A Dallas-Fort Worth area high school student is attempting to launch an anti-racism club at his campus but has been unable to find a teacher to sponsor the prospective organization.
Brady Golomb, 18, a senior at Carroll High School in Southlake, said he wants to use his “privilege” to help students speak up about discrimination and bullying. However, he claims no teachers are willing to host his club idea.
“I’m done being silent. I want to do my best to be a student voice,” Golomb told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Golomb claimed there were 45 students at the school interested in joining the club. The organization would reportedly be for LGBTQ students and students of color.
”I’m still going to stand up and fight for the people who are marginalized. I’m never going to stop fighting for what’s right,” Golomb said, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a number of students in Carroll ISD repeatedly used a racial slur in a video that went viral on social media in 2018. The district responded by proposing a “diversity and inclusion” training that all students would have to go through. Parents and community members pushed back on the proposal, arguing Carroll ISD officials were setting up “an environment where you are guilty until proven innocent of ‘microaggressions.’”
The issue became central to subsequent school board elections, which saw new trustee candidates run and win on a platform of rejecting the training proposal and working toward a return to academic fundamentals.
Golomb said his school offered to launch the club if it was folded into the already established Persian Club or South Asian Club. He rejected the offer.
“That’s not the purpose of our club,” he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The idea for an anti-racism club, Golomb said, was sparked by his concerns with the school board’s decision to remove references to sexual orientation and gender identity from its Student Code of Conduct and discrimination policy.
District officials countered at the time that LGBTQ students were already protected under Title IX guidelines.
The Department of Education’s Office on Civil Rights is currently investigating seven complaints of discrimination and retaliation on the basis of race, disability, and sex that have been made against Carroll ID, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Still, Carroll ISD is one of the better-performing public school systems in Texas. According to its latest Texas Education Agency accountability report for the 2021-2022 school year, about 88% of Carroll ISD students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams, and the district’s on-time graduation rate was 99.9%.
For comparison, only 41% of students at Dallas ISD scored at grade level on their STAAR exams that year, and nearly 20% of the district’s graduating Class of 2022 failed to earn a diploma in four years, despite the hard work of the district’s talented educators.