RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/racism-suit-filed-against-elite-new-york-private-school/

The Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City is facing yet another scandal, this time involving allegations of discrimination against black students, according to a new report.

Kim Emile, the parent of one former and one current student, has filed a lawsuit against the elite private school in the Bronx claiming that her children were met with racial hostility and bias there for more than a decade, according to the New York Post.

Fieldston “proved itself not to be the bastion of educational, racial, and social justice it has long proclaimed itself to be,” claims the suit filed in Manhattan federal court.

The lawsuit alleges that the school’s administrators, including head of school Jessica Bagby, did not take appropriate action against students who participated in racist behavior. School leadership also failed to provide black students with the same academic opportunities as white students, the claim alleges.

The suit details an alleged incident in which a group of white male students participating in a challenge that prohibited masturbation for one month encouraged each other in a group chat to view pictures of black and brown female students whose photos were posted to the chat as a way to sexually ‘turn off’ the young men participating in the challenge,” according to the suit.

“This objectification and denigration of Black and Brown young women and their bodies at Fieldston are clearly rooted in racism, sexism, and classism, and serve to continue their oppression dating to the slave era, when Black and Brown women were considered subhuman,” the suit states.

Emile, who is also an alumna of the school, says two white students called her son a racial slur during an October 2020 Snapchat conversation. Those students were allegedly given leniency while Bagby retaliated against Emile’s son with an investigation into his behavior, according to the suit.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-3-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

#3: University of Southern California

The website of the University of Southern California proudly lists a multitude of “Student Equity and Inclusion Programs” which are designed to create “a sense of belonging” for the diverse array of students at USC.  But when a Communications Professor at the university attempted to educate his students about Chinese linguistic patterns, explaining the meaning of a Chinese word that—to the uneducated ear of American students sounded similar to the N-word—he was reported as a racist and suspended from teaching the class.

Greg Patton is a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business and an “expert in communication, interpersonal and leadership effectiveness.” During the fall 2020 semester, Patton taught an online class during which he spoke about the use of “filler words” in the speech of various languages.

“If you have a lot of ‘ums and errs,’ this is culturally specific, so based on your native language,” the professor explained. “Like in China, the common word is ‘that, that, that.’ So in China it might be ‘nèi ge, nèi ge, nèi ge.’”

To a native Chinese speaker, the word sounds nothing like the American racial slur. Patton himself has worked in China although is not a fluent speaker of Chinese. Despite the crystal-clear context of Patton’s example, and his status as an expert in communications, a number of African-American students were so offended by his example that they sent a letter to the Marshall School of Business Dean Geoffrey Garrett accusing Patton of racial insensitivity and stating that he was unfit to teach the class.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/another-prestigious-school-pummeled-by-critical-race-theory/

Regis High School seems ashamed of its legacy and purpose.

There is a lot of trouble afoot at my alma mater, and it seems worth sharing.

Maybe that should be “more trouble,” because prestigious Regis High School has been in the news of late, with its president being fired over charges of sexual misconduct.

A Jesuit-run institution, and yes, the high school of one Anthony Fauci, Regis is not “prestigious” because of my particular alumnus status (nor that of my colleague, Daniel Tenreiro), nor because of cost (actually, it’s tuition-free per its founding in 1914). Simply, it is regularly ranked as the best Catholic high school in America.

It got that status because it was a determined fire hose of classical education that graduated young men who were put to many a test so they could think and analyze as adults, for God and country, as the blunt school motto stated.

But now, Regis — like many a school — seems ashamed of its legacy and purpose, maybe even of Deo et patria, and has become quick to genuflect and lie prostrate before the gods of Critical Race Theory. More on that shortly.

Back in the day, when Abe Beame was still mayor: Every year, Regis took around 120 Catholic boys (parochial-schoolers from classes low to high, and having a silver spoon in your mouth at birth was not a condition of acceptance) from New York and the surrounding area — through competitive exam and ensuing interview — into the freshman class. A goodly amount fell away through the ensuing four years (a grade of 75 was failing) of grueling and unrelenting work (learning Latin, self-taught physics among the heavier stones to push uphill). There was many a big brain among my classmates, but how I survived to graduate with the remaining 100 remains a mystery.

All being in this together, close quarters for four years, you could not help but notice the black classmate was black, the Puerto Rican senior was Puerto Rican, the gay freshman was gay. (We noticed the musical one was musical too, the artistic one artistic too — but such things are of no use in our times of pigmentary politics and cultural ethics.) My experience and perception was that we were all young guys who regarded each other as comrades. We were caught up in some worthwhile academic marathon. Ours was a brotherhood that transcended the facts of the Sharks vs. Jets neighborhood characteristics that still held forth. Able to walk in only my own shoes, I look back and find Regis to have been a place of e pluribus unum, of sanctuary, a haven, of true camaraderie — a thing set against the backdrop of a New York choked by unrelenting racial tensions. I feel blessed to have gone there, to have run the race, to have crossed the finish line, no matter how distant from most of my classmates.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-4-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

#4: Georgetown University

In a racist misapplication of policies allegedly designed to protect students from racism, Georgetown University Law School has fired one professor and placed a second on administrative leave for comments expressing “angst” that African-American students tend to earn grades near the bottom of the grading scale.

Footage captured two colleagues, Georgetown Law professors Sandra Sellers and David Batson, commiserating on a Zoom call over their experiences grading students.

“You know what? I hate to say this, I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks,” Sellers commented to Batson. “Happens almost every semester and it’s like ‘oh come on.’”

Sellers added, “I get some really good ones but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom, it drives me crazy… so I feel bad.” 

The video shows Batson nodding his head, possibly indicating agreement, but remaining silent while listening to his colleague.

A video of the private conversation, which had followed the conclusion of an online class, was posted to an online database which was accessible to students. Once posted on social media, the video quickly went viral and sparked a petition by Georgetown’s Black Law Student Association which collected over 1,000 signatures demanding that Professors Sellers be fired.

Astoundingly, instead of rebuking the students for seeking to suppress facts that affect them, Georgetown Law School Dean Bill Treanor immediately acquiesced to the mob and fired Sellers. For the apparent thought crime of possibly agreeing with Sellers, Professor Batson was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, and later resigned.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/more_parents_are_speaking_

Just two weeks ago, Bari Weiss published two open letters, one from a teacher at a fancy New York private school and one from a parent whose daughter attended a different fancy New York private school.  Both letters castigated the schools over their deep dives into Critical Race Theory (CRT), which was overtaking education entirely in those institutions.  Since then, events are snowballing in a way that might lead to CRT’s overthrow.  It turns out that lots of parents in New York find offensive the anti-white racism of the misnamed “anti-racism” programs in New York City schools, and they’re beginning to act.

On April 13, Bari Weiss published a statement from Paul Rossi, a teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan.  He explained how CRT had become the central pillar of the school’s educational philosophy and was damaging the students.  Three days later, Weiss published a similar letter that Andrew Gutmann, whose daughter attended Brearley School, another expensive private school, had written to other parents.

In subsequent days, we learned that Rossi lost his job and that the head of the school had admitted that he was harming his white students by calling them racists — only to deny that charge later.  Thankfully, Rossi had him on tape.  We also got to see the head of Brearley completely ignore the substantive charges against her school and, instead, claim that Gutmann was victimizing students by insisting that CRT is a problem.

It turns out that Rossi and Gutmann aren’t the only ones upset by the prevailing leftist wisdom in their communities.  The New York Post reports that other parents are beginning to speak up and speak out:

Until last summer, Harvey Goldman had no idea that his 9-year-old daughter was learning about George Floyd’s death and Black Lives Matter as well as her own “white privilege” at the $43,000-per-year Heschel School in Manhattan.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/critical-race-theory-the-enemy-of-reason-evidence-and-open-debate/

How this pernicious ideology rejects rational inquiry and objective truth.

O n September 22, 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 13950, “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.” The order contained the kind of emotionally charged language about critical race theory that is seldom seen in these legalistic documents: “This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.”

The order quoted from training materials being used by government agencies and from statements of the agencies themselves, such as this from the Treasury Department: “Virtually all White people, regardless of how ‘woke’ they are, contribute to racism.” The department, according to the order, “instructed small group leaders to encourage employees to avoid ‘narratives’ that Americans should ‘be more color-blind’ or ‘let people’s skills and personalities be what differentiates them.’” Trump’s order was revoked by President Biden on his first day in office.

By this time, however, the ideas that had prompted Trump’s concerns had already begun to disturb the lives of the American people who encountered them. In a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on December 20, 2020, Gabrielle Clark, the mother of William Clark, a twelfth-grader in a Nevada charter school, complained about the school’s refusal to accept her son’s objection to what was being taught in a recently revised civics course. Ms. Clark, a widow, is black. Her son’s father, however, was white, and her son was light-skinned enough to be considered white.

In her complaint, Clark stated that a new curriculum at William’s school “inserted consciousness raising and conditioning exercises under the banner of ‘Intersectionality’ and ‘Critical Race Theory.’” “The lesson categorized certain racial and religious identities as inherently ‘oppressive,’ . . . and instructed pupils including William Clark who fell into these categories to accept the label ‘oppressor.’”

Despite Clark’s and her son’s objections to what he was being required to admit about himself and his racial heritage, the school insisted that he take this course and gave him a failing grade — imperiling his chances for college admission — because of his refusal to admit that he harbored the views that were being pressed upon the class.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/critical-race-theory-virginia-school-parent-ian-prior

Equal opportunity for all. Judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Diversity of thought, experience, and perspective.

These are principles that we as Americans and Virginians should live by and teach our children. It is a philosophy of thought and action that moves humanity forward to a place where cooperation, meritocracy, and compassion will make the world a better place for all.

Unfortunately, what is happening in Virginia’s schools is threatening those goals. We are talking about critical race theory or CRT which stands for the ideology that everything must be evaluated through the lens of race in order to break down systemic bias in our culture, words, and institutions.

It is a theory that evolved from the French postmodernist philosopher and political activist Michael Foucault.In the decades that followed, his philosophy was adapted to deal with racial questions and has gone mainstream through works like “White Fragility” by Robin Di-Angelo and “How to Be an Anti-Racist” by Ibram Kendi. Add in a summer of unrest following the death of George Floyd, and you have government institutions, corporations, and local school boards accepting this theory as gospel based on pressure from spineless, weak extremists.

In Virginia’s schools, administrators and school board members won’t admit the commitment to critical race theory. Instead, you will hear about their commitment to “equity” and the need to be “anti-racist.”

Make no mistake, “equity” is only critical race theory by different name and ‘anti-racists’ are the army of activists deployed to implement the theory.

To be clear, equity and equality are not the same thing. From Mental Floss: “Equality has to do with giving everyone the exact same resources, whereas equity involves distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients.”

Two examples in Northern Virginia show how equity is implemented.

In Fairfax County, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, one of the top public high schools in America, has a substantial minority population – 70% of its students are Asian. As explained by the non-partisan Reason.com: ‘Education officials…decided to jettison the school’s famously tough admissions test in favor of a “holistic” (i.e., subjective and arbitrary) system that will permit officials to reject Asian-American students in favor of less-deserving students who belong to other racial categories.’