DARVO in Dallas Education Sector

DARVO is an acronym and an academically studied tactic (based on a model developed by Dr. Jennifer Freyd, PHD Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon) that stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. DARVO is a tactic employed largely by perpetrators and abusers in response to accountability and assumes the role of the victim while attacking the accuser of being the perpetrator. Accountability is then diverted and avoided at all costs. DARVO is a gaslighting tactic that occurs at an institutional level as well, known as Institutional DARVO. An institutional example of DARVO is when a victim of domestic violence is charged or dismissed for false aquisations against their perpetrator. It is a psychological manipulation often employed within white patriarchy, supremacy, fragility, and privilege. It takes away from the true cause at hand, for example, by derailing an entity and its purpose by reversing all accountability onto the victim and framing them as the offender. When Dallas Justice Now called on white wealthy liberals to take accountability for their privilege by relinquishing space as a form of reparations we witnessed DARVO in action. The outraged and fragile wealthy white families weaponized their whiteness, denied accountability, attacked our credibility and attempted to dismantle our cause by calling our request “hostile” and “inflammatory”. They centered their whiteness by claiming themselves as victims of an “offensive” letter framing it as a “hoax”. The reality is, the white wealthy liberal families we called on derailed our efforts, retained their privilege and space, and diverted any accountability toward actionable allyship and reparations thus retaining their power and privilege. DARVO is an elaborate tactic observed time and time again that disintegrates the individual and collective efforts of people working toward racial and social justice. DARVO is also a good friend of performative activism, and seeps out at any crack in the mask. So while white wealthy liberal communities continue to hoist their BLM signs, they also continue to negate real, tangible reparations. A sign is not enough. The Dallas education sector at-large engages in DARVO regularly and there’s an archive of articles and accounts denoting any past attempt of racial equity, diversity, inclusivity, critical race theory and any related curriculum, materials, and books as “extreme” and “divisive”. This is a prime example of “Reverse Victim Offender” in action, while the true victims, BIPOC students, continue to suffer lack of equity.