EXCLUSIVE: Judge denies activist’s attempt to hide radical curriculum from public

In January, Ari Hoffman, The Post Millennial’s West Coast editor, filed a public disclosure request (PDR) to view all curricula developed by Washington Ethnic Studies Now (WAESN) that was in use in Washington state public schools. Hoffman filed the request after it was revealed that the founder of the organization Tracy Castro Gill claimed that white, Jewish people benefit from systems of oppression that disenfranchise people of color.

After the PDR was filed, Castro Gill was informed on January 4 by Matt Schultz, Chief Legal and Civil Rights officer for Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) that the request had been made as per an agreement already in place when the agency began working with Castro Gill’s organization and offered to provide a “representative sample to review” of the material “before determining whether to seek a protective order.”

WASEN then filed and obtained a temporary restraining order on February 8 against OSPI to stop the release of the documents to Hoffman.

On March 23, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Indu Thomas ruled that “The public records act and Washington administrative code does not require an agency to first produce records to a notified third party before that party is required to seek injunctive relief under the statute.”

The judge added that there is “no basis under the statute to enjoin the release of records to a public records requester.”

“The standard to block disclosure under the PRA is threefold,” the judge explained. “ 1) the record in question must pertain to that party 2) the exemption applies and 3) the disclosure would not be in the public interest and would substantially harm that party or vital government function.”

According to the ruling, “there's no question that ‘all the curricula authored or used from Tracy Castro Gill and WAESN for students faculty and trainings’ and ‘any other capacity and all communication regarding and with Tracy Castro Gill and anyone from WAESN’ pertains to WAESN.

The judge wrote that “No specific exemption has been argued. The plaintiff relies on the language in the WAC indicating that an agency should have a reasonable belief that the record is arguably exempt before sending a notice to an affected party. That reliance is misplaced.”

According to the judge, the plaintiff was “…unable to assert which exemption applies.” Additionally, the plaintiff “…does not address whether the disclosure would not be in the public interest and would substantially harm that party or vital government function,” and therefore “ordered that the preliminary injunction to extend the courts granting plaintiffs petition for the temporary restraining order is denied.”

Following the judge’s ruling, the curriculum and emails were released to Hoffman and the material is currently being reviewed.

Included in the material was an infographic entitled “Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture.” According to the document, those characteristics include striving for “perfectionism,” “individualism” and getting defensive were included as characteristics of White Supremacy, as well as valuing “quantity over quality” and "worship" of the "written word."

The material created for a Math curriculum contains no numbers or formulas but rather focuses on “identity,” “power” and oppression.” This material was in line with the “Identity Wheel,” which demonstrates how much “power” one has based on how one identifies.

Castro Gill, identifies as a "non-binary" "Xicanx" and worked as the Ethnic Studies Manager for SPS from September 2018 until May 2020, when the superintendent removed her from the position due to "unprofessional behavior."

After her dismissal from SPS, Castro-Gill founded and serves as the executive director for WAESN, an organization that sells radical curriculums and trains public school teachers across the country in "ethnic studies."

The Post Millennial previously revealed that the organization was approved by the Office of Public Instruction of Washington (OSPI) to provide professional development for teachers in Washington state and proudly proclaims that they teach critical race theory.

In an October email to The Post Millennial, OSPI claimed it "does not currently have any engagements or contracts with Washington Ethnic Studies Now (WAESN), nor do we point to them as a resource for educators from our website. When it became clear to us in recent years that WAESN was not just an education-focused organization, but also a political one -- and that they had used their platform to make disparaging comments about others -- we took action to remove their materials from our website in places where the organization was listed as a resource for schools and educators."

However, WESN is still listed on OSPI’s 2022-23 "Clock Hours Provider" of organizations that teachers in the district use to fulfill their mandatory teacher training.

This past summer, Castro Gill ran a 3 part series about Jewishness and Ethnic studies, during which she attempted to prove that Jews benefit from "white privilege." Topics included "The Jewish Question?," a phrase first popularized by Adolf Hitler in 1919 and evolved into the rationale for the genocide of the Jews during the Holocaust,