A New York City father’s decision to remove his daughter from an elite school that promotes a left-wing agenda has caused a public outcry. Recently, the father further revealed to the media how the private school forced his children and parents to become part of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. A member of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The father is Andrew Gutmann, a white investment banker. He enrolled his daughter in the Brearley School, an all-girls school on New York’s Upper East Side, from kindergarten onward. But then the school made parents take “anti-racism” training as part of their child’s admissions process. In anger, he asked his daughter to leave the school.
In a sternly worded letter to parents, he said the $54,000-a-year school’s “obsession with race [ism] must stop,” according to an earlier Fox News report. He later forwarded the letter to a former editor of The New York Times, which sparked nationwide attention.
In a new interview with Fox News that aired on Wednesday (May 5), Gutman warned, “We’ve done a terrible job of teaching history in this country, and now we’re going to make it 10 times worse! We need to eradicate this.”
He further said that this country cannot survive “without history and civics education” and certainly cannot survive “teaching our children to hate their country and their history.
According to documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the school now requires at least one parent/guardian to attend “required anti-racism training and ongoing reflection,” and the application form asks parents to “share how your family’s values align with the school’s commitment. The application form asks parents to “share how your family values align with the school’s commitment.
In his letter, Gutman wrote: “These lessons, both in content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so insular and nonsensical, that I would be embarrassed to teach them to Brearley kindergarteners.”
He called the policies “misleading, divisive, counterproductive and poisonous.”
According to the Daily Mail, the school has developed an intensive “anti-racism” agenda for the 2020-21 school year, including “healing circle circle, a board meeting on diversity and “courageous conversations about race,” among other things.
Gutman said left-wing radicalism was the norm at the school, and he said his family was pressured to “promote the Black Lives Matter (BLM)” philosophy.
Gutman told Fox News that his takeaway from the school’s message was, “We want you, we want your daughter, from kindergarten through 12th grade, we want your family to be a radical.”
Gutman described the amount of pressure on parents, “If you stay silent, you’re racist. You have to be a radical to do that. If you’re not a radical in an anti-racism initiative, like Black Lives Matter, you’re a racist, you’re a bad person, you’re an oppressor, you’re not doing the right thing.”
Gutman said what the school is doing sounds “like they’re trying to incorporate this racial curriculum, this anti-racism curriculum, into every class, into math class, into physical education class,” and “everything else, and it’s appalling.
Former Wall Street Journal and New York Times editor Barry Weiss previously posted on her blog a letter from Gutman to the school, calling it “race-obsessed. The result was an online backlash. Internet users praised Gutman’s letter and courage through social media posts, especially as the school doubled down on its position.
The school said the letter was sent home and that students were “scared and frightened” as a result.
In addition, the school said, the school and parents were “involved in a mutually respectful manner …….
The Brierley School did not return Fox News’ request for comment.
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