Fighting For Students’ And Teachers’ Rights In Central Bucks School District, With ACLU’s Witold Walczak

Central Bucks is under fire for allegedly creating a toxic environment for LGBTQ+ students, vindictively targeting a beloved teacher, and spending more than $1 million for reputation laundering.

Witold Walczak is legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. Today I speak with him about the ACLU’s ongoing legal battles with Central Bucks School District, its latest complaint filed in court which charges the Republican-run district with illegally retaliating against a teacher for supporting a trans student, and Central Bucks’s million dollar disinformation campaign to avoid responsibility for creating a toxic, discriminatory environment for LGBTQ+ students – a charge currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.  

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Full transcript of the episode available HERE.

Host Cyril Mychalejko’s 5 Book Recommendations to Further Shine a Light on the Issue

1. The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, by Katherine Stewart

2. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School, by Jennifer Berkshire

3. Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, by Maurice Cunningham

4. Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools, by Jonathan Zimmerman

5.  The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, by Jeff Sharlet

Organizations

• Advocates for Inclusive Education (Bucks County)

• Central Bucks Neighbors United

• The Network for Public Education

• PFLAG

Also Listen To: 

• EPISODE 2 – The Merchants of Deception: The Dark Money and Front Groups Behind School Privatization, with Maurice Cunningham

• EPISODE 6 – The Right’s Long War On Public Education, With Jennifer Berkshire

• EPISODE 7 – Understanding Backlash Politics And Religious Conservatives Inciting School Board Wars, With PRRI’s Melissa Deckman

• EPISODE 10 – Raising A Transgender Child In An Increasingly Transphobic Country, With Brett Freeman

• EPISODE 11 – Unmasking Moms For Liberty’s Extremism, With Olivia Little And Diana Leygerman