The Voice was first to alert the public to controversial new ethnic studies programming with the San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) adoption of the “Voices: An Ethnic Studies Survey” curriculum. Friends of Lowell Foundation formally requested a meeting with Mayor Daniel Lurie and senior City Hall officials, citing alleged violations of the California Brown Act. As Liz Le reported, the request follows an earlier demand letter to the district and Board of Education, which preceded the abrupt departure of SFUSD’s legal director. On April 28, 2026, the Board of Education voted 6–1 to approve a roughly $7 million, five-year contract making Voices the district’s standardized, permanent high school ethnic studies curriculum.
The most controversial element of the program is in the textbook’s introductory section where ninth graders are presented with a “Power Wheel” diagram, adapted from Sylvia Duckworth’s Wheels of Power and Privilege. The wheel prompts students to classify where they stand across overlapping categories of identity, including race, sex, gender, religion, income, immigration status, and more. It explicitly frames characteristics such as White, European, cis-male, Christian, Settler, high-income, and citizen as conferring greater power and privilege, while positioning other identities as marginalized. That got me wondering how the city’s current leaders, who come from diverse backgrounds in most of those categories, would fare on the Wheel of Power. With the help of a data nerd friend, we asked our trusty analyzing pal Grok to familiarize itself with the Wheel of Power and Privilege from Sylvia Duckworth and it’s 12 categories and then compute a scoring system for each category and an overall score for the 11 current members of the San Francisco board of supervisors.
Grok began by pointing out something SFUSD should have considered before plopping the wheel into a textbook: Real lives have nuances and fluidity, as well as unlisted factors such as age, appearance, and family. As for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Grok added some fine print: details for public figures are “based on available bios” and “many aspects (disability, exact wealth, mental health) are private or inferred.”
The highest marginalization score was Jackie Fielder (22) driven by race (Latina/Indigenous), gender, sexuality (queer), mental health (publicized leave), plus immigration-related and class/housing roots. Second was Matt Dorsey (20) based on sexuality, ability (HIV+), neuro/mental health (substance abuse recovery).
The lowest marginalization scores were Stephen Sherrill and Rafael Mandelman (both 4). The Board average: ~12. All supervisors have high formal education and current elected-office power, which strongly pulls scores toward 0 in education, wealth, housing, and ability.
Grok explained how its scoring was calculated. For example, Language is a two for those with non-English primary/home language or immigrant background where relevant. Neurodiversity and Mental Health are scored separately; Fielder’s publicized breakdown and subsequent leave of absence raises her Mental Health score to five. Dorsey’s well-known substance abuse recovery and HIV+ status inform his scores.
All supervisors have high levels of formal education and current elected-office power, which strongly pull scores toward 0 in education, wealth, housing, and ability.
We also asked Grok to update the scores based on 2026 publicly available data regarding supervisors’ housing status (rent/own) and level of education. It struggled with the housing element — for example, stating that Shamann Walton was a “confirmed renter” when a Marina Times exposé proved his primary residence is in Vallejo. That’s one of those gray areas that the wheel can’t cope with, and neither could Grok. Higher education was easier to prove, and Grok listed the supervisors’ degrees as follows:
Rafael Mandelman (D8): B.A. (Yale), MPP (Harvard Kennedy School), J.D. (U.C. Berkeley) — multiple advanced/elite degrees.
Bilal Mahmood (D5): B.S. (Stanford), M. Phil. (King’s College, Cambridge) — advanced graduate degree.
Myrna Melgar (D7): B.A. (Excelsior College), M.S. (Columbia University).
Jackie Fielder (D9): B.A. and M.A. (Stanford; concurrent).
Alan Wong (D4): B.A. (U.C. San Diego), MPA (University of San Francisco).
Shamann Walton (D10): B.A. (Morris Brown College), MPA (San Francisco State University).
Chyanne Chen (D11): B.A. (UC Davis), M.A. (Cornell University); pursuing EdD.
BA/BS only (or primary):
Connie Chan (D1): B.A. (UC Davis).
Stephen Sherrill (D2): B.A. (Yale).
Matt Dorsey (D6): B.S. (Emerson College).
Danny Sauter (D3): B.S. (Miami University).
We asked Grok to update the housing data to include Walton’s home ownership and to add in levels of education, and the scores were updated once again, which we incorporated into our final Board of Supervisors Wheel of Power.
The lowest (most privileged) score on the matrix
We couldn’t assign the wheel’s power and privilege to city leaders without including Mayor Daniel Lurie. This likely comes as no surprise, but he had the lowest scores (all zeros), meaning he has the highest level of power and privilege on the entire matrix. According to Grok’s assessment: Race: Ashkenazi Jewish heritage but scored as White in U.S.-context wheel. Citizenship: U.S.-born, multigenerational American family. Education: B.A. (Duke), MPP (U.C. Berkeley). Wealth: Levi Strauss/Haas family heir (multimillionaire to potentially billionaire-adjacent net worth). Housing: Owns high-value home in Pacific Heights. All other categories: Cisgender man, heterosexual (married to Becca Prowda, two children), no noted disabilities, neuro/mental health issues, or language barriers.
Adding Mayor Lurie to the matrix highlights the pattern we saw with the Board of Supervisors: The Wheel of Power produces a stark contrast, with the city’s top elected official scoring maximum privilege across every axis. It underscores how electoral power in San Francisco still heavily favors high human capital, elite networks, wealth, and institutional access — even in a city that celebrates identity diversity. Lurie’s victory as a political newcomer (defeating incumbent London Breed) further illustrates that factors the Wheel downplays or ignores (family connections, philanthropic track record, personal wealth for self–funding, broad voter appeal on campaign promises to get tough on homelessness, drugs, and crime) often matter more than the “marginalization points” the framework emphasizes.
In Grok’s own words: “On this Wheel, Mayor Lurie sits at the absolute center of power and privilege, while the board shows more variation — yet all 12 individuals wield real institutional authority. The tool illustrates identity layers but struggles to explain why people with very different scores on the wheel can all reach the highest levels of local political power.”
Which brings us back to the Wheel of Power that SFUSD ninth graders will be exposed to, and whether they will see themselves as Jackie Fielder or Daniel Lurie. Despite ranking lowest and highest on the wheel respectively, both have managed to land jobs running a major city with a budget larger than 17 U.S. states and several countries. So, with that in mind, what exactly is SFUSD trying to teach these kids?
