FAIR News

A Teacher Speaks Out on Repression in His School

And Critical Race Theory in the News

April 14th, 2021

I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated

Paul Rossi, a teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan, courageously reveals the repressive ideology forced on his students, including rejecting “belief in meritocracy” and asking white students to “interrogate their white saviorism.” Rossi describes the pedagogy’s harmful effects on his students and the pushback he faced for standing up.

“My administration says that these constraints on discourse are necessary to shield students from harm. But it is clear to me that these constraints serve primarily to shield their ideology from harm — at the cost of students’ psychological and intellectual development.”

Read more in FAIR Advisor Bari Weiss’s Substack here.

What's Wrong with Diversity Training?

In her recent column for Spiked, Joanna Williams details the pitfalls of diversity training. The piece underscores the lack of effect of unconscious bias training and explains that a lucrative industry has grown out of these training sessions.

“Ultimately, unconscious-bias training is divisive; it pushes us to see each other as members of racial groups and, in a bid to make all interactions conscious, it risks preventing the spontaneity and informality that leads to genuine friendship.”

Read the full article here.

Critical Race Theory in the News

Erec Smith, an associate professor at York College of Pennsylvania, penned a compelling editorial for Newsweek regarding how critical race theory scholars are attempting to redefine “harm.” Smith unpacks how the linguistic traps of critical race theory “infantilizes people of color.”

“Where once the potential for harm existed in contact sports, accidents, physical altercations, traumas and so on, one might now find it while reading a question on an exam, listening to a recorded debate in a classroom or encountering an opinion on social media.”

Read the full article here.

A recent study conducted by Eric Kauffman from the Manhattan Institute brings light to the negative effects of critical race theory on the self-perception of black Americans. The report contains a foreward from FAIR Board of Advisors member Coleman Hughes. A key finding from the study found that “Reading a passage from critical race theory author Ta-Nehisi Coates results in a significant 15-point drop in black respondents’ belief that they have control over their lives.”

Read the full report here.

In a recent piece for Reason, Rikki Schlott brings attention to the First Amendment violations a student at the University of Oklahoma was subjected to while partaking in a mandated diversity training session. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has taken action on behalf of the student.

“While many schools require diversity training, OU's rendition clearly violates First Amendment rights. The problem is that each module restarted until participants selected the 'right' answer, forcing an expression of agreement with university-approved viewpoints in order to complete the mandatory training.”

Read the full article here.

FAIR Board of Advisors member Ian Rowe welcomed fellow board member Thomas Chatterton Williams on his podcast “Are You Kidding Me” with Naomi S. Riley. Williams discusses the necessity for Americans to “unlearn race” and to restore the essence of one’s identity through character. Williams also discusses how FAIR is helping parents stand up to neo-racism in schools.

“And what we’re doing, oftentimes, by telling these kids that they carry the weight of all of these histories of oppression that have preceded them, I figure basically guaranteeing that we continue to reproduce the racism that actually creates the racial differences that we think we perceive.”

Listen to the podcast here.

In a recent piece from her Substack newsletter, FAIR Board of Advisors member Bari Weiss breaks down the complexities of the free speech debacle in the digital realm. She calls attention to the arguments for and against government intervention in big tech from notable figures on the Hill as well as Justice Clarence Thomas.

“Big Tech companies insist that they are just removing “disinformation” and “hate speech” from their platforms, but as we’ve seen, these are terms with ever-evolving definitions.”

Read the full article here.

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