When my little brother moved into North Texas’ Grapevine-Colleyville School District (GCISD), he had a hard time making friends. Of course, that’s normal for any tween moving schools, but his trouble had less to do with his personality, and more to do with his new friend’s parents disliking his name. My sweet brother is named Darwin, after Charles Darwin, the creator of the Theory of Evolution, and in GCISD, that is not compatible with many people’s belief systems.
During my time in the district, I remember being teased by my friends for not believing in Adam and Eve. My AP Biology teacher prefaced our Evolution unit with a disclaimer that we did not have to actually believe that it occurred, it was just a requirement of the standardized curriculum under the American public school system.
A Grapevine-based conservative telephone company Patriot Mobile has created a Political Action Committee (PAC). They donated over $400,000 towards taking over local school board elections in the battleground Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Tarrant County. GCISD’s School Board is one of their top success stories. In the spring, they funded eleven school board election candidates in Tarrant County, including GCISD, and won every single election.
The newly appointed school boards work to ensure these schools’ curriculum align with “conservative Christian values.” They have banned the Scholastic Book Fair because of Scholastic executives’ “progressive” social media posts, and implemented new policies that ban any instruction on gender and sexuality unless approved by the school board, in addition to expliciting banning any implementation of Critical Race Theory. They specifically excluded trans and gender non-conformining individuals from using multiple person bathrooms and sports that do not follow their biological sex.
As these far-right politicians take local power, the majority of residents remain against these values being perpetrated in their schools. In fact, Tarrant County has been slightly blue in the last two major elections, which is what prompted Patriot Mobile’s decision to provide a sudden influx of cash- to shore up support from the new generation. According to the New York Times, Patriot Mobile is trying to stop these battleground suburban counties from turning fully blue, which they fear may be what finally turns Texas blue. Many parents in the district are trying their best to fight back through grass-roots efforts like ProtectGCISD and Moms4GCISD, but with Patriot Mobile-backed board leaders having a 4–3 majority in the district, these extremists can tightly control school district operations to conform to their ideals.
Beyond Harvard’s campus, we need to be aware that inclusive, equity-focused education is not only absent, but actively being fought against in schools across the nation. My friends who come from more liberal areas never believe the level of bigotry that was normalized and accepted in the name of parent’s beliefs and the Church at my high school. There is privilege in assuming the requirement of gender theory and critical race theory at some high schools implies it is present at all American schools.
I was a student at GCISD before Patriot Mobile took power, and I truly fear for the level of conservative Christian dogmatism that exists now. I remember finding out that one of the best teachers at our school was a lesbian, but she had to take down a photo with her wife because a student complained. I remember even our most “liberal” teacher making us come up with Asian stereotypes during world history to introduce our unit on China. My sister was bullied for saying “Black Lives Matter.” I remember so many other shocking experiences that happened to me or my siblings, that we only noticed because we were raised by liberal parents who encouraged us to form our own values rather than follow blind faith in any religion or ideology. But I continued at the school because it was, at the time, the 17th best public school in Texas.
Now Grapevine High School is ranked 261st, according to US News. If I went there now, I would have had a significantly harder time getting accepted to Harvard. The people meddling with education there do not care. They would rather have moral superiority than give their children the opportunity to leave DFW, or give them the tools to deal with people who aren’t like them. I already feel so behind my peers in terms of knowledge of critical race and gender theory, and it feels like I am learning a language everyone else started learning 4 years ago, because they did. With the increasing polarization of American culture, it is important for us to remember that schools have become the latest battleground for where America is heading, and public school education is not equal for all.
Seattle Hickey ’25 (seattlehickey@college.harvard.edu) is a big believer that Texas will turn blue.