By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Harold Bailey Jr., chairman of TEAM Westport, the town’s multicultural advocacy committee, this week “set the record straight” on what he called “disinformation about TEAM Westport and our involvement with the school board.”

Bailey was referring to several contentious meetings over the past two months when accusations were made against TEAM Westport for allegedly exerting undue influence over local school policies and curricula. These included a guest on a national podcast calling the advisory committee “an unelected Marxist poliltburo,” and as well as harsh criticism by parents of a “banned books” display at Staples High School voiced during last month’s meeting.

TEAM Westport has partnered with the school district to promote diversity, equity and inclusion for 20 years, Bailey told the nearly 50 people attending the committee’s online meeting Thursday morning. 

“We were put in place as a task force in 2003,” he said, and were first requested by the Board of Education to play a role in issues related to racism and other diversity issues in the schools in 2004. “We have been actively engaged since then.”

Bailey traced the work TEAM Westport has done over the years with the schools, pointing out the group’s partnership with the schools is not new. He cited a civil rights forum early in the group’s partnership with the schools; work at Staples High School when “there was a major issue on civility in the schools” over race issues; an initiative promoting diverse books in the Westport Library and school libraries; an annual high school essay program, and scholarships given by the group to Staples seniors.

“TEAM Westport has worked for years with the school system any time there has been a problem with racism …  several times that haven’t necessarily been made public,” Bailey said.

“We’ve been doing that proactively for our children, our parents … This is an evolution of things that have been going on for 20 years,” he said.

TEAM Westport, whose members are appointed by the town’s first selectperson, is an advisory group with no encoded authority under the Town Charter.

The role TEAM Westport plays in other local diversity initiatives also was noted by the committee’s partner organizations, including the Board of Selectwomen.

“I want Westport to be the community where people can have rich, diverse discussion, agree to not agree and still be good neighbors,” First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker said at the start of the meeting. Westport should be a town where “everyone feels that they belong here, feels respected,” she said.

Later in the meeting, Selectwoman Candice Savin said she is concerned about a rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric in the U.S. “It’s an important voice to have in our conversations,” she said.

Jill Nadel, a member of the Anti-Defamation League, was present at the meeting and asked for “a recognition of the issues for the Jewish community in this forum.” She and the league were welcomed by Bailey as a new partner organization with TEAM Westport.

Also introduced at the meeting was Erika Wesley, the new director of equity, diversity and inclusion at the Westport Country Playhouse.

After his opening statement, Bailey said that anyone from the public who wanted to speak at the end of the meeting would be limited to two minutes. He added, “No name calling, no character assassination, no talking about people being Fascist or Marxist … no talking about grooming [children]” would be tolerated.

No one from the public chose to speak at the meeting’s conclusion.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and currently teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.