By: Mark Glennon*
Not since the Vietnam War have I seen as much strife and personal hostility within an otherwise friendly community.
Thank the administration of New Trier High School in north suburban Chicago. This story is about the madness on college campuses now being crammed down into a public high school. More importantly, it’s about an angry brawl now growing rapidly.
Oblivious to how identity politics have divided the country, the school is holding an attendance-mandatory All-School Seminar Day with the stated goal of “understanding today’s struggle for racial civil rights.”
That sounds fine, but the problem is that it serves no such goal. The agenda is brazenly and unquestionably one-sided, divisive, political and radically left. Understanding civil rights, as New Trier sees it, doesn’t mean challenging students to sort through competing ideas. It means force-fed dogma.
Results were entirely predictable. Conservative and moderate parents, including me, erupted over what we see as propaganda masquerading as education cloaked in the language of togetherness. We’ve publicly made a simple request: Add balance to the program by including topics and speakers to expose students to a fair range of ideas.
Balance, that’s it. If the school is unwilling to add that balance, then the seminar should be cancelled or, at a minimum, attendance should be made optional. Those feeling that way put up a website linked here and have launched a petition drive linked here.
Reaction to the request for balance was also predictable. Program supporters took to social media saying critics want to censor out discussion about race, don’t care about civil rights, are bad parents for trying to shield their children and, of course, that we’re racist.
Sure we’re racist — as program supporters see things. Systemic, invisible racism is the core theme of the program. As one workshop description puts it, “Most systemic racism is invisible…often to both ‘sides’…until you know it’s there. Once you know it’s there, you can’t stop seeing it.” Our racism is so clear, in other words, that it should be taught as fact and not one of many viewpoints.
Hostility is growing much more intense and personal. Before we get to that, some background:
The School District
New Trier High School is often ranked among the best in the country. It covers very prosperous suburbs north of Chicago and is overwhelmingly white. The township was traditionally conservative and Republican but is now solidly liberal and Democratic, based on the last election cycle and polls I’ve seen.
The Seminar
Let’s look at some samples of the workshops.
– One of the invited speakers is a rapper named John the Author. Here’s a segment from his work:
Divide and conquer, white supremacy the silent monster
I see you sneaking in the corner trying to have some karma
We ain’t looking to know your honor, No your honor we (?) problem
The resolution is an economic revolution,All in the name of retribution, you ready? Let’s do it,They integrated then infiltrated through immigration
The richest folk in our neighborhood ain’t even our neighbors
They take the dollar back across town, don’t you dare tell me to calm down
(?) mister doghouse,We want it all now, it’s time to push ‘em all out—I’m ready to start now
– “A People’s History of Chicago” will look at race “in the tradition of Howard Zinn.” Zinn wrote A People’s History of America, about which black, conservative economist Thomas Sowell wrote,
It speaks volumes about our schools and colleges that far-left radical Howard Zinn’s pretentiously titled book, “A People’s History of the United States,” is widely used across the country. It is one indictment, complaint, and distortion after another. Anyone who relies on this twisted version of American history would have no idea why millions of people from around the world are trying, sometimes desperately, to move to this country. The one virtue of Zinn’s book is that it helps you identify unmistakably which teachers are using their classrooms as propaganda centers.
– Another segment is “Spent: A simulation to see how long you can survive on minimum wage.” Any bets they won’t be simulating how long you can survive on no wage, which countless economists argue is the result for some from minimum wage laws?
New Trier didn’t let the topic for the seminar, racial civil rights, stop them from throwing in a couple other progressive favorites:
– In one segment, “SOARS’ creator, Scheherazade, discusses the role arts can play in creating a national movement to end sexual violence.”
– Another segment on the Equal Rights Amendment will ask, “Why hasn’t it been ratified? Do we even need it anymore? Let’s talk about it!”
It doesn’t help that some presentations are just plain silly:
– There’s “Disney and Racial Stereotypes: Watch classic Disney animated films and discuss how these films influence childhood development of racial identities.”
– Another says, “Come to the Northfield Library and read picture books to a group of children (ages 3-5). The picture books will focus on themes of embracing diversity, accepting others and oneself, and social justice.”
– Then there’s “Racist Memorabilia Through the Ages.”
– My personal favorite is “Microaggressions: Not So Small.” Maybe it should be subtitled “Tolerance for oxymorons!”
The rest of agenda for the day is posted on links here and here. You’ll find only four or five out of the hundred or so that would seem to present even a moderate perspective. Read the whole agenda and you’ll see that this summary written by its critics is valid:
- The Seminar claims: “Identity” is defined by race. Period. It is fixed and determinative. (The term “racial,” “racist,” “bias,” and “systemic racism” suffuse the panel descriptions, together appearing over 80 times. Meanwhile, in a Seminar Day devoted to, “Understanding Today’s Struggle for Racial Civil Rights,” a working definition of the term “civil rights” is not offered.)
- The Seminar claims: People of the same race think and feel the same way about most or all things.
- The Seminar claims: Disparities between races are de facto evidence of “systemic racism.” Not, for instance, government policies that confine poor children to failing inner city schools, devastate black families, and encourage crime and dependence.
- The Seminar claims: “Systemic racism” should be the root of all discussions.
The “Tolerant” Strike Back at the “Haters”
Things really hit the fan when program critics put up their own site that allows incoming comments. Here are a few of the emails received. Senders included their names with their emails, unafraid to say these things to their neighbors, though I’ve deleted names here:
– “Go fuck yourselves. Honestly, what you are trying to do is pathetic. ‘Diversity programs don’t work’? What’s your alternative, segregation?” That’s from a New Trier grad who says she didn’t understand race until she went to college at [a private, elite liberal arts school whose name I’ll withhold]:
– From a New Trier Parent: “The district would not need to spend money on this day if the majority of parents, like yourselves, were not racial assholes.”
– From a New Trier student: “Get your fucking KKK looking asses back to your house and shut up.”
I guess comments like that are quite reasonable if you accept the central teaching of the seminar, which is that we’re all racists. Plenty more like that from hatred’s enemies can be found on this link. I certainly would not be surprised if equally nasty things are being sent by some critics of the seminar to its defenders, but that’s really the point: Is this seminar promoting understanding and rational discussion?
The School’s Response
New Trier’s administration has been mostly silent, except for release recently of this FAQ and and some short comments to the press.
First, the school’s Superintendent defends the program by saying, “I have had well over 300 phone calls, emails, and letters of support saying ‘Don’t change it, it looks fabulous,'” she said. “The direct communication we’ve had has been far more in support than in opposition. In fact, I’ve never seen this kind of outpouring of support on an issue in my life as an educator.”
We pay her $419,000 and God-knows-what pension to set educational content by counting popularity beans? Would she exclude the liberal voices (which are properly included) if she were in some school district in the South where those views might be overwhelmingly unpopular? She offers no reason for refusing to add other perspectives.
And her method of counting is faulty because of another horrible problem, as to which she’s seemingly blind: Critics of the program are stifled by fear of the controversy and retribution, so she’s not hearing from them. We’ve heard from any number of program critics who won’t dare say or do anything. One active member of our opposition, who has a business in the community, asked us to be extremely careful not to mention either her name or business, fearing the consequences. Some even fear retribution by very progressive teachers against their kids.
New Trier’s Superintendent also didn’t mention that, for a similar program last year, about 40% of New Trier kids did not attend. Many who did attend, I’m told by students, either left early or spent the time on their cellphones.
Those kids may be smarter than the adults on this. While some are vocally on one side or another, plenty see through it. I asked one how he thinks his fellow students view the program. He thought just under half shrug it off as “more SJW [social justice warrior] nonsense.” He added that he thought many of the liberals who like the program think it’s unbalanced.
In the FAQ, the school emphasizes that the program is not political. Oh, please. It’s straight out of the playbook used by countless Democrats in the last election cycle. It’s about as “not political” as the poster on the right, which went up in the school on Inauguration Day. You decide if that, and the seminar, are political.
Illegal?
Politicking in schools has legal limits. New Trier also has a written policy requiring that discussion of controversial topics “present a balanced view.” I don’t know whether New Trier crossed the legal line, but a separate group is researching that now and will file a lawsuit if they conclude it has.
Cost
Operating costs per day when school is in session is slightly over $533,000, according to responses in a FOIA request from New Trier. The school’s FAQ adds that the seminar has an additional budget of $30,000.
At a recent New Trier school board meeting, in defending the program, an Assistant Superintendent of Student Services said the preparation was a “huge effort” and “exhausting.”
*******************
It would be easy to rattle off a list of topics that would make New Trier’s seminar day more balanced and genuinely educational. Moderates and conservatives might not agree on that list, but this controversy could easily have been avoided with even a lazy attempt. I’ll suggest just one topic that would have helped, the virtue of which should now be evident to all:
How identity politics have ripped America apart and undermined the quest for racial harmony.
UPDATED 2/6/17 to increase the compensation paid to the New Trier Superintendant from $315,000 to $419,000. For further information on compensation and political nature of the rest of the school’s administration, see this article.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints. Opinions expressed are his own.
If you’re frustrated with Illinois’ educational results, you may want to follow the money from teachers unions. In the last four years alone, Illinois lawmakers and political candidates have taken nearly $30 million in contributions from teachers unions and their national affiliates.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski testified on April 10, 2024 to members of the House Revenue and Finance Committee at the invitation of Rep. Joe Sosnowski. Ted told lawmakers that the state’s property tax burden has become dire for countless Illinoisans.
Ted joined WLS 890’s PM Chicago Show to discuss Chicago’s worsening pension crisis, why the city’s crisis makes it such an outlier nationally, its negative impact on residents, government workers and retirees alike, and what Mayor Brandon Johnson should do about it.
When has any company persisted with a project in the face of stronger local, statewide and national opposition? When have taxpayers subsidized a more harebrained project?
When are the Section 8 tenants moving in and the affordable housing units opening up in Winnetka? I haven read about the schedule for that. Some day to day living contact with minorities would be more educational than a one day seminar.
One of the more amusing aspects of this day is a lecture on the evils of “Cultural Appropriation.” This is followed by a workshop that teaches New Trier kids how to sing gospel music. Shouldn’t this be followed by a third seminar where students learn to punish themselves for transgressing what was taught in the first lecture? Either the program’s organizers have a sense of humor, or they’re ignorant. I think I know which.
I learned of this opposition to the civil rights seminar via Colson Whitehead’s Twitter page. Mr Whitehead is one of the keynote speakers at the seminar and is a Harvard graduate who’s won a MacArthur “genius” award as well as a National Book Award. He is currently one of our country’s biggest literary stars and the students of New Trier will be incredibly fortunate to hear him speak. No doubt they will come away better for the experience. How sad that he has to see that such an event would even be debated. I’m sure it only confirms what he… Read more »
Joy, not one of us critics has opposed inclusion of the left or of qualified speakers. Picking out a few of the topics and speakers proves nothing. If you don’t see imbalance, you are either blind or dishonest. There’s a bubble indeed on the North Shore, but it’s the seminar’s defenders who are in it. This is a matter of brazen contempt for diversity of opinion, and it’s become ever more clear that no reasonable person denies that. You ask us to sit on on a seminar about examining our biases. That’s a fair request. I ask you simply to… Read more »
just saw a guy standing in front of Macy’s with a sign that said, “Don’t shop here, Macy’s supports Trump”. How is this guy any different than the Nazi’s who stood in front of Jewish shopkeepers stores before Kristallnacht? If I am a Trump supporter, can an establishment refuse to serve me? If so, how are they any different than the KKK and Jim Crow establishments in the Jim Crow south. My biggest bone of contention with the liberal left besides their use of government to solve every stinking problem is the fact that they have absolutely zero regret at… Read more »
I wouldn’t send my kids. I’d put my house on the market.
New Trier used to be a top-ranking high school – not so anymore. Wonder why . . .
Maybe this is a huge temper tantrum by the Dems over losing the election, and CTU for getting less than they wanted in their new contract. Things are not going well on pension planet, with pension disasters happening in Dallas and Loyalton, CA. CalSTRS reduced its discount rate to 7% which means there will be slightly more honest accounting of the true cost of teacher pensions. The union types often refer to our democracy and the idea that all men are created equal but what they are missing is–that only means men are politically equal. In Sociology 101 we learned… Read more »
“Four candidates slated last fall by the New Trier School Board Caucus are the only people running for four four-year terms on the New Trier Township High School District 203 board, according to information from the Cook County Clerk’s office.”
– Winnetka Talk / Pioneer Press / Chicago Tribune, by Kathy Routliffe, January 5, 2017.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/winnetka/news/ct-wtk-april-election-candidates-tl-0112-20170105-story.html
————
The Superintendent is the only employee of a school board.
The teacher union is typically the most powerful political force in most school districts in the Chicago area.
Mike, kudos to you for going to the root of the problem. These school boards get elected like “most popular” votes in high school. They are usually incompetent, which is why we have such impossible salaries and pensions being paid.
I am a proud African American resident of Evanston. I don’t see much wrong with this day, but I am concerned that it does promote other African Americans to think that they are unfairly singled out and need special help. My father worked in a Jewish club downtown for many years and always told me to just work hard. He always said– maybe not with much political correctness- do like these Jewish guys did. Forget you are discriminated against. Get a good education. Start your own business and prove to everyone what you are worth. So that’s what we did.… Read more »
Thanks for this article Mark. As a proud and successful-in-life NTE graduate, I think the parents have valid concerns about this mandated racial “seminar”. My parents worked hard, moved us to Wilmette so we could attend good schools. We lived in a lovely home and I’m sure my parents paid a lot in property taxes. Nothing is wrong with being successful, white or “privileged”. Privilege is not a bad, evil word. My parents took me to work in the church soap kitchen. I road the El to White Sox games and downtown loop to work during summer time. I was… Read more »
New Trier high school is famous for producing actors, but it has produced many famous non-actors as well, including James McNerney, President/CEO of GE, 3M, and Boeing. Also John Donohue, president of eBay; Chris Cox, VP of Facebook; Doublas Conant, President/CEO of Campbell Soups; Michael Rogers, director of the NSA; Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense; Martha Minow, Dean of Harvard Law; Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Mayor, Obama’s White House Chief of Staff; writer Scott Turow; poet and faux-leftist Archibald MacLeish; the fake activist Brad Will; and the fake serial killer Benjamin Nathaniel Smith. There are some glaring red flags here. Has… Read more »
THIS IS HORRIBLE …I’M BLACK! Mark, read about this on ZeroHedge. Your position is 100% on target. Okay, keep this content on one side and add another. I’m a native Chicagoan (58 yo now), left the area in 1977 to attend college in West Virginia and haven’t lived there since. But I remember New Trier. I now live in rural Kansas. As stated, I’m a Black-AMERICAN, and I frequently find myself on the opposite side of my own black family and friends. To such and extent, it scares and disheartens me. My “urban” family is really in another world. They… Read more »
Lucky you. You get it from both sides — from blacks as you describe and from whites where there is real racism. Madness.
Perhaps one day of counter-programming in a CPS high school might be be more constructive than this endless bickering: – One Insane Party – Why Chicago residents vote for the same party over and over yet expect different results. – Buy Your Neighbor – How CTU pays neighborhood groups pennies on the dollar to protest on their behalf. – Your Union, Your Coffin – Examining the arcane process of attempting to leave your union or join a different one. – Danny Davis, Where Art Thou? – Tracing the economic stagnation of the West Side over the past 20 years. –… Read more »
Hey nixit, I’ve been thinking about my own list, but you’re ahead of me. Keep going with further ideas and I will mine and yours into a post.
Bah ha ha! Perfect.
Is white privilege a worthy philosophical idea or is it a mere political tactic? I would say that it’s a tactic designed to do just what it’s doing here.
.
I still recall the first time I ran into the racism involved in my “white, male, privilege”. The largest employer in the area (several counties) announced they would be hiring 12 people. Hundreds, including myself, applied. Somehow, the 12 most qualified applicants all turned out to be negro women. See, this was a DoD contractor. If you have contracts with the government, you have to meet quotas (well, they insist there aren’t any real “quotas”, but there are). You need “enough” women and minorities to satisfy the government, or you don’t get contracts. So negro women are “twofers”, since they… Read more »
$420K for a High School Superintendent?
New Trier High School has more problems than just PC BS gone wild.
As I suggested earlier on this message board, Linda Yonke should resign, along with all the white privileged teachers, and let their jobs go to people of color. Start a movement!
She should be fired summarily. And it would be easy to find a person of color who could do a better job at a fair salary. Same for the rest of the staff responsible for this disaster.
Yonke is retiring at the end of the year. Paul Sally is her replacement.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/winnetka/news/ct-wtk-new-trier-superintendent-announcement-tl-1201-20161122-story.html
Hence the bump in pay do they can feather the pension nest
Not a bad suggestion!
And that doesn’t include the associated pension contribution. We are going to look into it.
Is this another one of those wealthy white suburbs that voted 80% for Hillary, the candidate in favor of importing millions more non-white immigrants? These same towns refuse all building permits for affordable housing, while approving scores of million-dollar tract mansions, citing “environmental” and “quality of life” issues. Diversity for thee but not for me!
Great comment Dave, if they knew a section 8 was going to be built down the block from them or scattered throughout their neighborhood next to their million dollar houses they would be screaming at their town hall meetings ”not in my backyard”, but say they want to be so inclusive when they’re out protesting. They’re nothing but a bunch of self righteous hypocrites.
If the NT administration is truly concerned about the inequalities in opportunity and education that so many young people face today, then they will certainly be happy about the confirmation of Betsy DeVos…RIGHT???
In 1977 when I was studying for a bachelor’s degree in secondary education, academics whispered that what we really ought to be doing was more akin to social engineering than education. Now they don’t bother to whisper.
What are you afraid of? Scared some of your children will gather a clue and become enlightened…
The only one dividing the school is you bottom feeding racist that rationalize your ignorance in isolated groups of like thinking bafoons. This is why your kids go to college and are completely culture shocked by the real America outside the contrived self serving, self poisoning toxicity you call normal. I am a resident and support this measure 100%!
I am afraid of nobody. I want my kids exposed to the views of the left, particularly those like yours.
I want the views of the Left exposed to my kids.
My kids went to a far left wing school. They are conservative. It was like vaccinating them
Define racism . Then tell me what race Obama belongs to . You are a marxist dupe , after marxism failed everywhere but the soviet union marxist theoreticians changed their strategy to finding oppression in the west to criticize . Thus we are now a balkanized society as western women , the most free and coddled in the world, are “oppressed”, as are blacks , who are legally as equal as anyone else . And now the Left is inventing groups by claiming there are not 2 sexes but instead 70 genders . The left is ridiculous and murderous and… Read more »
The NAIL ON THE HEAD! I am thrilled to not be the only person constantly talking about Marxism! Anyone who denies that it has been pervading this country for the last 50-60 years is naive! Google Bella Dodd! She testified as a former Communist!
This post is what psychologists call “projection.”
Thank you- I’m sorry you have to deal with this racist bs. I am a white former NTHS alum and I am with you.
I wish there were more black families in our school district!
The Leftist Industrial Education Complex often unleash their most potent weapon – our own children – whom they had taught to worship at the altar of a gray, formless morality, where rights are derived from acceptance into the collective, and justice is a relative concept subject to the whim of government. We sent our offspring to them for an education, and they sent them back to us, spitting with hatred for the way of life that enabled their ease. And with venom in their hearts they state: “You dare defy us? Our soldiers are your own flesh and blood!” It… Read more »
Absolutely! My eldest son graduates this year. He wanted to stay in Chicago for school. He is going to Vanderbilt. Our decision was based on precisely this.
Vandy gas gotten more liberal in the past ten years
Unbelievable. I have a child at NT-Northfield. All my spouse and I ask for is BALANCE.
It could only be balanced if they were forced to hear the truth as often as this community spews out lies about the real world.
Thank God your child will get a Full 4 years of it!
Perhaps a day-long program addressing why Black people, a minority, predominate in committing crimes in this country and, specifically, Chicago? Or, should such a program be eschewed (as is done in media reporting) because it reflects badly and might affect people’s opinions? if ‘invisible’ racism needs a spotlight then, surely, actual predatory inclinations should be investigated.
If you took the time to learn the socioeconomic roots of crime, it would open your eyes a lot. Your limited thinking – and off-topic, racist comments – are precisely why we need seminar day.
If by ‘socioeconomic roots’ you mean the dangerous folly of paying people to remain poor, then yes, by all means enlighten our limited thinking with some soaring rhetoric.
Enlightenment is quite impossible in your case by any means.
There was no appreciable rise in crime during the great depression, nor in the black ghettos before the advent of welfare and the subsequent destruction of the black family. Stop falling for marxist propaganda .
IT IS MARXIST PROPAGANDA and it is HARMING BLACKS AND WHITES! WAKE UP TO THE REAL ENEMY! We have slowly been fed a diet of lies to convince/ ENSLAVE all of us and our children that we need the “STATE”, THE GOVERNMENT, because we are stupid and incompetent! Marxism, ultimately plays GOD and abhors individual freedom! Do we not believe that what happened in WWl and WWll can happen here??? It is happening!
Friend, it DOES say, inadvertently at least, something of the state of this nations’ race relations and social inequities as such that the overwhelming majority of those who create, propound, foster and force feed this crap upon a hapless society and the minds of vulnerable school kids (indoctrination a LA Name Your Leftist Dictator) are WHITE PEOPLE. COMMUNIST WHITE PEOPLE. The money is white people, the institutions are organizations are white people. The power behind the asserted figureheads are white people. Primarily white people behind these varied anti-American front groups are trying to destroy your country using division and strife… Read more »
Proof that race has little to do with what people think or believe. It is culture that determines behavior which is why Thomas Sowell is a great intellectual and yet their the majority of Chicago’s murders are committed by people of the same skin color as Dr. Sowell .
Killing your disease is a Public Service Investment well spent
AND THIS VIEWPOINT IS WHY THE DISCUSSION IS NEEDED. I LAUGH AT THE PREDICTABILITY OF PARENTS PROVING WHY THE CONVERSATIONS MUST BE HAD IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Justice Stamps – right??
Be sure to point out that negro men rape about 35,000 caucasian women per year, whereas caucasian men rape about, um, well, zero, negro women per year. Yeah, racism exists in this country, and the race that appears to have the highest racism rate is negroes.
The HYPOCRISY of the elitist parents of New Trier. Now they can feel good about themselves because they spent $35K “talking” for a day. Actions speak louder than words. Take that $35K to west side, start some after-school clubs. Have NTHS have a “sister” school on the south side, where our students go down one day/week and mentor kids, help with homework. That $35K would be much better spent actually helping in the community. Or better yet, take a DCFS child into your home. There are thousands of kids in IL with nowhere to live.
You’d be the first one in line screaming against it if NT did any of the things you mentioned. Besides, there is a mentor program . . . feel free to sign up your kids to help out.
I see you have already lost the argument by using the tired ad hominem trope of racism. Is it possible for you to be original? I look forward to your reply in order to ignore it. You are boring.
. . . says the nitwit who uses terms like “tired ad hominem trope of racism.” LMAO.
Actually educating, as opposed to indoctrinating, these kids would run the risk of turning them into productive citizens. Next thing you know they’ll be voting Republican. Can’t have that.
A little creepy that you felt the need to copy my screen name. Trolls will troll, I guess.
Excellent article. Thank you for articulating the issue. As a New Trier East grad I would say that the kids do need to have theor hotizons broadened, and structuring a logical day of seminars like you have outlined (balanced), would be appropriate.
There is no doubt in my mind that the educational leftists continue to erode the value of the public educational system, including at this premier high school. Voices like yours are needed to ensure visibility of a broad spectrum of ideas and perspectives on reality. Thanks for your efforts.
Great spelling alum! You’ve earned the right to speak for your group
How I hate the spelling and grammar police. It’s obviously keyboard errors and the comment is informative, but I’m glad you got your snarky comment posted, speaks volumes about you.
Tell us how to spell “bafoon” again, Einstein.
Why am I pretty sure that the vast majority of people who own homes in this upper-income enclave are on working in the public sector and living on us working stiffs. Teachers’ union have killed our public schools dead! Hundreds of thousands in salary plus perks for a HS principal, essentially a part-time PR job.
Great title: ‘Authoritarians at the Gate”. I have 2 kids at NTHS.
Luckily they’ll finally learn something relevant!
but they wont learn to read very well, math will be beyond them and they wont know any history . Luckily for them they will know lots of marxists propaganda which will make them resentful, ignorant and intolerant fools and hamper their ability to do much but collect welfare .
Homeschool them.
I totally support New Trier with this program – it’s about time!! In fact, the superintendent should begin bussing in many lesser priveledged students from Englewood, Lawndale, and the South Side of Chicago. Wouldn’t we all benefit from an integrated student body? And students from many backgrounds, and races could learn from each other!! Put up or shut up, New Trier – f—ing liberal hypocrites…..
Why limit marxist indoctrination to Illinois, bus in people from all over the country or fly them in from all over the world . Who cares if your kids learn anything other than marxist nonsense . The cause is more important than education , after all the state will feed and cloth your uneducated useless but well indoctrinated statist progeny . Wealth is free . Freedom is slavery . Hooray .
How can you NOT call yourself racist? You are terrified and angry about your child being exposed to ONE SINGLE DAY of race education! The amount of energy and anger you’ve devoted to fighting this day says it all. Why not say, “Hmmm, I don’t love all the topics but maybe my child can come home and we’ll sort through what he learned and discuss it meaningfully?” Do you not trust your child enough to absorb information and process it in a mature way? With YOU as his father, do you really think that in this ONE SINGLE DAY he… Read more »
I think you ate paste as a child and still do. Also, you suck dick for a living.
What brilliance and wit .Rather pathetic actually.
Troll: Your tactic is obvious, and insulting to everyone. As an anti-Leftist, opposed to the garbage that has infested our abilities to have reasoned discussions on both sides, I’d respond to MM5432 as follows: We don’t need the Leftist Democrats’ version of “race-education” taught to our high school students. We need core classes which are race-neutral, and less obsession with race, more teaching of economics , skills of personal responsibility, and more awareness of the many ways govt (fed/st/local have taken away and eroded our freedoms and job creation. This type of 1-day Leftist dogma is not helpful to anyone.… Read more »
Why not spend one single day discussing with these kids all of the reasons that Trump won?
Mass white ignorance… the reason that Trump won is an electoral education and is covered quite substantially already
Is everyone who disagrees with you ignorant ?
It’s not “one single day.” This garbage is day in, day out at public schools.
Race is not a well defined term and if one want to be educated enough to understand this one needs to learn biology not marxist crap.
This is not “race education.” It is indoctrination–big difference. Delusional nonsense is passed off as fact. Can any of this stuff be backed up with fact? I believe the answer is no.
I don’t have a problem with a seminar like this as long as it is balanced and not one sided. I did just see the titles of some of the breakout sessions. I think it would be very educational to have sessions dealing with how the KKK lasted so long in the Democratic party in the South; how Republican Senator Dirksen helped LBJ pass the Civil rights Bill; and how FDR rounded up all the Japanese Americans during WWII; and how erosion of families in the inner cities leads to violence and crime. If we want to have a discussion,… Read more »
It would be nice, but it ain’t going to happen.
You might want to contact Foundation for Individual RIghts in Education (FIRE) https://www.thefire.org. They are a legal organization that fights Leftist propagandizing in schools, as well a providing legal advice/assistance.
Don’t worry these kids get enough right wing rhetoric at home
Folks used to wonder why we homeschooled our kids. Now? Not so much…
You can always start back now! Save us from one more warp minded over propagandized northshore snob who thinks because mommy and daddy said it… it must be true
In the past 8 years, we have had millions of conversations like this: Thinking person: I believe that ObamaCare will ultimately deprive people of their existing health insurance, force them into more expensive policies, and ultimately not improve the delivery of health care services for the vast majority of Americans. Leftist: You hate ObamaCare because Obama is black! You’re a racist! There is one, and only one, answer to this: F**k you! And there is one, and only one, valid emotional response: Abject hatred. There is no way to reason with people like this, as they are utterly, completely averse… Read more »
marxism is a religion , it cant be reasoned with .
Why is anyone who disagrees with you have to be a “leftist” or a “liberal?” I am more moderate/conservative fiscally, less so on social issues and civil rights. That doesn’t mean I hate you. Doesn’t mean I’m a liberal. Certainly doesn’t mean I’m a Marxist. Just means I think we could all use a little more education about people different than ourselves.
YOU are the one labeling people and getting nasty. Not to mention way off topic. The topic is a one-day diversity day at my kids’ high school. Period.
Well said, Calisse. I will not stoop to their level, though. I am glad I own a gun to defend myself from these animals.
Well for God’s sake, DO NOT GO. And good for you for standing up. Punch back, pull in a legal association (Landmark?) to see if you can sue them.
I didn’t stand up enough when they started doing this in California, and my intelligent, Conservative daughter was so brainwashed in college that she is unrecognizable today. Keep your kids home, period.
I would add stay home, but better yet fight back – this bilge is bought and paid for by you, the taxpayer. Best of all: home school. As a New Trier grad and parent of three New Trier grads, I have seen the academic decline of this great school over the past decades. Contrary to the elitist left, I do not believe high school students have completed their education, and they are not yet prepared to make life decisions. They need to read great literature and history, learn math and science skills, appreciate the arts that surround them. The four… Read more »
Racists teaching Racists…
How American!
I notice you are brave, but not quite brave enough to use your name, and I am more than willing to overlook your ignorant writing skills (not New Trier quality). How about this idea: Linda Yonke and all the white teachers resign and go to work in Chicago, leaving their spots open for administrators and teachers of color. It might be a little difficult to get the union behind that – but what a movement!
So everyone you disagree with is a racist . At last there exists a consistent definition of racism .
It is sad that the taxpayers spend phenomenal amounts of money in the New Trier school district and then have to home school their kids to avoid leftist indoctrination.
Thank you, Eva. Ironic that we are forced to pay increasing property taxes to have our children indoctrinated with decreasing education, replaced by nonsense. If you have a sister named Anne, tell her she has a fan!