For over 20 years, Heritage Christian School of Marion County, Indianapolis, Indiana, has created, managed, and continued abusive, anti-LGBTQIA+, and racist policies. These policies have met challenge over the years, but the school, nor CEO Jeff Freeman, has made no equitable change.

The school produces a culture of male-violence-tolerance, while actively endangering all non-White, non-male students. Such instances including the allowance of rapist/teacher Larry Curtis Meyers to continue teaching after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old student until he resigned himself, the allowance of child sexual predator Lane Freeman to continue to graduate from the school after turning countless eighth grade students into victims, the allowance of Paul McDonald to continue to graduate after being convicted on public nudity charges while running the Monon Trail, and many more cases in which the school refuses to hold men (students and teachers) accountable for their abuse and creation of a male-dominant environment.

The anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric remains. Jeff Freeman and the HCS School Board of Directors have done little-to-nothing to reconcile these injustices. The most recent offense of sending out an email which requested parents and teachers to "urge their Representatives to oppose the Equality Act," using phrases such as "when we live under God's loving standards, we flourish," to pressure families into the school's ideal of non-LGBTQIA+ Christian-hood. Such an instance shows no impression of what it's like to live as an LGBTQIA+ student, barred from understanding of the scientific spectrum of human sexuality (for example: one is born intersex, and cannot simply "make a Christ-like decision" to not be intersex). The school continues to profess a "biblical interpretation of science." Such rejection of scientific discovery forces current students to decide between an academic career in science, or a relationship with God. This is religious abuse. The school continues to reject any form of science that does not adhere to their anti-LGBTQIA+ beliefs.

The "Diversity Team" is inequitable. Racial bias has plagued the institution for decades, as shown currently in their entire lack of Black/Indigenous/Asian/etc. teachers. From so-called "no-bonnet" policies, where Black mothers of students attending the school were disallowed from wearing a protective hair bonnet while dropping their children off in the carpool line, to encouraging microagressions towards Black students that choose to wear their natural hair to school. Such behavior solidifies white-supremacist ideas, which should not be allowed in an institution that shapes itself according to "God's loving standards." We ask that Jeff Freeman, Becky Stowers, and Angela Ruiz-Pearce, Ph.D. resign from their positions on the "Diversity Team," whom make the so-called Diversity Team a White-majority group, consequently disallowing an equitable advantage on what should be a BIPOC-only team of Diversity Directors.

The history is grim. The culture of "praying away abuse" has lead several former staff and students to take their own lives due to inaction on behalf of the Administration members. Many of the students that did make it out have had to seek therapy with external resources as a result of the abuse that occurred on campus. We demand that Mr. Terry, Larry Curtis Meyers, Paul McDonald, and Dave Watt never be allowed back to work at the school or attend school events after continued sexual exploitation of students and forced-silence onto the survivors. The phrase "boys will be boys" should be abolished from all classrooms -- as it encourages a lack of male accountability and is a formative function of rape culture.

Equitable difference. We demand that the forced dress code be paid-in-full by the school for every student that attends. Not doing such creates an even larger wealth income gap amongst lower working class and upper working class families.

If these changes cannot be made, the entire Heritage Christian School Board of Directors, including Jeff Freeman, needs to resign, and the school itself must be abolished. Turning what should be a child's most impressionable years of education into years of trauma, abuse, and silence is unacceptable and irreparable. Children should be given the opportunity to learn and grow with access to historical truth and education of all American experiences, not just the non-LGBTQIA+, White-male experience.