Black principal defended himself. Now he’s on leave. Colleyville district must explain

Most stories involving employment and personnel are more complicated than they appear. There are always elements that even fellow employees aren’t aware of, so outsiders can’t possibly know the full story.

But based on what we do know about Colleyville Heritage High School principal James Whitfield, placed on paid administrative leave, things appear bad for the Grapevine-Colleyville school district. It looks like an admired Black principal is in danger of punishment or even losing his job over vague charges that he’s introducing divisive ideas to the school — and worse, that the district may have overreacted to him standing up to publicly defend himself.

Public entities often suspend employees while they carry out investigations, even if the subject is quickly cleared. It’s a matter of caution, driven by concern about legal action.

But the district must answer questions about Whitfield’s case soon. Of course it can’t reveal everything in a personnel matter, but it needs to be upfront about the “critical race theory” turmoil that’s dividing this community, like so many others.

Whitfield told NBC5 that he had “done nothing wrong by anyone,” though he understandably can’t reveal much else.

In late July, a speaker at a Grapevine-Colleyville school board meeting complained that Whitfield had promoted “the conspiracy theory of systemic racism” and called for the principal’s firing. A few days later, Whitfield, Heritage’s first Black principal, defended himself in a long Facebook post. He traced the “critical race theory” complaints to his participation in a volunteer staff discussion about differences in which he shared his experiences with racism.

He’s also been accused, he said, of introducing CRT at a previous middle-school job in the district. And he published an email that he sent to the Heritage community after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, encouraging parents and students “not to grow weary in the battle against systemic racism — commit to being an anti-racist.”

He also noted that someone had complained about photos of Whitfield and his wife, who is white, that he had posted on Facebook. It made national news; some saw an inappropriate public display of a romantic moment, and others argued that the complaint wouldn’t have occurred if the couple were not interracial.

It’s disturbing that Whitfield’s suspension follows his appearance at last week’s school board meeting, which he said he made in response to his name having been denigrated before the board. In his statement to NBC5, the principal hinted that this was part of the district’s concern.

“I’ve only chosen to speak up after they allowed that man to speak my name at the board meeting. Instead of speaking out against the behavior ... they came after me,” Whitfield said.

A case can be made that Whitfield’s public statements were inappropriate, that he should have quietly taken his concern to district administrators. But stepping up to defend his reputation hardly merits suspension or worse. Whitfield also recently aired concerns on Twitter about COVID-19 safety protocols in schools, which probably made his bosses queasy, too.

Whitfield’s actions hardly represent a major infusion of critical race theory into Heritage High School. Whitfield shared his informed perspective on issues that were roiling the nation at the time, and he did so thoughtfully.

The critical race theory battle is, of course, spreading across the country. Parents are turning out at school board meetings to loudly protest teachings on race and history. The response from many school districts has been that their curricula don’t contain CRT, an academic theory about how to view history and other topics through the lens of race.

That’s accurate, but it’s also slippery. The theory itself is not a topic in most schools. But many parents are concerned about lessons that go too far in defining people as members of groups, rather than their individual actions and character.

Every reasonable parent wants children taught that racism is wrong and has been harmful in our history. Its effects continue to harm people.

But the term “anti-racism” goes beyond that. Its leading proponents promote radical changes, such as an unelected federal department with power to nullify any state or local policy that it deems to have racist effect.

The point is that these are debatable ideas, and school officials can’t evade that debate by looking around and declaring, “Nope, no critical race theory here.”

Whitfield’s case is not the venue to resolve these complicated issues, though. There’s no evidence he even introduced, let alone promoted, such ideas to students.

We don’t know what we don’t know about Whitfield’s tenure at Heritage High School. But he is by many accounts a dynamic, compassionate leader, the kind our schools need.

If Grapevine-Colleyville officials hope to duck controversy by punishing or dismissing him, it’s a mistake.