Joshua T. Katz A New York Private School Turns Against DEI The Birch Wathen Lenox School is instead prioritizing constructive dialogue and respect for different viewpoints.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-private-school-turns-against-dei
There is no need to recite the depredations on all sectors of American society of initiatives devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Our educational institutions are among the hardest hit, making it hard in some parts of the country to find schools that don’t lecture even the youngest students about “settler colonialism,” the evils of “whiteness,” and the “genocide” supposedly being perpetrated by the Israelis.
When institutions push back, as they occasionally do, it merits attention. One example arrived last month in the form of an outstanding—and hardly right-wing—opinion piece in the New York Post by Bill Kuhn, who has been the head of the Birch Wathen Lenox School (BWL) since December 2022. This is not Kuhn’s first excellent article, but it is the one with the highest profile. And it will, I expect, do wonders for his school’s application numbers.
Let me set the scene for those who do not follow the ins and outs of private school education, and what passes for education, in my native New York. The city is home to hundreds of independent schools, and parents who can afford it, or who receive significant financial aid, commonly send their children to these fancy institutions even as the leaders of these institutions devote substantial resources to DEI.
To be sure, there are high-profile kerfuffles: Megyn Kelly removed her three children from two of New York’s most famous K–12 schools, Collegiate (all-boys) and Spence (all-girls—though it now accepts the female-identifying), and Andrew Gutmann became a public figure when he declined to reenroll his daughter in a third, Brearley (all-girls—though ditto). But plus ça change. Earlier this year, Spence fired a beloved French teacher for (it would appear) simply speaking about the French law banning hijabs; a few months later, the head of Collegiate resigned after allegedly calling a report about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia a “power play by Jewish families”; and at Brearley, to quote Gutmann, “the war on our children continues unabated.”
The list goes on and on. I have written elsewhere about what has become of my own school of long ago, Dalton (co-ed). And as for the school that three of my close relatives attended, Ethical Culture Fieldston (co-ed), it most recently made headlines when it announced in late October that “students who feel too emotionally distressed” would be excused from classes the day after Election Day.
I have long thought that any school that explicitly and publicly rejected the DEI insanity would attract a slew of applicants. One way to solve the problem is to start something new. Take Emet Classical Academy, “America’s first Classical Jewish prep school,” which opened its doors this fall. The school, with an ambitious program that “focuses on the best of Western culture, the foundational ideas of Jewish civilization, and the advanced study of math, modern science, art, and music,” is hoping to reap the rewards of its commitment to excellence. When I wrote about Emet nearly a year ago, its leadership had announced that it was accepting applications from rising sixth-graders. Interest was so great, though, that its inaugural year includes fifth- and ninth- as well as sixth-graders. According to its website, Emet is now accepting applications for grades five through ten, with plans of “adding an additional grade each subsequent year . . . [so as to] become a full middle school and high school serving 5th to 12th grade by 2028.”
The heads of established secular schools, by contrast, have generally dug in their heels, presumably realizing that families are reluctant to rock the boat lest they jeopardize their progeny’s chances of going to Harvard. This is what makes Bill Kuhn’s op-ed, and his leadership of BWL, remarkable.
You should read Kuhn’s Post piece—all of it. But I’ll summarize. The BWL head states some obvious truths that are rarely spoken aloud by those in power: “[c]onventional DEI frameworks are long-known for their problematic principles”; “DEI programs, as traditionally practiced, can be divisive”; “DEI in schools can push a single set of ideological views as virtuous”; and “[i]n some cases, academic standards have even been lowered to address perceived inequities in achievement.”
As a result, Kuhn writes, BWL has “embraced a different model—one that prioritizes constructive dialogue, intellectual rigor, and respect for diverse viewpoints.” He stresses that “[o]ur commitment to revisiting and revising DEI policies does not mean we ignore tragic histories or current injustices”; rather, the school under his direction does what every educational institution ought to do, namely, “avoid an identity-based curriculum that paints broad swaths of students in a single light.”
Worthy of special note is something that Kuhn does not say. Consider this sentence: “while we have teachers who oversee diversity and inclusion work, we do not employ a formalized DEI officer.” Throughout the op-ed, he stresses the importance of diversity and inclusion, as these concepts are rightly understood, but he does not speak of equity (except in the loaded phrase “perceived inequities,” already quoted).
There is a good case to be made for having a school promote diversity of all kinds, and Kuhn frequently uses the words “diverse” and “diversity,” writing, attractively, that “[o]ur vision for diversity values merit, respect, and excellence.” It also seems obvious that a school should be inclusive in the sense of ensuring that all admitted students feel welcome—and, once again, Kuhn does not shy away from the words “inclusive” and “inclusion.” Outside discussions of financial matters, however, everyone would do well to follow Kuhn’s subtle but pointed lead and avoid the term “equity,” whose vogue meaning differs sharply from something with two more letters that truly is a virtue: equality.
Is Kuhn destroying his school by what he is and is not saying? On the contrary: “applications are up 250% since 2023.” I expect they will go up considerably more as a result of Kuhn’s latest salvo.
BWL, it must be admitted, is not usually counted among New York’s most elite schools. Arguments over precise rankings are inevitable, but Niche’s list of the “2025 Best Private High Schools in New York” spots BWL at 35th in the city and 50th in the state.
Until very recently, it would not have occurred to me to recommend either BWL or the higher-rated Dalton (or Brearley, Collegiate, Ethical Culture Fieldston, or Spence) to friends with school-age children in New York. I would tell them to avoid Dalton because it’s crazy and BWL because, I thought, it isn’t high-powered. In truth, though, I don’t know whether BWL is high-powered or not. Clearly it is not crazy, and in the current environment, this makes it stand out. It will be interesting to see just how quickly—or slowly—other schools decide to follow Bill Kuhn’s commendable example.
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