aWOKEning
PRIVATE SCHOOL mandatory training... They go in, they change the curriculum, they go placate whoever they think is watching, and say, ‘OK, we’re done. We’ve done what we can here.’” And who, he wants to know, does that really help? Speaking of which, Gutmann’s not sure where to send prospective donors and those among his hundreds of fans who say they want to get involved in the burgeoning anti-anti-racist cause. He’s not formally aligned with any fundraising groups – like Parents Defending Education, which focuses on public schools, or the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism, which was founded by another fed- up private-school dad. Gutmann recently floated the idea of starting a new school For now, though, there’s no avoiding this one. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently had to address it from her podium in the West Wing. (The White House, if you wondered, is in favor.) “I think the K-to-12 stuff is sort of the sexy thing right now,” admits Nicole Neily, president and founder of Parents Defending during one of his many press appearances – a podcast – and liked how it felt to say it aloud. He’ll be exploring it further, he tells me, before the public attention span flits to a new national crisis. ‘I’m not opposed to people learning about critical race theory. Where I’m opposed is when it’s mandated – and taught at the exclusion of all else.’
Education. She’s not kidding. It’s such a hot cause – read: well-funded campaign – that a public relations firm somehow found out I was working on a related story the very same day I started reporting it. (And Parents Defending Education doesn’t even cover private schools!) One of their consultants had me on the phone with Neily within hours. Campus free speech, on the other hand, is kind of dead... “I actually reached a point in working in higher ed where it struck me that a lot of these problems seem to have started a lot earlier,” says Neily, whose last gig was a similar effort aimed at promoting the value of viewpoint diversity on university campuses. She hasn’t changed her tune on the free speech front, though. “I’m not opposed to people learning about critical race theory,” she says. “Where I’m opposed is when it’s mandated – and taught at the exclusion of all else.” Critical race theory itself is a school of thought that originated in legal scholarship in the 1970s and has developed in many directions since. (The term “systemic racism,” in reference to an oppressive racial hierarchy embedded in society, also finds its origins there.) Apart from keywords in common, what of its influence leaches into grade school classrooms and local school board meetings little resembles its complex, nuanced, provocative academic roots. Often the decisions that send disturbed parents to Neily’s tip line seem to her to be the consequence of declining local newspaper coverage of school systems... A school outside of Austin claimed they couldn’t afford a crossing guard, but managed to sign an expensive contract
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June 2021
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