STATEMENT FROM BROOKLINE FOR RACIAL JUSTICE & EQUITY

May 23, 2025

Last night, the Brookline School Committee voted 6-3 to reject more than $188,000 raised by community members to restore the Office of Educational Equity, including a full-time assistant director position and stipends for 14 school-based equity leads.

This is a devastating and indefensible decision – one that aligns Brookline with the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion in public education, rather than standing firm in defense of our students, families, and educators.

We are deeply dismayed that a majority of the School Committee chose to defund critical equity work at a time when equity initiatives are being targeted across the country. While racial disparities in educational outcomes in Brookline persist and our families continue to report identity-based bullying, the School Committee has now eliminated the only staff with the training and mandate to lead on these issues.

Let’s be clear on what this means: Brookline schools have no dedicated funding, no dedicated staff, and no  plan to address these harms – just vague allusions to a “school-based model” with no leadership, no coordination, and no accountability.

This outcome is especially painful because it flies in the face of extraordinary community organizing. More than 300 community members signed our petition. Families spoke out. Students spoke out. Principals spoke out. Educators wrote powerful letters. We worked alongside school administrators to craft a solution, and our community – through small and large contributions – came together to fund it.

And still, School Committee members said no – including some who never explained their initial vote to defund the office in March and again tonight remained silent about why they were rejecting our grant to restore it.

We are of course grateful to those who stood up for equity in our schools.

Thank you to School Committee members Mariah Nobrega, Suzanne Federspiel, and Sarah Moghtader for your votes to accept the grant and preserve this vital work. Your leadership will not be forgotten.

We also want to express our heartfelt appreciation to our partners who stood with us in this fight: Brookline Community Foundation, Brookline Asian American Family Network (BAAFN), Brookline Justice League, and the Coalition for Anti-Racism in Education (CARE). Your collaboration and commitment to educational justice has been a source of strength and solidarity.

To our generous donors: thank you for your steadfast support and belief in this vision. We will be in touch with each of you individually about next steps.

So, what next? We showed up. We organized. We fundraised. We offered solutions. And our support was rejected. With few genuine partners left in central administration and on the School Committee, we now must shift our efforts toward accountability.

That includes working with willing partners to draw  attention to Brookline’s persistent racial and socioeconomic gaps in educational outcomes and bringing more visibility to concerns about bullying, harassment, and discrimination in our schools. We will demand through all means available that these injustices be addressed. 

To all of our supporters, please reach out and let us know what you would like to see us do next. Whatever we decide, it is important that we move forward together.