For Immediate Release

April 25, 2022

SAN DIEGO, CA -- April 25, 2022- Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) firmly opposes the inflammatory and untruthful narrative promoted by San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) Superintendent Dr. Cheryl James-Ward and biased media reporting. In response to her initial remarks that stereotyped Asian students and her continued refusals to take responsibility, Dr. Ward baselessly shifted the blame on CFER, accusing us of putting "a complete hit" on her and "public(ly) lynching" her. Dr. Ward's reactions expose her inability to escape the ideological trappings of race-based politics and the mainstream media's unhealthy obsession with race.

When Dr. Ward's racial stereotyping first came to public light, the San Diego Union-Tribune falsely reported on CFER as an organization "whose leaders are Chinese Americans," implying the incident as a racial/ethnic conflict and refused to correct the record after we reached out to clarify. NBC 7 conducted an interview of Dr. Ward who blatantly lied that most who protested "were from CFER" and then took the video down upon fact-checking. CBS 8 even aired a segment in which Dr. Ward complained about being "condemned, crucified and publicly lynched." Such unbalanced media reporting misleads the public, chills free speech and discredits a genuine, parent-led local movement which seeks to hold local education leaders accountable.

"Courageous parents focus on the merits of Dr. Ward's own words and the inherent racial animus, but Dr. Ward's astounding and repeated use of words such as 'lynching' further divides the community by race. Her interviews again demonstrate the harms of race-based thinking rooted in the diversity, equity, and inclusion dogma," commented Frank Xu, president of CFER. "Sadly, our so-called mainstream media platforms, no longer concerned with fact-seeking, have irresponsibly and misleadingly given a megaphone to the race-obsessed narrative."

"As a watch-dog organization that empowers local parents and communities with knowledge and information, CFER merely notified San Dieguito parents of the facts surrounding Dr. Ward's incendiary remarks," said Wenyuan Wu, Executive Director of CFER. "'Killing' the messenger -- CFER in this case, will not silence or deter local parents and community members who are now energized and showing up to school board meetings to demand equal treatment of their children, merit-based education and accountability."

CFER will continue to closely follow the situation, inform local stakeholders, and monitor the implementation of SDUHSD policies pertaining to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and similar concepts. As we look forward to working with the board and the district to ensure all students are treated without regard to their race or ethnicity and all relevant programs are conducted for educational purposes, CFER also wants to encourage local parents to keep up the good fight for equality and merit.

Most parents who attended the two SDUHSD board meetings to confront Dr. Ward live in the district, while ironically, many of those who spoke in support of Dr. Ward were from organized interest groups including Encinitas 4 Equality, ADL San Diego, NAACP San Diego, and the local teachers union. These groups, with considerable funding from big far-left organizations and entrenched interests in maintaining the education bureaucracy, are committed to promoting an un-American, illiberal and anti-education agenda, no matter how far-removed the agenda's ideals are from the local community.