NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The New Hanover County Board of Education pushed forward with the chosen path on two controversial topics at their meeting this week.
READ MORE: NHCS strategic plan nixes DEI to comply federally, sex ed changes could be next
The board voted along party lines — Democrats Judy Justice and Tim Merrick dissenting — to remove references to diversity, equity and inclusion, along with gender identity from several policies, including 1310, 3000, 3130, 3420, 7130.
Some of these were changed just for mentioning the words “diversity” and “equity” — policies 3100, 3200, 4240, 4310; Merrick pointed out the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting DEI and gender identity don’t ban the use of those words.
“The executive orders talk about using DEI and how it would abridge certain people’s rights; even that is not law, but I’m willing to go along with the rest of the board with those executive orders, but this is not it,” Merrick said. “When we take away the word ‘equity,’ when we take away the word ‘diversity,’ we are telling something to the public. We are telling something to our students. We are telling people who are already feeling marginalized.”
Board member David Perry, who originally was against removing “diversity” unrelated to DEI, said he was now in favor of the removal because he didn’t want the federal government to misconstrue its use and pull its funding from the district.
Despite not having the Constitutional authority to do so, Donald Trump has said his administration will remove funding from public schools that do not eliminate DEI programs. Four North Carolina School districts — Robeson, Richmond, Lenoir and Halifax counties — have had their Education Stabilization Funds eliminated, though this does not appear to be DEI-related.
The board also passed policy 6220, though different from the committees’ proposal. The board voted 5-2 (Merrick and Justice again dissenting) against specifying discrimination cannot be based on “biological sex” in some of its policies, instead choosing to retain just “sex,” thus leaving definition in several policies to cover sexual identity and gender identity.
The decision over defining sex was made after the board’s attorney, Norwood Blanchard, advocated the change was “probably not the greatest idea in the world.” Despite Blanchard’s view that Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board case “got it wrong,” the Fourth Circuit interprets that sexual orientation and gender identity are encompassed by the word ”sex.”
“I don’t see the need to qualify ’sex’ by just saying ‘biological sex,’” Blanchard said. “If you believe it’s biological sex, well, you’re already covered by just the term ‘sex.’ There’s no additional benefit to qualifying that by saying ‘biological sex.’”
Board member David Perry was the main driver behind inserting “biological”; after this attempt failed, however, Perry asked for all class specifications to be removed. This includes: character, race, religion, ethnic origin, biological sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting status), family status, or disability.
Blanchard weighed in again, saying this move was taking away the board’s “ability to police clearly, offensive advertising messages.” He used the example of the Ku Klux Klan showing up to advertise its organization at a football game.
Despite there being no difference in the way “biological sex” was inserted across its policies, the board got tripped up when it came to making the same change in its advertising policy.
Ultimately, this is what caused board member Josie Barnhart to suggest the advertising policy be moved back to the policy committee and postpone the discussion of the remaining policies to the next meeting. This passed unanimously.
AI pilot
Before any policy discussion kicked off, board member Pat Bradford attempted to amend the agenda to include a discussion of the AI security pilot in light of “new information.” The pilot was voted down by the board last week.
At its agenda review meeting this week, the board discussed a state-funded pilot that would ally artificial intelligence with the district’s current camera systems. The AI plug-in would trigger alerts in a potential emergency, students all running one way for example or a person brandishing a weapon.
The board voted 4-3 to do without the program, Chair Melissa Mason and board member David Perry departing from their Republican colleagues and voting against the program along with Democrats Tim Merrick and Judy Justice.
The decision came down to the perceived untrustworthiness of the AI system company, Paris-based Eviden.
Part of this perception was based on a conversation Mason reported having with Davidson County school board chair Nick Jarvis; the state mandated both Davidson and New Hanover counties use the same AI security company if they agreed to the $3.5-million pilot. Jarvis told Mason Eviden had been resistant to a third-party audit, which the Davidson board made a condition for when it voted to partner with Eviden in February.
However, several NHC board members corrected this narrative after the vote. Port City Daily reached out to Davidson County Schools after the vote; Superintendent Greggory Slate responded with clarification.
“Eviden and our legal counsel are working to finalize the 3rd party risk assessment,” he wrote in an email. “To my knowledge, both parties are getting close to finalizing this piece for Davidson County Schools and Eviden.”
Barnhart, Bradford and Pete Wildeboer pushed for the board to reconsider the vote at this week’s meeting.
“It’s in the best interest of taxpayers and the direction of this district … I think this pilot should be revisited, because we’d be able to allocate funding from the state level to help the goals of the district to accommodate,” Barnhart said, referring to the $1 million ask of the county commissioners to boost security measures.
However, the board members that voted against the pilot said their decision does not changed based on the new information.
“I did it because it was not the best company,” Justice said. “The money was a huge question, and I know that there’s better ways to use that kind of money. It wasn’t just given to us, plus that company could have just fallen apart the way it was being run.”
Mason issued a similar reasoning.
“The conversations I had with multiple individuals, alongside my own personal research, raised more questions than answers, and while I believe that there is potential for AI to benefit us in the future, I feel it’s crucial that maintain the autonomy to choose both the company and the process through which it is implemented,” Mason said.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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