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Dallas Justice Now: How an Apparent Hoax (Briefly) Inflamed America’s Racial Culture War

 

ByDan MacGuill  

 

Snopes

August 5, 2022

 

Right-wing commentators seized upon a "college pledge" sent to white residents of a wealthy Dallas neighborhood. But all was not as it seemed. 

 

 

In July 2021, right-leaning media outlets seized upon a local story emerging from Dallas, Texas, about a provocative letter delivered to white residents of the affluent community of Highland Park asking them to forgo their children’s applications to elite universities in order to keep spaces open for Black and ethnic minority students. 

The “college pledge,” created by “Dallas Justice Now,” prompted a wave of bemusement and outrage among conservative commentators. On Fox News, Tucker Carlson stand-in Mark Steyn furrowed his brow and asked “nice white allies” the rhetorical question: “Are you sufficiently all-in to take it to the next level — of child sacrifice, at least as far as education is concerned?” 

The headline of the Daily Wire‘s report read: “Racial Advocacy Group To White Texas Parents: Sign Our Pledge Not To Send Your Kids To Ivy League Schools Or We’ll Doxx You” — a reference to a section on Dallas Justice Now’s website in which the group warned it “will be publicly announcing the names of those who have and have not signed the pledge.”

The Western Journal described the college pledge as “an abomination seething with resentment and set up as a self-flagellation for the melanin-challenged people who are supposed to sign it,” while similar reports, all of which accepted at face value the authenticity of Dallas Justice Now, were published by PJ Media and the Washington Times.

Former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also railed against the letter, writing: “This story was so absurd that I held off from commenting on it until I was fairly certain it wasn’t a hoax or a prank.”

It seems Huckabee, and many others, should perhaps have held off a bit longer. In the context of an intensifying culture war over critical race theory, and febrile, reductive arguments over white privilege, the “college pledge” story seemed almost tailor-made to provoke a hyperpartisan backlash and turn moderates against the broader movement for racial and social justice in the United States. Soon, evidence emerged that suggested it might be exactly that — an artificial controversy provoked by bad-faith actors posing as a nonexistent group, ostensibly led by Black women.