Parent and teacher who spoke out against ‘woke’ antiracist doctrine in their expensive NY private schools warn it is infecting all US schools

• Bari Weiss held a Zoom discussion for her substack subscribers on Tuesday

• The journalist spoke to two people who this month criticized ‘woke’ schools

• Andrew Gutmann, whose daughter is at Brearley School, wrote to other parents

• Paul Rossi, who taught at Grace Church School, condemned his school’s ethos

• Both men expressed concern at ‘totalitarian’ antiracism teachings

• They said freedom of thought was being stifled under ‘Orwellian’ policies 

Harriet Alexander – Daily Mail.com Apr 21, 2021

A New York father who launched a crusade against his daughter’s school and their ‘indoctrination’ of pupils has warned that the problem is nationwide, and urged other parents to speak up against the ‘Orwellian’ promotion of a ‘woke’ curriculum.

Andrew Gutmann (left), whose daughter attends The Brearley School, an all-girls private school in New York City, located on the Upper East Side, wrote a letter on April 13 to other parents complaining about efforts to ‘brainwash’ students with ‘woke’ philosophies rather than teaching them how to think on their own.

His letter went viral, and on Tuesday he told former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss – who first published his letter – that it was not just a ‘rich person’s problem’.

School fees at The Brearley are $54,000 a year.

‘All the schools in New York City are doing this,’ he told Weiss in their Zoom discussion, watched live by over 900 people.

‘They are all playing by the same playbook. This Critical Race Theory is in public schools.

‘This is not a rich person issue, this is not a New York City issue – this is an American issue. It is a disaster for education nationwide, which is a disaster for our future.’

Gutmann said he was angered by an excessive focus on race, with weekly diversity and inclusion events and ‘everything being looked at through the lens of race’.

‘It’s the indoctrination,’ he said. ‘Not being able to have a discussion.

‘Schools like Brearley are supposed to teach intellectual curiosity and openness and discussion. And this is the exact opposite of what they are doing.’

In his letter, Gutmann mapped out what he called Brearley’s ‘critical race theory’ which he said is ‘advocating that blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims’.

One of the examples he gave was the school’s ‘sophomoric’ and ‘simplistic’ anti-training sessions for parents, and the fact that materials that have been taught for years are now suddenly considered offensive in light of the BLM movement.

He didn’t say which books had been pulled but said it applied to his daughter’s fourth grade class.

Gutmann fumed that the girls are being taught to hate their own country and that white students are being judged for the color of their skin.

He also denied that there was systemic racism in the US, saying there hadn’t been since the 1960s.

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