Columbia University professor John McWhorter is calling on parents to pull their kids from the prestigious Dwight-Englewood prep school in Bergen County, New Jersey, after a teacher resigned over what she described as a “hostile culture of conformity and fear” due to Critical Race Theory taking over the school.
“All hail Dana Stangel-Plowe, who has resigned from the Dwight-Englewood school, which teaches students ‘antiracism’ that sees life as nothing but abuse of power, and teaches that cringing, hostile group identity against oppression is the essence of a self,” tweeted professor John McWhorter on Tuesday.
“Truly antiracist parents, in the name of love of their kids, should pull them from the Dwight-Englewood school as of next fall. Only this will arrest these misguided Elect parishioners from their quest to forge a new reality for us all,” McWhorter added in a follow-up tweet.
In her resignation letter, English teacher Stangel-Plowe called out Dwight-Englewood School administrators for “failing our students” by embracing the Critical Race Theory agenda, and changing “in ways that undermine its mission and prevent me from holding true to my conscience as an educator.”
Critical Race Theory is an academic movement teaching children that the United States is fundamentally racist, and they must view every social interaction and person in terms of race in order to be “antiracist.”
“Over the past few years, the school has embraced an ideology that is damaging to our students’ intellectual and emotional growth and destroying any chance at creating a true community among our diverse population,” Stangel-Plowe wrote.
“I reject the hostile culture of conformity and fear that has taken hold of our school,” the teacher added.
Stangel-Plowe went on to explain that “the school’s ideology requires students to see themselves not as individuals, but as representatives of a group, forcing them to adopt the status of privilege or victimhood.”
“As a result, students arrive in my classroom accepting this theory as fact: People born with less melanin in their skin are oppressors, and people born with more melanin in their skin are oppressed,” Stangel-Plowe said.
The teacher explained that “this orthodoxy hinders students’ ability to read, write, and think,” as she now finds that her students “recoil from a poem because it was written by a man,” and “approach texts in search of the oppressor.”
Stangel-Plowe added that the Head of School “told the entire faculty that he would fire us all if he could so that he could replace us all with people of color,” and described a recent faculty meeting “segregated by skin color,” in which teachers with light skin were asked to “remember” that they are “white,” and “take responsibility for [our] power and privilege.”
McWhorter and Stangel-Plowe are not the only educators to speak out against Critical Race Theory in academia.
On Tuesday, Fairfax County school teacher Lilit Vanetsyan slammed the Loudoun County School Board over Critical Race Theory, and encouraged students not to allow “anybody to tell you that you cannot accomplish anything because of your skin color, or to hate yourself because of your skin color.”
Loudoun County Public Schools is facing what is likely the first major pushback against Critical Race Theory in America’s academic world, as parents and teachers rally against the race-based curriculum.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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