The Brearley School, located on the Upper East Side riverfront in Manhattan. The Upper East Side Brearley School was ranked fifth in all of New York State according to school ranking website Niche.com, which released its ranking of the best private schools in New York State for the new school year in January of this year. (Google Street View)
Bari Weiss, an opinion columnist who resigned from The New York Times last year, recently recommended a must-read letter on her Substack platform blog, Weiss’ Common Sense.
Weiss writes: If you don’t know Brearley, it’s a private, all-girls school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where tuition is $54,000 a year and prospective families must apparently “pledge to be anti-racist” in order to be considered for admission.
It’s a letter from Andrew Gutmann, a parent whose daughter has attended The Brearley School since kindergarten, but who has now taken her out of the school.
Last Tuesday he wrote a letter to all 600 parents at the elite school. Here is an excerpt from the letter.
Recently, our family decided not to allow our daughter to attend Brearley School anymore. She has been here for seven years, starting in kindergarten. In short, we no longer believe that the administration and board at Brearley have our child’s best interests at heart. And, we no longer have confidence that our daughter will receive the quality education necessary to develop into a thoughtful, responsible, informed and civic-minded adult. We share here the reasons for leaving and urge you to take action before irreparable damage is done to your school, your community and your child’s education.
We cannot stress enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. For any thinking parent, Brearley has completely lost it. The cowardice and lack of leadership shown by the administration and board in appeasing an anti-intellectual mob and allowing him to occupy the school is appalling.
The following is my personal view of Brearley’s anti-racism initiative, which is only a small part of what other critical parents have to say.
I am against judging people by the color of their skin. I cannot tolerate a school that evaluates my daughter and judges others by the color of her skin. By viewing all aspects of education, history and society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and completely violating this civil rights movement.
I reject the charge of systemic racism in America. There has been no systemic racism against blacks in America since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, more than fifty years ago. To say that there is is a straightforward misrepresentation of American history or a failure to understand any of today’s social issues. If anything, it is the affirmative action movement that points in precisely the opposite direction.
I reject a definition of systemic racism that treats the underrepresentation of blacks in education, occupation or social outcomes as evidence of systemic racism or white supremacy and oppression. Flippant, unverifiable claims such as these are diametrically opposed to the intellectual and scientific truths Brearley espouses. Moreover, Brearley’s oft-repeated mantra that schools welcome and encourage dialogue about the roots of race and racial difference is, I think, nonsense.
I reject the idea that blacks cannot succeed without the help of the government or whites. brearley employs critical race theory and promotes the repugnant view that blacks should always be seen as helpless victims who cannot succeed regardless of their skills, talents or hard work. brearley teaches our children exactly what racism is.
I am against mandatory anti-racism training for parents. These programs are so childish and hollow in both content and approach that they are insulting to parents in any educational institution.
I object to Brearley’s fervent use of words like “equality, diversity and inclusion. If the university really cares about “equality,” then discuss whether to stop giving admissions preferences to the children of alumni, nepotism and the very wealthy. If the university were serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on indoctrinating students and parents with the single-mindedness most reminiscent of China’s Cultural Revolution.
If the school really cared about “inclusion,” it would return to the ideas contained in the school’s motto, “One Brearley,” instead of teaching extreme divisive ideas that divide America into two groups: the victims and the oppressors.
I oppose Brearley’s advocacy of groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti-family, anti-homophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither represents the majority of the black community in America nor its best interests.
Brearley’s misguided “protect yourself” culture of safety has proven to be so harmful to our society that it has also severely damaged children’s mental health and resilience.
I oppose the removal of history, civics and classics from the curriculum. I oppose the censorship of books that have been studied for generations. I oppose lowering the standards for recruiting and hiring teachers. I oppose the erosion of classroom rigor and the inflation of student scores. Any parent can foresee what will happen if anti-racism initiatives are allowed to continue.
Schools like Brearley should be a training ground for leaders. If the next generation of leaders is less educated than we are, our country will not survive and neither will we, with an entire generation of students taught to hate their country and despise American history.
Finally, I strongly object to the fact that Brearley is beginning to teach students what to think, not how to think. I object to schools creating an environment where children and teachers are afraid to express their ideas in the classroom for fear of “consequences. I also object to Brearley’s attempt to usurp the role of parents in teaching morality. I object to the fact that Brearley is creating a divided community in which families who are part of the same community are divided along racial lines. This is why we can no longer send our daughters to Brearley.
I have spoken with many parents over the past few months. It is clear that most parents believe that Brearley’s anti-racist policies are wrong, divisive, counterproductive and harmful. Many believe that these policies will ultimately destroy an outstanding educational institution. But I’m sure most parents are afraid to speak up given the culture of abolition that has permeated our society of late.
But you must speak up. There is power in numbers, and I assure you, the numbers are there. Please contact the authorities and the board and demand an end to the destructive nonsense called “anti-racism” by anti-intellectuals. If it can’t be corrected, then demand new leadership. Silence is no longer an option for the sake of our community, our city, our country, and most importantly, our children.
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