Parents Upset Over Private NYC School Mandating “Anti-Racism” Training

One New York parent has withdrawn his child from a $54K-a-year private school following the new mandate on “anti-racism” training.

As part of The Brearley School’s admission process, the school now requires at least one parent/guardian of a student to participate in “required anti-racist training and ongoing reflection.” According to documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the application form will also require parents to “share how your family values align with the School’s commitment,” according to documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

According to Fox News, the expensive private school is receiving some backlash from parents, including Andrew Gutmann, an investment banker who was shocked by the school’s decision.

Gutmann, who is White, has sent his daughter to the all-girls school in the Upper East Side since kindergarten, but the new requirements outraged him that he pulled her from the school.

Gutmann wrote a scathing letter to the school slamming the school for its “obsession with race.”

“These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners,” Gutmann wrote.

He called the new policies “misguided, divisive, counterproductive, and cancerous.”

He went on to discuss the administration’s attempt at overall equity, saying the school should instead “be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets.”

The school’s intensive “anti-racism” agenda has been calendared for the 2020-21 school year and includes “healing circle” sessions, Board of Trustee meetings on diversity, and “Courageous Conversations About Race,” among others, according to the Daily Mail.

Some praised Gutmann’s letter, but the school didn’t budge on its plans and said some students were “frightened and intimidated” by his letter that was sent to homes.

It also said that his letter “failed both in content and delivery” to “engage … with respect for one another.”