The father who pulled his daughter from Brearly School, the elite New York school which includes Tina Fey and Drew Barrymore among its par...
The father who pulled his daughter from Brearly School, the elite New York school which includes Tina Fey and Drew Barrymore among its parents, over its woke antiracism 'obsession' says it's 'teaching what to think not how to think' - as school slams him for being 'offensive.'
Andrew Gutmann, 45, had announced in an April 13 letter posted by Bari Weiss this week that he has chosen not to reenroll his daughter in the all-girls school where tuition is $54,000 yearly. He has now spoken out further about why he wrote it.
Gutmann, who runs his family's chemical business, told the New York Post on Saturday that he penned the 1,700-word letter he mailed to 650 different families because 'someone had to speak out.' He said he does not regret sending the letter.
'She hasn't been brainwashed yet by the school — but she's had me at home. I'm not so sure that's true of the other kids,' Gutmann told the outlet, referring to his daughter.
'Someone had to do it. Someone had to light the match. Everyone's so afraid of cancel culture. We're going to destroy the city, we're going to destroy the country.'
Andrew Gutmann, 45, had announced in an April 13 letter posted by Bari Weiss this week that he has chosen not to reenroll his daughter in the all-girls school
The Brearley School is a $54K-a-year private school in Manhattan's Upper East Side neighborhood
Jane Foley Fried, head of the Brearley School, is pictured in an undated photo
Gutmann said he he refused to sign the school's anti-racism pledge in October.
The school had started the required pledge after black alumnae accused the school of racism in posts made to the Instagram account account 'Black at Brearley,' according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The school's antiracism and diversity plans are extensively described on its website.
'I thought they were going to kick my daughter out then,' Gutmann said. 'They didn't but next year they have the pledge built into the yearly school contract.'
The concerned dad claimed that the school's 'once-rigorous curriculum' completely changed after administrators 'managed to sneak' in an increased emphasis on race during the pandemic 'when everyone was distracted,' the New York Post reported.
'I don't know who's really driving this and nobody does,' he told the outlet.
Gutmann said the thing he resented the most about Brearly is that the school 'has begun to teach what to think, instead of how to think.'
Jane Fried, Brearley's head of school, sent a message to the school's families on Friday in which she slammed Gutmann's letter as 'deeply offensive and harmful.'
'This afternoon, I and others who work closely with Upper School students met with more than one hundred of them, many of whom told us that they felt frightened and intimidated by the letter and the fact that it was sent directly to our homes,' Fried wrote.
'Our students noted that as this letter, which denies the presence of systemic racism, crossed their doorways, the evidence of ongoing racism – systemic or otherwise – is daily present in our headlines.'
But Gutmann claims that Brearley students should not be 'frightened' by receiving a letter at their homes.
'The upper schoolers are afraid of getting a letter at their home?' Gutmann said Saturday.
'They're frightened and intimidated? The school has said it's number one priority is to teach the girls intellectual bravery and courageousness. Either they are lying or else they have done an atrocious job.'
It was not immediately clear how Gutmann managed to receive the home addresses of the 650 families to home he sent the letters.
Gutmann said has received supportive emails from parents across the city.
'There's a whole underground-like movement out there,' he told the New York Post.
Brearley's alumni includes Caroline Kennedy, the actress Tea Leoni, Elisabeth Murdoch, Dorothy Schiff and Alice Gore King.
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.
'Systemic racism, properly understood, is segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of Japanese and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small number of isolated incidences over a period of decades,' he said.
Jane Fried, head of Brearley, doubled down on the school's position on Instagram, waving Gutmann and his daughter goodbye
This is Brearley's exhaustive anti-racism calendar for the school year of 2020 to 2021 which includes training sessions for parents
He also called out the school for claiming to care about diversity with its race stances while also prioritizing legacy students, siblings of other students or 'families with especially deep pockets'.
'I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs.
'By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died,' he said.
Gutmann went on to say that the school was 'indoctrinating' the girls into a single mindset that is 'most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.'
'Over the past several months, I have personally spoken to many Brearley parents as well as parents of children at peer institutions,' he wrote.
'It is abundantly clear that the majority of parents believe that Brearley’s antiracism policies are misguided, divisive, counterproductive and cancerous.'
He added: 'Many believe, as I do, that these policies will ultimately destroy what was until recently, a wonderful educational institution.'
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