It’s all there in Andrew Gutmann’s life. He works on Wall Street as an investment banker and can afford to send his daughter to the pricey Brearley School, which charges more than $53,000 a year for private education. Famous alums of this institution include Caroline Kennedy, Tea Leoni, Elisabeth Murdoch, Dorothy Schiff, and Alice Gore King. Gutmann, on the other hand, demands more and is enraged with the school because he was labeled “offensive and harmful” after expressing his concerns about the program’s antiracism education.
Gutmann has pulled his daughter out of her Manhattan’s Upper East Side private institution. The school just started antiracism training for kids and parents, which enraged Gutmann, who worries that the diversity education will turn his daughter against America.
In order to implement the new “woke” rules, his daughter and others at the all-girls school are being indoctrinated, according to his 45-year-old banker son.
“Systemic racism, properly understood, is segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of the Japanese and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small number of isolated incidences over a period of decades,” he stated. “Over the past several months, I have personally spoken to many Brearley parents as well as parents of children at peer institutions. It is abundantly clear that the majority of parents believe that Brearley’s antiracism policies are misguided, divisive, counterproductive, and cancerous.”
“Many believe, as I do, that these policies will ultimately destroy what was, until recently, a wonderful educational institution. But as I am sure will come as no surprise to you, given the insidious cancel culture that has of late permeated our society, most parents are too fearful to speak up.”
He continued, “I object to mandatory antiracism training for parents… 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. They are an insult to parents and unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley’s caliber.”
Gutmann appealed the decision to dismiss, but the school refused to back down and stated their position in order for girls to learn about civil rights issues.
“Many have written to say that they found the opinions expressed in the letter to be deeply offensive and harmful, and we agree,” wrote the head of the school, Jane Fried. “Our students noted that as this letter, which denies the presence of systemic racism, crossed their doorways, the evidence of ongoing racism – systemic and otherwise – is daily present in our headlines. Many of our students of color, especially those who identify as Black, felt the letter questioned their belonging in the Brearley community. Their belonging and their excellence are unquestionable.”
Other prestigious Manhattan private schools, such as Dalton, are adopting an aggressive antiracism stance in their education. Some parents have accused the institution of being “obsessive” about its new anti-racism curriculum. A parent’s letter to the school stated: “Wildly inappropriate, many of these classes feel more akin to a Zoom corporate sensitivity-training than to Dalton’s intellectually engaging curriculum.”
Meanwhile, at the end of 2021, Dalton’s top executive will retire. He established his antiracism program in action.
