School Supt. Under Fire for Saying Whites Have 'Problematic Racial Identity'

The Scottsdale Unified School District has been embroiled in controversy this week, after district parents in Arizona learned school Superintendent Scott Menzel said white people have a "problematic racial identity."

And now, there are calls for Menzel to be removed from his leadership position.

Fox News gained access to a controversial interview from 2019 involving Menzel — a Michigan-based school superintendent at the time — who said, "there's a misperception that educational equity is really only for ethnically and racially diverse districts. But white people have racial identity as well, and in fact problematic racial identity that we typically avoid."

In that same interview, Menzel touted the virtues of "White Fragility," a Critical Race Theory-based book from Robin DiAngelo, who asserts that whites are the beneficiaries of systemic racism.

"So, thinking about how hard can we push on the system without a collapse that disrupts the progress of the entire work and sets us back 20 years, that's a question we don't talk about often enough in my mind," said Menzel.

The school superintendent then added: "But also calling out the question of privilege. White people, Robin DiAngelo's book, 'White Fragility,' calls it straight up."

During that interview, Menzel also posited that "white people ... shouldn't feel comfortable, we should feel really, really uncomfortable, because we perpetuate a system by ignoring the realities in front of us, and living in a mythological reality."

In reaction to Menzel's comments, Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity (SUEI), a parental group advocating for increased transparency in the district, has been leading the charge for the superintendent's dismissal.

"At every turn, SUSD under Menzel's leadership has worked to suppress information via several methods including denial of public records requests, verbal attacks of parents who question curriculum, and updated policies that make it nearly impossible for parents to volunteer or access their child's classrooms," Jill Dunican, a district parent and SUEI member, told the Daily Caller.

Dunican continued: "Menzel's recently resurfaced comments by Fox News that 'meritocracy is a lie' and that white people have a 'problematic racial identity' have been a tipping point in the call for his removal."

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