A student at an upscale New York City private school said that a “far-left staff” pushed their political inclinations on students and forced them to self-censor so as not to offend their professors.
In an op-ed essay published in his school’s newspaper, Horace Mann senior Ryan Finlay slammed the $55,000-a-year academy, stating that professors were ‘vilifying’ conservative ideas and pressuring pupils to adhere to left-leaning thinking.
‘Every non-progressive classmate I know self-censors in class during current events and politics talks,’ Finlay wrote.
‘At the end of the day, self-censorship is motivated by risk assessment: it is not worth compromising academic excellence at HM [Horace Mann] for political speech.’
In his op-ed piece, published last week, Finlay claimed the Bronx school fostered a learning environment that ‘is hostile to those who do not subscribe to progressive politics.’
Finlay said he spoke to a faculty member who told him teachers feel ‘obligated to open students’ eyes to the inequality that surrounds them,’ but when students speak out against these ideas, Finlay said they are ‘criticized for failing to recognize the lived experiences of others.’
Finlay noted, “Students who agree with these arguments have the school’s tacit authority to attack opposing beliefs on the basis of righteousness.”
‘As one student recently explained: ‘This indoctrination in moral protectionism begins early.’
“Back in the Middle Division, I recall being introduced to the equity vs equality diagram. Teachers made it apparent that there were two systems: one that worked and one that didn’t “”‘ ‘
Finlay further stated that at least 35% of the student body is opposed to the school’s supposed politics.
‘Many non-progressive students at HM are afraid of an administration that preaches independent thinking while allowing and encouraging attacks on it,’ he wrote.
‘In the eyes of many students, the administration has effectively condoned cancel culture by remaining silent on the issue.’
‘At the moment, students’ conclusion is: keep an eye on yourself and restrict yourself; you are not safe.’
‘On the Road’ author Jack Kerouac and ‘Golden Girl’ Betty White, as well as former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, are among Horace Mann’s prominent graduates.
The private school has previously been chastised for its ‘wokeness,’ with many criticizing it for threatening to expel students who disobeyed its masking mandate last December.
‘There will be no debating whether a prompt was once, twice, or three times, if you need to be told to wear your mask appropriately, you spend two days at home, and if it occurs a second time, you are telling me that HM is not the school for you,’ Horace Mann in the Bronx said in an email to parents.
The email was written in response to a series of incidents among the city’s elite private schools last year, in which parents chastised the schools for attempting to preach woke racial philosophy.
Harvey Goldman, a father at the $43,000-per-year Heschel School on the Upper West Side, claimed he withdrew his daughter out after finding that the fourth-grader was being schooled on her ‘white privilege.’
‘First and foremost, neither I nor my child have ‘white privilege,’ and we do not need to apologize for it,’ Goldman stated in an April 2021 letter to the school. ‘It’s disrespectful to suggest I do. It is child cruelty, not education, to suggest to my nine-year-old daughter that she does.’
Bion Bartning, a parent at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, was likewise so dissatisfied with the ideals taught there that he took his children out of the $54,000-a-year school.
Bartning then took it a step further, establishing the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) to combat what he sees as a dangerous new orthodoxy.
Bartning, who is Mexican and Yaqui on one side and Jewish on the other, was taken aback when he learned that pupils are being compelled to define themselves as affluent or disadvantaged based on their skin color.
Bartning told the Post, ‘I don’t fit into any of those race categories.’ ‘I believe that teaching children these socially manufactured race divisions is incorrect.’
‘It’s a toxic worldview that teaches youngsters to be gloomy and resentful rather than happy and grateful.’ It goes against all of my morals, and I’m sure there are others who feel the same way,’ he added.
According to Bartning, children have even been given color palettes to match their skin tone in order to determine their level of affluence.
Paul Rossi, a teacher at Grace Church School, was fired in April after accusing the $57,000-a-year school of indoctrinating children.
Rossi was’relieved of his teaching duties,’ according to a school official, because ‘many students requested to be removed from his class because of his unprofessional behaviour and because he demeaned them in the press.’
It happened when Rossi came forward because he couldn’t keep silent any longer while ‘witnessing the detrimental impact’ of anti-racism education on youngsters.
He claims that George P. Davison, the school’s headteacher, privately acknowledged that the school is ‘demonizing white people for being born.’ This charge was made in reaction to a Davison letter that was allegedly circulated among workers.
‘You should know that Paul has refused his contract and will not be returning in the autumn,’ according to Davison’s message.
‘The well-being of our community is our first priority, and we take student concerns about a teacher’s professionalism very seriously.’
‘It is evident to me that Paul is no longer an effective teacher at Grace. I’ve informed him that he will no longer be teaching, and we’ve requested two support teachers to take over his math sessions for the remainder of the quarter.
‘He has been asked not to enter the building unless previous arrangements have been made.’