As if indoctrinating your children isn’t enough, at least five elite private prep schools in New York City are now either requiring or strongly suggesting that parents attend “diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism” (DEIA) training workshops, write essays, and sign pledges while forking over an average of $60,000 per year for their children to attend.
A tenant of the controversial Critical Race Theory ideology, DEIA is seen by many as a divisive, even dangerous, pillar of the woke cult that has infiltrated nearly every aspect of today’s society. It teaches that racism and privilege are systemic and that white people are essentially born racists, whether they know it or not.
According to documents obtained by the New York Post, The Brearley School, an Upper East Side all-girls school that boasts such famous alumni as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Jill Clayburgh, Tea Leoni, and model Kim Stolz, states on their application that “parents are expected to attend two diversity, equity, inclusion and antiracism (DEIA) workshops per school year.”
They must also write a 500-word essay on the subject and, should their little girls be accepted, sign an actual pledge in which they promise to uphold the school’s “core values.”
“We expect teachers, staff members, students and parents to participate in anti-racist training and to pursue meaningful change through deliberate and measurable actions. These actions include identifying and eliminating policies, practices and beliefs that uphold racial inequality in our community,” the pledge reads.
Parents are encouraged to “discuss with your children Brearley’s mission, diversity, equity and inclusion, and anti-racist statements in the student handbooks, and establishing your family’s responsibility to uphold these values.”
In response to the Orwellian conditions of admission, one Brearley parent, Andrew Gutmann, pulled his child out of the school and penned a scathing letter to the school’s 600 families.
“It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop,” Gutmann wrote. “It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. 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.”
“They want parents indoctrinated the same way they want their kids,” he stated.
Over at Grace Church High School in NoHo, children were required in 2020 to sign a pledge in which they vow to be warriors against “racial propaganda” and “interrupt biases.”
While Grace has stated it won’t be requiring the Hitler Youth-esque oath going forward, it hasn’t backed down on its belief that DEI is a “moral imperative.”
“Grace makes it clear to prospective parents from the beginning that DEI and Critical Race Theory and anti-racism is a moral imperative and all members of the community must commit to it,” former Grace teacher Paul Rossi told The Post.
Parents of children attending Spence, another all-girls school on the Upper East Side, are “invited” to attend the “Courageous Conversation equity workshop.”
The event is staged by a San Francisco-based DEI consulting shop called Pacific Educational Group, which claims “systemic racism” is “deeply embedded in the fabric of this nation” and the only solution is to abandon “all sense of ego and comfort.”
According to a Spence spokesperson, the PEG workshop is “strictly voluntary” for parents and the programs “do not involve students.”
Prospective parents of would-be students at the Upper East Side’s Chapin School were told that a panel discussion held earlier this month to explore the school’s “ongoing commitment to equity & inclusion, including our newest community-wide initiatives.” was optional, but moms say that isn’t the case.
“They take attendance, they have name tags, there is someone from the admissions office to keep track of who goes and who doesn’t,” said one mom. “If you don’t go, your child is not going to go very far in the admission process.”
Another mom was told her son “had to better understand the values of inclusion at the school and I had to familiarize myself with the values of inclusion at the school and be clear with my child as to what they were so he arrived at school prepared,” after he remarked that boys had a physical advantage in sports over girls.
At Horace Mann in The Bronx, Ronald Taylor hosted a “family learning session” in which he touted “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo — a controversial book that insists that all white people are racist.
“I don’t want to be in necessarily white spaces, because when black children were put into those spaces their support and caregivers were taken away and they were put into racially hostile environments,” he told attentive parents.
According to one Twitter user, The Post’s article highlights the need for parents to get out and vote for meaningful change.
“There’s very little reason to care, unless and until you realize schools like this, doing the same will be getting your taxpayer dollars once ‘school choice’ dollars become available,'” the user wrote. “Do you want to subsidize this, or are you ready to separate state from education for good?”
There's very little reason to care, unless and until you realize schools like this, doing the same will be getting your taxpayer dollars once "school choice" dollars become available. Do you want to subsidize this, or are you ready to separate state from education for good? https://t.co/pcRqxVioDZ
— Owl of Athena * Extremist Homeschooler (@deb_fillman) October 22, 2022
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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