Dallas racial justice campaign highlighted by Fox News reportedly may trace back to a right-wing PR firm


A story about a Dallas group allegedly demanding white parents sign a pledge to not send their children to Ivy League schools, which received attention on Tucker Carlson Tonight this week, may be a hoax tied to a conservative PR firm, the Dallas Observer reports.
Reports recently began making the rounds in conservative media of a flyer being delivered from a group called Dallas Justice Now, demanding that white parents "pledge that your children will not apply or attend" an Ivy League school because doing so would take away "spaces from students of color." The group was also apparently threatening to publish the names of those who didn't sign, according to the Dallas Observer.
But the Dallas Observer reports that while little information about "Dallas Justice Now" is available online, its website "traces back to a right-wing PR firm called Arena," which has worked for Republican groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The report also explains that Dallas Justice Now claims to be a nonprofit, but it doesn't appear in a government nonprofit database. One person who received one of the flyers, Casie Tomlin, reportedly tried to get to the bottom of the group behind them, only to be doxxed in a press release it sent out.
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"I knew it was fake and designed to draw a rise the first time I saw this nonsense," she tweeted.
Still, the story about the group received coverage on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Tuesday, with fill-in host Mark Stein describing it as news that "would have been a rather dull satire a decade ago." Read more at the Dallas Observer.
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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