Posted on 04/20/2021 6:23:09 AM PDT by NOBO2012
Several of you posted links to and excerpts from the letter by Andrew Gutmann, the man pulling his daughter out of a private New York school, that’s gone viral. Today we’ll look at it again, but first let’s review some of the back story leading up to it.
The school in question is Brearley, the New York private school of the Episcopalian Grace Church. With $54,000 a year tuition it enrolls children of the elite from all walks of life. The story was covered by Bari Weiss. In case you’ve forgotten, Weiss is the former New York Times Op-Ed editor/writer who resigned, noting on her way out that Twitter had become the paper’s ultimate editor:
As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.
This story explains why freedom of speech is an endangered concept in this country. It’s under a sustained,coordinated attack by academia, whose job is to explain it, the media, whose job is to use it and the government, whose job is to protect. None of them are doing their job.
The story actually begins with Paul Rossi, a Brearley school math teacher, who first spoke out against the school’s embrace of critical race theory ideology at a mandatory, whites-only student and faculty Zoom meeting. He subsequently wrote an essay titled I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated in which he accused the school of “indoctrinating” kids with an obsessive emphasis on race and stanching dissenting viewpoints.
Paul Rossi, math teacher. Looks like an ordinary bloke. Offense: un-woke
While not technically dismissed, Mr. Rossi has been told to stay off campus and teach remotely “for his own safety.” He expressed support for Andrew Gutmann whose letter further stirred the brew cooking at the elitist girls’ school, saying “Parents have a moral duty to protect their children from psychological abuse, and I commend any who choose the harder road.”
I was informed by the head of the high school that my philosophical challenges had caused “harm” to students, given that these topics were “life and death matters, about people’s flesh and blood and bone.” I was reprimanded for “acting like an independent agent of a set of principles or ideas or beliefs.” And I was told that by doing so, I failed to serve the “greater good and the higher truth.”
I suggest you read the whole thing. Has someone flipped the light switch? Has the light begun to sneak in?
Apparently the initial situation spurred Andrew Gutmann to action. His letter, sent to all the other parents of Brearley students, unloads on the school’s overload of wokeness:
The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley's antiracism initiatives…
If the administration was genuinely serious about ‘diversity,’ it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought…
I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors.
Seriously, read the whole thing. And don’t skip the comments, a lot of support along with a fair share of people who clearly stand with the woke.
Brearley's exhaustive anti-racism calendar for the school year of 2020 to 2021 which includes training sessions for parents. Makes you wonder when they have time for educating the children.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of this little morality play being acted out in real time is the fact that neither the New York Times (America’s Newpaper of Record) nor The Washington Post (Democracy Dies In Darkness) have covered the story. Nor have they covered any other stories concerning the ideological takeover of the schools…or media. When you’re part of the cabal you decide all the news that’s fit to print.
Uh oh! Who switched the light on?
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
Amusing that the elite wokes enroll their kids into well guarded private schools, deny the masses vouchers, and cover themselves with the progressive cloak as they lead their decadent, vapid, hypocritical lives in unlivable, lawless New York. The Chris Cupmo solution might waken them from their woke trance.
“With $54,000 a year tuition it enrolls children of the elite from all walks of life.”
The elite from all walks of life ... irrespective of whether your family holds seats on the stock exchange, you’ve inherited old money from Europe, or you’re daddy is a hedge fund billionaire, truly, this school takes people from all walks of life.
Amusing that the elite wokes enroll their kids into well guarded private schools, deny the masses vouchers, and cover themselves with the progressive cloak as they lead their decadent, vapid, hypocritical lives in unlivable, lawless New York.
lead their decadent, vapid, hypocritical lives ...... Nailed it. They love to support all the “right” causes and policies but have enough money to insulate themselves from the consequences. None of the liberals in Chappaqua have to deal with the tsumami of illegals streaming over the border, however they might one day be employing some of them to do their laundry, clean their house, mow their lawn, do some painting, or framing a new addition. After that they have to go home, back to Yonkers or wherever they live in their favela.
One man with brains and guts stands up; that's all it takes.
I'd like to see him get into politics.
Rossi was a teacher at a completely different school. It’s quite clearly spelled out in your own links. I know you’re creating content and I appreciate that, but if you can’t do the most basic of research, what is the point of bothering? I mean, it’s right freakin’ there!! One would think you would have read your own links while writing the story to know that Rossi taught at Grace Church, not Brearley. So, that isn’t the Brearley back story at all.
EmilyApr 13
When Ibram X. Kendi, antiracism guru, was asked by Politico to take his best shot at solving the problem of inequality in America, he responded by suggesting a constitutional amendment to create and permanently fund a federal agency with the mandate to control everything.
It’s only a thought experiment of course. But I can’t understand why people haven’t revolted at following an ideology promoted by a mind that, when tasked to solve a nuanced problem, comes up with an idea that takes a sledgehammer to the underpinnings of America itself.
Kendi's Department of Antiracism (DOA) would oversee all policy at the local, state, and national level, and monitor public and private entities and public figures for antiracist ideas. The last sentence of his suggestion chills my bones thoroughly - it provides for “disciplinary tools“ to use against those who do not VOLUNTARILY change their minds.
The idea of such a constitutional amendment is laughable today. But will it be so amusing in 20 years after a generation of children have been subjected, as these children have been, to a culture that denies their individualism and treats all disagreement as existential threat to the lives of oppressed minorities?
We have got to get off this path, and we need to do it fast. This ideology has now invaded my public school. I urge everyone, even if you don’t have school-aged children, to find out if your local schools have adopted this philosophy, and get involved to prevent it.
For my fellow liberals who, as I once did, see fear of antiracism teaching as mere hysteria by conservatives, another “blah blah blah Marxism” GOP talking point, here is the link to see for yourself. Turns out the conservatives are right this time - every word is an assault on America herself.
And this man is required reading for educators at every level, all across the country. He has captured our future.
Well, Tucker read a letter from a parent on his show, last night.
“The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob...” What should one expect from an Episcopalian school?
later
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