Student indoctrination in Hamilton County and throughout Indiana? Are you kidding?
In reaction to the cancelled “political advisory meeting” at Wolfies Grill, Naomi Grossman talks about what she has experienced inside and outside classrooms at Carmel High School.
Dan Grossman and his daughter Naomi
During the past week, an advert for an event titled “Stopping Student Indoctrination in Hamilton County and throughout Indiana” circulated widely on social media. The event was scheduled for July 23 at Wolfies Grill in Geist, but it has been cancelled — seemingly due, at least in part, to negative feedback. Billed as “a political advisory meeting” the event was conceived by Advance America, a conservative organization launched in 1980 by attorney Eric Miller. The event organizers are currently looking for a new venue.
The roster of event co-hosts included 14 business owners — all of them white males — from the central Indiana area. Among their agenda items were “banning critical race theory” and “banning gender identity instruction.”
Critical race theory, in particular, has been in the news a lot as of late. This theoretical and interpretive framework was developed in the 1970s to examine how, in manifestations of systemic racism, race and the law intersect. But for many of those who do not feel that there is systemic racism in America, or who agree with Indy-based commentator Abdul Hakim-Shabazz — who recently wrote that “America is a country that has racists in it, but it is not a racist country” — the term critical race theory (CRT) has become something of a bogeyman. Since my daughter, Naomi Grossman, is a rising senior at Carmel High School, I figured that she might let me know to what extent she and her fellow students are being indoctrinated by CRT practitioners. Naomi is in a good position to know. Last year, she was student life and academics editor for the CHS Yearbook, and this year is one of the two co-editors in chief.
I interviewed Naomi on July 20, as we sat in the living room of my parents’ house in San Diego, California.
DAN GROSSMAN: So, let me start, Naomi, by asking about your history class, which I assume is the place where you would be most likely to encounter any mention of critical race theory. So can you describe your history classes in high school?
NAOMI GROSSMAN: I've only taken one American History class in high school. Let's keep in mind that this history class that I, the American History class that I took was during the funky COVID year so I've only had half the instruction that we would normally have and we, we didn't even have time to cover like the basics ... but there wasn't a big focus on civil liberties in my history class; it was mostly just discussion. I kind of forgot everything I learned, Dad. Just exited my brain. Well, I do remember in my eighth grade history class, my teacher was obviously very left wing. But she didn't say it. I don't know if it was part of the curriculum, but she did teach us that awful things happened; she was very honest about what happened in history. That was not the experience I got last year. It's also because I took IB American history and that only goes up to the early 1900s.
DAN: Okay, what does IB stand for?
NAOMI: International baccalaureate.
DAN: Was there any mention of the New York Times’ 1619 Project?
NAOMI: No, my teacher had a Trump bobblehead in his classroom [laughs].
DAN: The 1619 Project is basically — I hope I'm describing it correctly here — it's basically a way of re-conceptualizing American history where American history doesn't, say, start at 1776 with our Declaration of Independence. What the 1619 project wants people to be aware of is that America was built on the back of slaves, who first arrived in the country in 1619, and slave labor was an incredibly important part of the American economy. And that, that resulting structural racism extends past slavery, past Jim Crow through the current day. I don't know if that's the best definition here. But Naomi, you didn't encounter anything like that in Carmel High School, did you?
NAOMI: No. [dismissively]
DAN: Because you never told me about anything like that if, if you had ...
NAOMI: I think one thing to keep in mind that also completely depends on the teacher and the teacher’s political perspective. You know what my teacher's political perspective was [laughs]
DAN: And your history teacher was very conservative.
NAOMI: Yeah …
DAN: And your friends would have remarked on it, if they encountered anything like critical race theory in their class. Do you think, or not?
NAOMI: I don't know, it's not a subject we talk about.
DAN: When's the first time you actually heard the phrase critical race theory?
NAOMI: Probably from you and you talking about work.
DAN: OK. I should mention that I used to be the managing editor of NUVO. I had a rift with the editor/publisher about three weeks ago. I wanted to publish an art review about an exhibition at the Indiana State Museum about the Murals for Racial Justice program in downtown Indianapolis, that went up, post-George Floyd murder, post-police brutality protests, and I wanted to give the context of those murals, and what's going on in the current American climate with regard to systemic racism. I was told that I could not publish that piece as is [but I refused to remove the paragraphs where the editor/publisher thought I was being too opinionated]. My response was, basically, art is news. This is important. Art has context. I'm not writing about art for art's sake here. This was basically the straw that broke the camel's back. [There were other issues I had with NUVO, including my being prohibited from soliciting and/or publishing relevant op-ed material and the resulting inability of the publication, in my view, to host honest and engaging discussions about such issues as critical race theory and systemic racism. The editor/publisher and I argued periodically about such subjects.] But that was important to me, and I left. So here I am, editor of IndyCorrespondent.org with a sole staff of one, and my faithful assistant here, my daughter, who gives me insight, and sometimes some inspiration. So thank you, Naomi.
NAOMI: Anytime, Dad.
DAN: Okay, so there's other issues here that are going to be talked about at the “Stopping Student Indoctrination in Hamilton County” political advisory meeting, including giving consent for sex education in the schools. Did we ever give consent for you to receive sex-ed?
NAOMI: Oh yeah, no, you guys didn't. I think I asked him multiple times and then you're like, “Well, I'll tell you next week” and then you never did ...
DAN: It wasn't because we were ideologically-opposed to get there getting sex education was just because of sloth and laziness …
NAOMI: Right, probably. I don't know. I don't know what's going to be in your guys' heads.
DAN: Well, your mom might have different ideas about sex education than I do but can you tell me a little bit about your sex education instruction in Carmel High School?
NAOMI: Oh, it was definitely funky. [laughs] The first time we had sex-ed was in fifth grade, and it was actually just them telling us that women have vaginas, and I was like cool, I knew that. That was the first time. Oh, also, that you might bleed like once a month. That's kind of important to know. Mom did tell me about that. Mom was like 'yeah when you're old, you're gonna suffer.' Okay, um, and then in sixth grade we had sex ed again it was just like, men have this part, women have this part, women bleed, that that's the one in sixth grade, seventh grade is like there's STDs [sexually-transmitted diseases]. 'We're not going to tell you how you could potentially get an STD. We're not going to tell you what you do if you do get an STD. Just don't have sex until you're married and you won't get an STD.' So it was the same thing in eighth grade. Ninth grade: We had a presentation about STDs with graphic photos. That it was kind of really gross. I didn't like that … and they never mentioned how to prevent getting an STD besides staying abstinent or like, what you do if you think you're pregnant or how to prevent pregnancy ... I mean, I get where the adult standpoint is like kids shouldn't be goofing around. I understand that, but also them telling us not to is not doing anything.
DAN: I see.
NAOMI: It's not gonna stop kids from doing it. It would just be better to give them a proper education and then let them know that you have the choice and maybe advise them not to, but if you do anyways and break the rules, this is what you can do to protect yourself.
DAN: Did the question — and this could be a simple yes or no answer — did gender identity ever come up?
NAOMI: Are you kidding?
DAN: Because, I mean, their action plan for addressing indoctrination in public schools is for banning gender identity instruction.
NAOMI: What?
DAN: And since we know this “Stopping student indoctrination Hamilton County and throughout Indiana” [advertisement] mentioned Hamilton County I figure maybe these people want to know whether or not gender identity instruction is taking place in Carmel High School. It might be informative to them.
NAOMI: It's really not in our sex education. We don't even cover any of the topics that they're saying we cover.
DAN: One other thing. You got some pushback, as I recall, as a co-editor in chief of the Carmel High school yearbook for some of the events that you covered. If you could just describe what happened.
NAOMI: First of all, I wasn't an editor-in-chief during that time. But I was the student life and academics editor. And so all the things, like all the content … that this person got upset about were in my section. One of the spreads he specifically called out, I did the majority of that spread. Basically, a father looked at the yearbook; Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community were covered in it, and now he is protesting and wants a refund for the book, because he says we shouldn't be covering things like that. We shouldn't be covering sex of any kind … That's not even what the LGBTQ spread was even about … These things are happening in the school, there are gay people in our school, there are Black people in our school. There were huge protests in Carmel that involved students; mostly students were running that in the summer, and as a journalist, how could you not cover these such important things to students’ social lives? We’re saying now we're just like this; this happened; students were involved in it.
DAN: Well thanks, Naomi, I think we've got a good amount of material. I hope the rest of your year and your yearbook editorship goes very well.
NAOMI: Thank you.
This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
- Dan Grossman
