A new lawsuit has accused Fresno’s public schools of discriminating against non-black families and students by establishing and operating special academic programs, camps and other free assistance, open only to black students.
On Feb. 27, the San Diego-based organization known as Californians for Equal Rights Foundation filed suit in Sacramento federal court against the superintendent of Fresno Unified School District and the president of FUSD school board. Both were sued in their official capacities as leaders of the Fresno school district.
According to the complaint, Californians for Equal Rights was suing to press claims on behalf of several unidentified families with students in the Fresno school district, who purportedly are members of the CFER organization.
The CFER is represented in the action by attorneys from the Pacific Legal Foundation, of Sacramento.
“It is unfair and unconstitutional to gate access to valuable educational programs based on a child’s race, regardless of whether the exclusion is explicit or implicit,” said attorney Wilson Freeman, of the Pacific Legal Foundation. “Taxpayer-funded academic support programs should be available to all students based on need, not race.”
The lawsuit takes aim at the Fresno school district’s so-called A4 programs. Administered through the district’s Office of African American Academic Acceleration since the office’s establishment in 2017, the A4 programs were supposedly designed to close academic achievement gaps between black students and those of other races, notably white and Asian students, in California’s third largest school district.