s in Francis Howell. And that your experience as a white man, Mr. Eigel, is of equal significance and notability as mine as a black woman.  

The reality in our state is that, as much as we would like to say that everyone has the same opportunity for success, they do not.  According to the “Still Separate, Still Unequal” Report from Ferguson Forward, when we look at the funding landscape for predominantly white school districts vs. predominantly black school districts, on average, white districts receive almost $1700 more funding per student than black districts.  

The disparities continue across a number of metrics that impact educational success: disciplinary actions, access to mental health care, trauma-informed educational techniques, access to resources, food security, etc. 

When we consider all of these factors, equity in education becomes not just an approach, but an ethical imperative.  We must do everything we can to support our students, and that means approaching equity from two perspectives: providing our teachers with a lens that injects fairness into their classrooms and student learning experiences, and ensuring our students have cultural competency skills in school and beyond, into professional life. 

Can we be brave enough to create laws and protections that will correct the wrongs of our past? Can we enter into discourse with one another about how to correct those inequities?

I believe that we can. 

The mantra that I teach to participants of my training is, “No Shame, No Blame, it is what it is.” So perhaps the issue here is not that you’re against equity education, but that you haven’t had mine.

No matter where you stand, the answer will not be found in political grandstanding.  It will not be found in shame and blame. It will not be found in anger.

It can only be found in discussion. Understanding. Forgiveness. Empathy. Learning. Love.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m too optimistic. But, as you can tell by my hair, I’m also bold and unafraid.  

To quote Martin Luther King, Jr. (because let’s face it, everyone likes to quote MLK), in his reference to the words of Minister Theodore Parker “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I am asking you to join me in demanding it swerve in favor of ALL of the students and citizens of Missouri.