Abrasive Approach Does Cause Friction ‘Equity’ Fad A Little Bureaucracy Of Pc Police Is Not What’s Needed.

Mona Mendoza could be the poster child for what’s wrong with multiculturalism.

The self-proclaimed feminist-Chicana-lesbian-activist demanded that Spokane School District 81 students and faculty use politically correct language and accept her as she is - hyphens, brashness and all. But she had little tolerance for people who embrace traditional values. When challenged, she whined about racism.

After quitting recently as a member of the district’s equity team, Mendoza complained: “I wasn’t prepared for the kind of hatred the department received.”

Did Mendoza and the four-member department she helped create really encounter widespread hatred? Or was it justifiable resistance to a world view that conflicts with the religious values that undergird the Inland Northwest?

District 81 should welcome Mendoza’s resignation, as an opportunity to re-evaluate the year-old equity program. If the equity committee has become a nest for counterculture propagandists, as Mendoza’s former presence would indicate, it should be disbanded. Schools, supported by public tax dollars, exist to educate, not indoctrinate.

The greatest equalizer among the races, religions and sexes is a quality education - not a militant feminist who pesters impressionable children to eschew the suffix “-man.” Youngsters who can read, write and divide have a promising future, regardless of their skin color, creed, gender or economic status.

An educated child only needs to learn respect for others to become a valuable member of society.

Superintendent Gary Livingston, who plans to fill the post quickly, apparently thinks respect can be manufactured by a little bureaucracy of PC police. But respect is a simple matter of good manners, and promoting manners used to be a job embraced by every good teacher - until the “equity” fad created a separate (and unnecessary) new career track.

Spokane would be better served if its schools were to teach citizenship rooted in a love for God, country and neighbors. Love is the only antidote for racism. Unfortunately, public schools jettisoned God years ago and have reaped a whirlwind of behavorial problems since.

Do you suppose Livingston would accept a heterosexual- Jesus freak-homemaker to take Mendoza’s place?

, DataTimes MEMO: See opposing view under the headline: Goal and effort both remain valid

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