West
Colorado school district in the hot seat for allegedly factoring in race for disciplinary procedures
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FIRST ON FOX: A conservative, Trump-aligned legal group filed a civil rights complaint alleging that a school district in Colorado is using race as a major factor when determining disciplinary procedures and has retaliated against administrators who attempt to push back.
America First Legal (AFL), founded by top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, filed a civil rights complaint asking the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to investigate Cherry Creek School District, alleging it is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In its complaint, AFL cites a specific instance in which a Black student and an Asian student commit nearly identical behavior, but only the Asian student was disciplined.
AFL also obtained undercover recordings of discussions between administrators that allegedly show them admitting that the district’s DEI chief has been interfering with disciplinary procedures on the basis of race. When an administrator tried to step in and call out this allegedly racist activity, the official was retaliated against, according to AFL.
“If a public school district can openly run discipline and employment systems through a racial filter, then the rule of law means nothing,” said Nick Barry, senior counsel at America First Legal. “This is discrimination, plain and simple. It is the soft bigotry of low expectations and should not be tolerated. The Department must intervene and restore equal treatment for students, educators, and families.”
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT OVER ALLEGEDLY DISCRIMINATORY POLICIES
A Cherry Creek School District bus (John Leyba/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to the district for comment, but it declined to comment on the matter, telling Fox News Digital it could not say anything because the district had “no knowledge of” AFL’s civil rights complaint despite Fox News Digital transmitting a copy of the complaint to the district. AFL’s complaint was filed electronically with the federal government.
In late 2023, according to the complaint, the district’s Campus Middle School disciplined and suspended three female students after a video of them off campus over Thanksgiving break using variations of the N-word while under the influence of alcohol was submitted to the district. Two students, one White and one Hispanic, were allegedly depicted in the video using the racially charged language, while the third Asian female did not appear in the video and only recorded the encounter.
Meanwhile, a fourth Black female student at the middle school allegedly asked the Asian female student who recorded the encounter to send her the video, which the Black student then allegedly passed along to her sister, a Black student in the district’s high school, who, AFL said, subsequently posted the video on social media and tagged the White, Hispanic and Asian students’ social media accounts. The Black female student who passed the video to her Black sister also passed it to her mother, who then shared the video with the Rocky Mountain NAACP, according to the complaint.
Despite nearly identical behavior from the Asian female student and the Black female students in the district, only the Asian student was disciplined, AFL alleged. She got the same punishment as the two female students pictured in the video using inappropriate language, which included months of expulsion hearings that eventually culminated in her suspension from school, according to AFL.
“[The Black students involved] disseminated the video to a much broader audience than [the Asian student involved],” AFL’s complaint states. “Despite both [Black female students involved] engaging in materially identical conduct as [the Asian female student involved], the District did not impose any discipline. … After [the Black female students’] identical infractions came to light, former Campus Assistant Principal Dan Hanson instructed personnel not to address the matter in electronic communications due to concerns about public records requests and adverse publicity.”
LEAKED LESSONS FROM FIRST-YEAR UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS EDUCATION COURSE SHOW EXTREME LEFT BIAS: ‘JUST SO WRONG’
According to AFL’s complaint, one of the non-disciplined Black female students continued to exhibit behavioral issues, and undercover recordings it obtained involving discussions between district administrators show Campus Middle School officials admitting the district’s Equity Department interferes with the equal application of disciplinary policies.
Protesters in Michigan rally against President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI policies, denouncing federal rollbacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. (Getty Images/Dominic Gwinn)
“[T]heir first instinct is implicit bias. So if, for example, [Redacted] is not responding appropriately to [the Black female student’s] concerns, it’s because [Redacted] has implicit bias towards a Black young lady, and that she does not know how to navigate the cultural identity of a Black young lady and that [Black female student involved] is talking to her like [she] talks to anybody,” Campus Middle School Principal Lissa Staal can allegedly be heard saying during a meeting with school leaders.
“This is just how [the Black female student involved] communicates. And that is culturally appropriate for [the Black female student involved] to communicate that way because that’s what is culturally appropriate,” Staal continued. “And that’s what is happening is that the Whiteness that is present in our building is looking at that in a punitive way … that we are attributing negative connotations to what is essentially, exactly, we’re calling her disrespectful or disruptive or defiant when she is just communicating in a culturally appropriate way.”
According to AFL’s complaint, school personnel said they had “no ability to enforce anything” against the Black female student who was continuing to act out because they would “lose every time,” since their “hands were tied” by the district’s DEI department.
The district also allegedly retaliated against former Dean of Students Pat Hogarty when he voiced disagreement with the district’s DEI priorities, according to AFL’s complaint.
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“In January 2024, Mr. Hogarty took part in the Courageous Conversations training. When faced with the topics of ‘What does it mean to be White?’ ‘What experiences define Whiteness?’ and ‘How do you identify?’ Mr. Hogarty stated that ‘he identifies as an American, that he loves his country, and that he believes it is the greatest country ever founded,’” AFL’s complaint states.
“Shortly after the training, Principal Staal informed Mr. Hogarty that the Equity Department’s Executive Director, Mr. Garcia y Ortiz, took issue with Mr. Hogarty’s failure to ‘acknowledge what people of color go through’ and refusal to ‘admit that America is systemically racist.’ Mr. Hogarty later learned that Garcia y Ortiz had referred to Mr.Hogarty’s comments in the training as having ‘racist undertones.’ Approximately a month later, Mr. Hogarty was informed that his position had been eliminated due to ‘budgetary reasons.’”
Due to the Cherry Creek School District receiving federal funds, it is subject to discrimination guidelines under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. AFL has requested that the Education and Justice departments investigate the matter further and implement any necessary remedial action or referrals to enforce federal civil rights law.
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San Francisco, CA
Supervisors urge California to expand S.F. speed-camera program
San Francisco supervisors authorized a resolution Tuesday urging California lawmakers to expand the city’s automated speed camera program, which currently has 33 cameras operating in the city under a state pilot.
The board’s 10-to-1 vote on Tuesday, with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton voting against it, will not add cameras immediately, but formally asks the state to explore changes to the program. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has identified at least 80 additional high-need locations that could benefit from automated enforcement, according to a report filed with the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee.
Richard Zieman, whose son Andrew, a paraeducator, was killed in November 2021 by a speeding driver outside Sherman Elementary School on Franklin Street, told Mission Local that city officials should do more. “They waited for a tragedy,” Zieman said. Parents and school leaders had repeatedly asked the city to slow traffic on Franklin Street, where drivers barreled downhill toward the Marina, said Zieman.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who introduced the resolution, has said the city’s first year of automated speed enforcement shows that the technology works. The SFMTA reported nearly an 80 percent reduction in drivers traveling at least 10 miles per hour over the speed limit at camera locations after the program launched in March 2025. San Francisco was the first city to implement the pilot authorized under Assembly Bill 645.
The pilot, however, is capped by state law at 33 camera locations. Tuesday’s resolution asks California lawmakers to consider allowing more, prioritizing corridors on San Francisco’s High Injury Network, including Franklin Street.
Walk San Francisco, a pedestrian advocacy group which spent roughly eight years advocating for the state legislation that created the pilot, called the resolution an important first step toward broader expansion.
“Thirty-three cameras is nowhere near the number of cameras we need for people to realize that San Francisco is a safe-speed city,” said executive director Jodie Medeiros. “This tool is working. People are lowering their speeds.”
District 6, represented by Dorsey, currently has seven of the city’s 33 cameras, most of them in SoMa. The district also records the highest number of crashes involving injuries or fatalities in San Francisco, making it a focal point in the debate over expanding automated enforcement.
The resolution advanced unanimously from the Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee last week, where Dorsey said the cameras have made streets “feel safer” and argued the early results show “why we should have even more of this life-saving technology.”
Zieman, whose son’s death prompted traffic-calming improvements and eventually a speed camera near Sherman Elementary, said the issue is urgent.
“There are probably other Franklin streets out there,” he said. “I just hope they don’t wait for someone else before they expand the program. It’s too late for Andrew.”
Denver, CO
Five Points affordable housing building honors Dr. Justina Ford | Rocky Mountain PBS
DENVER — Dr. Justina Ford’s name adorns plaques and statues across Denver, where she delivered more than 7,000 babies as the city’s first licensed Black woman physician. Now, an affordable housing building in Five Points, the neighborhood where she lived and worked for 50 years, bears her name.
The newly christened Justina at Five Points, formerly Brunetti Lofts, offers a rare commodity in Denver’s housing market: family-sized affordable housing units.The 23-unit building, built in 2005, has 19 three-bedroom units. Rents range from $840 to $1,893 per month. Residents must make between 30% and 60% of Denver’s area median income, and specific income requirements vary depending on the unit.
“I do believe that in the last, five, ten years, maybe a little longer, housing here in Colorado has just gone crazy. I mean, I have a little two-bedroom townhouse, and I can’t afford to move back in the neighborhood I grew up in because of the pricing. And it’s just crazy,” said Daphne Rice-Allen, chair of the board at the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, which is housed in Ford’s historic home in Five Points.
Rice-Allen grew up in Clayton, which is northeast of Five Points. This cluster of neighborhoods in north Denver — Five Points, Cole, Whittier and Clayton — were among the areas deemed “hazardous” and “definitely declining” on the city’s 1938 “Residential Security Map,” which redlined neighborhoods with Black, Mexican and lower-income residents.
At that time, Five Points flourished as a cultural and entertainment hub, known as “the Harlem of the West” and serving as “the seat of Denver’s African American community.” Black social clubs, such as the Owl Club, emerged. And Ford, who arrived in Denver in 1902 and was not allowed to work in a hospital, continued to provide medical care out of her house and deliver babies at her patients’ homes.
“This was a family neighborhood, Rice-Allen said about Five Points during that period.
“There were a lot of families that lived in the area and lived in the neighborhood.”
But Five Points’ demographics have changed a lot since Ford died in 1952. About 30% of households in the neighborhood were families in 2020. By 2024, that percentage dropped to about 20%.
The neighborhood experienced a drastic shift in racial demographics as well. In 2000, about 27% of the residents were white, 26% Black and 43% Hispanic. The 2020 census told a different story: 64% white, 10% Black and 17% Hispanic.
What was once a Black cultural hub is now a majority-white neighborhood, which raises concerns about gentrification and displacement of long-time residents. Despite the large supply of affordable housing units in the area — 2,796 in 2024 — about half of renters in Five Points are cost-burdened, meaning they spent more than 30% of their income on housing.
Seattle, WA
Seattle weather: Hot and sunny day Wednesday, highs in the 80s
SEATTLE – Wednesday will be another warm day with highs in the mid to upper 80s for parts of western Washington. Eastern and central Washington will reach near 100F with high fire danger. The coast and north interior will be cooler, only in the 60s to 70s.
Wednesday will be another warm day with highs in the mid to upper 80s for parts of western Washington.
Fire Weather Watch
A Fire Weather Watch goes into effect Wednesday evening through Thursday evening for thunderstorms and gusty winds. Lightning strikes could create new fire starts and, with very dry conditions in place, any new fire could spread quickly.
A Fire Weather Watch goes into effect Wednesday evening through Thursday evening for thunderstorms and gusty winds.
What’s next:
An upper level low will move into the Pacific Northwest, bringing scattered showers and a chance of thunderstorms. The heaviest showers will be in the morning hours and will turn more scattered into the evening hours.
An upper level low will move into the Pacific Northwest, bringing scattered showers and chance of thunderstorms.
Looking Ahead:
High pressure will build again Friday and into the weekend, increasing temperatures and sunshine. We will start to see highs reach the upper 80s to low 90s by early next week.
High pressure will build again Friday and into the weekend, increasing temperatures and sunshine.
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The Source: Information in this story came from the FOX 13 Seattle Weather Team and the National Weather Service.
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