Mary Yeboah is a new school board member for School District 200 in Wheaton, Illinois. She is also director of graduate student life at nearby Wheaton College. At a recent district board meeting, Yeboah took her fellow board members to task, asking them six rhetorical questions to argue for the removal of Columbus Day from the school calendar in 2022 and 2023.
Those questions included references to the holiday observance "celebrating extreme violence, theft, genocide, and dehumanization," implied it was inaccurate to suggest the historic explorer "discovered" land that was already inhabited, and accused the holiday event of "unintentionally support[ing] a myth of U.S. exceptionalism that could undermine district efforts to create diverse, inclusive schools for all children."
AFN spoke with Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute about Yeboah's antics. "This is more of the Left exploiting public schools and our tax dollars to promote their view on social issues, moral issues, sexual issues," she laments.
Higgins finds it unfortunate that Yeboah is a member of the District 200 school board because the district encompasses all the elementary, junior high, and high schools in the area.
"So, she's on the boards for all of these schools – and she's hugely into diversity, equity. and inclusivity. This is why she joined the school board."
Yeboah implied that honoring Christopher Columbus's exploratory achievement that transformed the world violates the "vision and mission" of District 200 and doesn't deserve state-level support.
