“There was a fundamental misalignment between Dr. Chandler-Cole’s approach and CASA’s mission—ultimately leading to a loss of confidence.” That was the statement released last week by the board of CASA of Los Angeles—a group that recruits volunteers to serve as court-appointed special advocates to represent children’s “best interest” in child-welfare cases—explaining why it had fired its executive director, Charity Chandler-Cole.
Chandler-Cole had been hired four years earlier to great fanfare. “Charity is the right leader at the perfect time for CASA/LA,” then–Congresswoman Karen Bass declared. “She is a visionary who will be a tireless champion for the program and the children and families they serve.”
Finally, a reason to check your email.
Sign up for our free newsletter today.
That was then—when someone with Chandler-Cole’s radical politics could rise rapidly to the top of the foster-care world. Now, sanity might be making a comeback.
A former foster youth, Chandler-Cole held several advocacy roles before taking the helm at CASA/LA. She was a founding board member of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and served as co-chair of the racial justice committee for the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families.
After George Floyd’s death in 2020, Chandler-Cole expressed radical views on the child-welfare system. In a piece that summer for The Imprint, a youth- and family-news site, she claimed that America’s “foster care system was not designed to protect our Black children, but rather mirrors the oppression, discrimination and harassment Black people experience in this country daily.” She went further: “Our foster care system unfortunately reflects the history of slavery and the deterioration of the family. It is the remnants of Black fathers being stripped from their families, in many cases unjustly, to fill prisons that were designed to control and suppress Black people through the intentional dismantling of Black families.”
In 2020, seemingly every corporation and nonprofit embraced similar ideological claims. At the time, a strong commitment to racial activism was often seen as a prerequisite for leadership. Chandler-Cole’s rhetoric apparently convinced CASA’s Los Angeles chapter that it had found the right person.
But how could someone with such views lead an organization that sends volunteers to get to know foster children and advise judges on their welfare? How do you support kids in foster care if you believe the system “reflects the history of slavery”?
In fact, these views are increasingly common among radicals in the foster-care world. Many advocates now argue that to reduce the system’s impact on black families, courts should stop admitting black children into foster care altogether. They have suggested that teachers and doctors should report fewer allegations of abuse or neglect, child protective services should conduct fewer investigations, and CASA volunteers should rethink the very role their organization was created to play.
For example, Family Integrity and Justice Works, a nonprofit, recommended rebranding “child advocates” as “family advocates.” The leaders of the UpEnd Movement, which seeks to abolish foster care entirely, called on CASA to reflect on how they are “contributing to . . . the oversurveiling [sic] of families.” Instead, the group argued, CASA should focus on “getting kids to be with their families whenever possible.”
After accepting the job, Chandler-Cole dug in on her radical vision. “I think it’s no secret that with CASA—and every organization in the child welfare space that is led by white people only—there’s white savior-ism at play, whether they intend for it to happen or not,” she said in an interview.
Setting aside her questionable claim that many child-welfare groups are “led by white people only,” Chandler-Cole went on to explain her objection: “We can’t just have a bunch of white folks come in and say, ‘We’re going to take care of these poor Black and brown families and try to provide the best outcomes we feel are necessary for them based on our perspective.’”
What does that mean for CASA/LA? Chandler-Cole explained: “We have an opportunity to really prevent the number of youth that are coming into the foster care system.” But that’s not CASA’s job.
Now, the fever has broken. In April, the Department of Justice announced that it would slash funds to various CASA organizations. Totaling around $50 million, the cuts shocked the recipients. The DOJ’s announcement explained that the programs “no longer effectuate the program goals or agency priorities.” CASA’s nods to systemic racism, diversity, and inclusion may have sealed its fate.
It’s not clear why the board decided to part ways with Chandler-Cole. She told The Imprint that the board was concerned about a decline in volunteers. “I was not fired for underperformance,” Chandler-Cole wrote in an email. “I consistently pushed for the board to look beyond surface-level metrics like volunteer counts and raw caseloads—and instead focus on the quality of advocacy, the experiences of youth and families, and the measurable outcomes that result from our support.”
Whether Chandler-Cole was let go for incompetence, malfeasance, or prioritizing advocacy over the organization’s mission, we may never know. But two things are clear: when you hire someone who expresses contempt for white volunteers, you shouldn’t be surprised if those volunteers choose to stay away; and when you hire someone for her ideological commitments, you shouldn’t be surprised if she is bad at her job. CASA of Los Angeles isn’t the first organization to learn these lessons—and it won’t be the last.
Photo by Elyse Jankowski/Getty Images
City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).
Source link
