Sharif El-Mekki (@selmekki) / Instagram
CV NEWS FEED // The Free Press outlined the rise of Sharif El-Mekki, a black nationalist who spent much of his childhood in Iran and has received $20 million to promote segregated education.
The Fress Press states that former teacher and principal El-Mekki founded the Center for Black Educator Development (CBED), a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring black students are taught by black teachers. The website states, “We will push tirelessly onward until all Black children reach true liberation and the highest levels of excellence.”
It continues, “We think this is best accomplished through a quality education that prioritizes access to teachers who share their racial identities, cultural experiences and worldviews.”
The nonprofit owns nearly $20 million in assets. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated more than $1.4 million from 2020 to 2021, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation gave more than $1.1 million in 2022.
Dr. Mika Hackner, a senior research associate at the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, explained to The Free Press some of the problems of the organization.
“He started up this organization, which on paper sounds like a really wonderful endeavor, getting more Black teachers in the classroom,” she stated. “But if you scratch beneath the surface — not even beneath the surface, it’s on their website — he’s propagating some pretty dangerous and divisive ideas.”
She added that El-Mekki is “bringing in segregation by a different and more socially and politically acceptable name.”
The “Cause Context” section of CBED’s website argues that desegregation was used by white educators to rob black teachers of teaching opportunities, resulting in black students having white teachers. CBED argues that black students perform better in education when they have black teachers.
The website states that black teachers “were summarily dismissed, phased out and left out of recruitment efforts when white leadership took advantage of desegregation to systematically undermine the national Black teaching corps.”
The CBED also created an information packet called “The Anti-Racist Guide to Teacher Retention.” The packet states, “Education is a political act. Done right, a liberating education can upend white supremacy.”
It later adds, “Every lesson plan is a political document, and every classroom interaction a political statement.”
El-Mekki’s own educational experience was formed by his experience in a “freedom school,” a school inspired by the Black Panthers where black teachers teach black students. He was also formed by the time he spent in Iran.
El-Mekki’s parents were both Muslim, and his mother had converted to Islam from Catholicism, according to a biography from the Philly Museum Freedom Fund. His mother, a Muslim, said that the Catholic teaching of “turning the other cheek” seemed unjust and counterintuitive and that she used to argue with the nuns who taught her this Gospel phrase.
El-Mekki regularly praises Iran and its educational system. He published an article saying that he felt “fully supported and successful” in Iran and that his family was “welcomed in our new community and our school,” which he said is what immigrant students need more than anything else.
He then described the American treatment of foreign students, saying that teachers used to oppress immigrant students by “demanding that they shed their identities,” and that this demand was “an act of violence.”
