“You get presented with, on equal merits, like a white person or a black person or whatever. Yeah, we're going with the black person,” revealed Jonathan Ferrer, Director of Human Resources for Summit Public Schools, a charter network operating in California and Washington, to an OMG hidden camera, admitting to employment practices that violate federal and state anti-discrimination laws.
During the hidden camera investigation, Ferrer acknowledged that hiring decisions are often made based on race. He explained further that hiring is evaluated in terms of the school’s perceived cultural needs, adding, “Who do we feel is best for kids right now in the context of that school site or that classroom? So if it’s a person of color, great. If it’s a trans teacher, great.”
Ferrer also discussed how the district’s DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) priorities impact candidate selection. When asked if there are certain quotas they try to meet, he explained, “Obviously we have a lot of kids that identify as LGBTQ, maybe even trans. So we have one trans teacher in our district… and so I think it’s just culturally, we just naturally look for those folks.”
Ferrer also admitted that political ideology plays a role in who is and isn’t hired. When asked if Summit Public Schools would ever hire someone who supports Donald Trump, Ferrer bluntly replied, “I don’t think we would hire them.” He elaborated that the school uses DEI-based interview questions to filter out candidates who do not align with the district’s values. “We do have DEI questions built into our selection process,” Ferrer said. “We have a rubric… if they say any of these things, this is not someone who's answering the question the way we’re aligned to answer the question.”
He provided an example of the kind of response that would disqualify a candidate, saying, “If the candidate or teacher is like, ‘Well, I want to make sure that [students] learn about conservative values,’ blah, blah, blah… that’s probably not what we are looking for.”
OMG has reached out to Summit Public Schools regarding Ferrer’s comments on hiring decisions being driven by identity politics rather than equal opportunity and merit.
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