Rhode island mom reveals how she discovered 'secret' 'antiracist' meetings
Nicole Solas, a senior fellow with Independent Women's Forum, is suing the South Kingston BIPOC Advisory Committee in her district for blocking her from meetings.
A Rhode Island mom filed a lawsuit Wednesday after she was blocked from attending "secret" meetings that were focused on antiracist ideology and should have been open to the public, allegations in a complaint said.
"I learned that my school had appointed a subcommittee to change the curriculum in the school under an antiracist or equity lens — which is really just a radical ideology," Nicole Solas, a senior fellow with Independent Women's Forum, told Fox News Digital.
Upon discovering the meetings, Solas requested to join, but was told that "the board meetings aren't open to the public." The lawsuit was filed by the Goldwater Institute and alleged that blocking Solas from attending "public body" meetings violated Rhode Island's Open Meetings Act.
Nicole Solas was blocked from attending "secret" meetings which a lawsuit said was doing "official school board business." (Fox News Digital )
The South Kingston BIPOC Advisory Committee was formed in 2020 and is "an entity that receives public funds, is comprised in part of public officials and has regular and recurring meetings to advise the School Committee on ‘equity in education,'" the lawsuit said.
"The goal is to get everybody to look at every decision, every action, with a lens of anti-racism and anti-discrimination," the chairperson, Robin Wildman, said in 2021 about the committee.
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Solas told Fox News Digital that schools are "looking for a way to implement a racist ideology into their curriculum." (iStock)
"Schools are looking for a way to implement a racist ideology into their curriculum… So what's going on is that these schools are looking for ways to enforce their ideology, but they know it's controversial. So they have to do it in a secret way because there will be public outcry if this happens in public," Solas told Fox News Digital.
"They have the nerve to look at people like me in the public and say, 'Oh, no, they're just making recommendations. They don't have any real power over your child's education.' So this is insulting to the public," she added.
Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas told Fox News Digital that school districts are trying to conceal education reforms from the public to avoid scrutiny. (iStock)
"Really what happened was the school secretly appointed the members of this group and they charged them with doing official school board business. And then they wouldn't allow members of the public, such as myself, to watch them doing the official school board business that your elected representatives should be doing," Solas said.
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Jon Riches of the Goldwater Institute said, "Nicole has a right to access the public business being discussed and acted upon by the board."
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The board was "charged with advisory power… over matters of significant public interest," said Riches. "The board is also publicly funded with taxpayer dollars by the School Committee, and two members of the School Committee’s subcommittee on policy sit on the Board."
Fox News Digital reached out for comment from the district and the committee, but did not immediately receive a response.