Extreme political correctness continues to reach new heights on school campuses across the country. The latest example comes out of Everett Middle School in San Francisco, Calif., where the school principal decided to withhold and manipulate the results of a student body election because they “weren’t diverse enough.” In yet another epic example of the political correctness monster, the entire student body has ultimately been disenfranchised in order to achieve the Left’s purported dream of “diversity.”
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the students who earned the highest votes during the October 9 election were white, Asian and mixed race. To Principal Lena Van Haren, that was not good enough, since no so-called English learners were elected, and black and Latino students were underrepresented in the results.
“It’s not okay for a school that is really, really diverse to have the student representatives majority white,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The easy thing would have been to announce the results and move on. I intentionally did not choose the easy way because this is so important.”
Initially, Van Haren withheld the results of the election for a week, Fox News reports, until pressure from parents and the district compelled her to announce them.
Van Haren then issued a letter to parents regarding her perspective on the results, saying they were “concerning to me because as principal I want to make sure all voices are heard from all backgrounds.”
“This is complex, but as a parent and a principal, I truly believe it behooves us to be thoughtful about our next steps here so we have a diverse student council that is truly representative of all voices at Everett,” she added in her message.
Still, Van Haren will be meeting with the candidates to decide the best method to make the results “more diverse.”
The entire ordeal has completely demoralized the student body.
“I feel like it is disrespectful to all the people who were running,” student Sebastian Kaplan told television station KRON. “The whole school voted for those people, so it is not like people rigged the game, but in a way — now it is kind of being rigged.”
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And parents were understandably infuriated by Van Haren’s actions.
One mother, Bianca Gutierrez, told KTVU that if the goal of the election was diversity, it should have been outlined prior to the elections and campaign process. She states that her son, who was running in the election, is discouraged and wants to withdraw from the race.
“If we can’t teach them the right way it’s supposed to work, then we are really just letting our kids down,” she said.
But even if Van Haren had outlined this goal prior to the election, it would not have made this any less wrong. Van Haren’s reaction to the election results are nothing short of racist and undermines any message that people should not be judged by the color of their skin. It also hurts what should be an educational opportunity to teach students the sanctity of the democratic process.
Not so for Van Haren, who clearly believes educating students on the democratic process is secondary to pushing her agenda.
“This is middle school — it’s not a presidential election,” she said. “It was not about hurting democracy or putting diversity over democracy.”
Sadly, the school district referred to the quagmire as a “learning opportunity.” But a learning opportunity for what? To teach students that it’s okay to fix the results of an election if the powers-that-be do not support them? To emphasize that race should in fact be a driving force behind our choices?
It is a tragic day when middle school students appear to have more common sense than the people in charge.
Van Haren asserts that her primary objective is to ensure that all voices are heard at Everett. But seventh-grader Sebastian astutely observes, “The organizers are saying things like, we want everyone’s voice to be heard,’ but in truth, the voters’ voices are not being heard.”
Some parents viewed Van Haren’s actions as well-intentioned with unintended consequences.
The Chronicle quotes one such parent, Todd David, who remarked, “My criticism of the Everett administration is their good intention got in the way of their common sense. It’s really, really disturbing to me that withholding the results somehow equals social justice or equity.”
“The thing that’s so frustrating to me, as a parent and an engaged citizen, is you release the results and then you form committees,” David said. “How can you say, ‘In the name of social justice, we’re going to withhold election results’?”
But were Van Haren’s actions simply well-intentioned ones with unintended negative consequences, or do they represent a more insidious agenda of an elitist mindset?
Former intelligence analyst Stella Morabito outlined the true intent of the political correctness propaganda machine and its inherent dangers in The Federalist:
Political Correctness is all about Propaganda Compliance. PC is the engine of the propaganda machine that produces mass delusion. PC is basically a calculated process of molding public opinion through psychological manipulation. The process is twofold: saturation and suppression. Saturation is the practice of repeating a deception relentlessly and injecting it into every corner of public life so that it becomes accepted as truth. It involves control of most communications outlets.
Suppression is the PC practice of quashing ideas that compete with the PC message, usually through speech codes, shout-downs, or smears. No matter how implausible an idea may seem, it can gain acceptance in the minds of the citizens as the forces of PC relentlessly repeat and hype the notion in the public square. The twin processes of saturation and suppression, if diligently applied, can produce the illusion of a public opinion shift, or a “cascade.”
And ultimately, despite rhetoric about “social justice” or “equality,” the goal is in fact divide and conquer. Morabito elaborates on this notion:
PC is basically a separatist movement. Its endgame is cult-like: to separate and silence people, especially in their one-on-one interactions. The PC propaganda machine serves to atomize us so our relationships with others become weaker and more subject to the dictates of PC. If we fear punishment for speaking on an issue—especially if we don’t know whom we can trust—we become more isolated and easily controlled. With all mediating institutions under attack—family, faith, and voluntary associations—relationships are already being weakened. We know that PC power elites control most of the big outlets of communication: the mass media, academia, Hollywood, unions, and so on. But how many people realize that the ultimate prize for agents of PC is control over our private lives and private thoughts? Over our one-on-one personal relationships and our one-on-one personal conversations?
Or in this case, over election results?
And as Morabito observes, the only way for this agenda to succeed is for the subjects to be kept ignorant that they are in fact being manipulated — the useful idiots, if you will.
Enter parent Melissa Daar Carvajal, whose two sons attend sixth grade at Everett.
“I think the principal is great,” said Melissa Daar Carvajal. “I think for me, I’m really glad the school went through the election and kids selected representatives and now they’re looking at how to represent underrepresented students.”
The Chronicle reports that Carvajal said the student election was similar to what we see in the real world, where those with more resources and support are more likely to win and exercise their power over the others.
“Here we are in a school and the same thing happens,” she said. “They’re living in the real world at Everett.”
Exactly what “power” elected student body winners have to wield over their fellow students remains to be seen. And precisely what “resources” were at the disposal of some and not others? It is not clear, but the Chronicle reports that votes were cast in homeroom to ensure that all students voted. Nobody was disenfranchised during the school’s student body election.
But what does the truth matter? The machine has succeeded in coercing another useful idiot to drone out the typical rhetoric. Another win for them, and a gigantic loss for the students at Everett Middle School.
