Enid Lee Consultants

Background

Enid Lee Consultants was founded and is led by Enid Lee, a left-of-center activist. ¹ The firm, which supports beliefs aligned with critical race theory, offers a variety of “anti-racist” services to educational and education-adjacent institutions, including coaching, courses, classroom visits, webinars, workshops, “equity audits,” custom curriculum designs, staff demonstrations, and “mentoring with an anti-racist equity lens.” ²

The firm advertises its “Equity Tool,” a set of 54 cards with questions meant to prompt reflection. For instance, “When I reflect on the achievement data along racial and linguistic lines among my students how can I fine-tune or change my systems for greater equity?” Additionally, the firm offers a heavily discounted “digital download” version of the equity tool, which buyers can access as a pdf. ³

According to the firm’s website, the firm has worked with the Kitayama and Pioneer Elementary School in Union City, California. ⁴

Activities

In the summer of 2001, Enid Lee Consultants participated in an “equity institute,” a collaborative event featuring educators from different institutions in the United States and Canada, at the Walker Center, an ecumenical organization based in Newton, Massachusetts, collectively examining what it means to “put race on the table.” ⁵ The firm’s testimonials page includes a list of six unattributed plaudits from participants at this event, affirming their commitment to the firm’s objectives. For instance, one testimonial reads, “I will start to look at my curriculum through an anti-racist lens,” and another, “I’ll definitely be less quick to dismiss statements people make about racism.” ⁴

In July 2020, Teaching for Change, a left-of-center organization that focuses on supporting progressive social and economic policy, hosted Lee as a Harriet Tubman Fellow with grant funding from the Open Society Foundations, a private grantmaking foundation created and funded by billionaire financier and liberal philanthropist George Soros. ^{6 7} During that time, Lee spoke at Teaching for Change events and gave presentations to teachers in coordination with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Washington Teachers Union, a labor union representing District of Columbia Public Schools teachers affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. ^{8 9}

On February 29, 2020, Lee presented a workshop at the Washington Teachers Union, at the organization’s Shared Vision Conference. ¹⁰

Enid Lee

Enid Lee is the founder, namesake, and principal consultant of Enid Lee Consultants. Additionally, Lee is a virtual scholar with Teaching for Change. According to the Enid Lee Consultants website, she is an “anti-racist professional development specialist.” ¹¹ In that vein, in an interview in the Fall 2021 issue of Western University’s Alumni Gazette, Lee notes, “I don’t have to wonder, ‘Why is this happening?’ I understand it’s structural and systemic” in explanation of the beginning of her personal slogan, “Expect Racism.” ¹²