I remember how it was -- JR
Fed-up parent slams ‘dysfunctional’ NYC School amid outrage over its trans acceptance policy
A furious parent and board member at the prestigious Browning School resigned and trashed the all-boys institution as “dysfunctional” just prior to the school planning it would accept transgender students.
The anonymous parent — who claims to have spent $1.5 million in tuition and donations at the historic institution — accused the progressive administration of trying to bilk him of thousands of dollars and unfairly punishing their children.
“Browning has degenerated into a morass of dysfunction, misfeasance, and unfairness,” the seven-year board of trustees member said in an email leaked to nycprivateschoolwatch.
“Those are serious words, and I use them carefully — as a parent and a fiduciary.”
The fed-up parent claimed he committed to a $1 million donation for the Upper East Side school in 2022 and attempted to make the payment out in two massive sums.
In October, after initially gifting a $348,600 payment, the board member tried to pay out the remaining $651,400 balance, but the K-12 school allegedly told the parent they owed even more.
“Because of discrepancies in Browning’s poor bookkeeping, the Chief Advancement Officer took the bizarre position I somehow ‘owed’ $710,000” — nearly $60,000 more than the parent had committed to, they claimed in the email.
The school allegedly gave the parent the run-around for two months until the frustrated parent took back the entire hefty donation.
“Almost immediately, the administration turned against our sons,” the board member claimed.
The parent accused the school of handing down disproportionately heavy punishments to their sons on at least three different occasions throughout the rest of the school year.
The boys — who reportedly had not been the subject of disciplinary action before the revoked donation — were not afforded “even the most basic due process” in any case, the parent said.
Browning allegedly only backed down when the boys’ parents sicked their lawyers on the school — which cost them thousands of dollars in legal action and a week of classes for their targeted son.
Throughout the ordeal, Browning’s Head of School John Botti allegedly refused to meet with the parents.
“With the administration in an ivory tower, Browning is no longer a school run for its students — and it is behind time for accountability,” the former board member said.
“Browning has put our sons, and undoubtedly many other students, through a massive amount of stress and anguish. This conduct is, put simply, cruel — the antithesis of the lofty rhetoric the administrators extol in their speeches and blogs but betray in their (in)actions.”
A representative for Browning did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The email was sent prior to the school making its announcement on trans policy.
However, nycprivateschoolwatch shared the email just hours after Browning announced it would begin accepting students who identify as male as part of a new gender policy and would work to accommodate current students who no longer identify as a boy.
The academy said in its letter to parents that the school had been evaluating its admissions policy during years of public discourse over gender and diversity.
“Like many schools around the world in recent years, we have witnessed changing cultural concepts, vocabulary and identities with regard to gender,” the letter said.
“As a single-gender school that educates boys starting in kindergarten, we are engaging with how gender is viewed today, particularly by the students whom we serve.”
The decision has left multiple parents fuming, with some claiming it defeats the purpose of sending children to a single-sex school.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/12/browning-school-board-member-slams-school-as-dysfunctional/
******************************************************College Racism
The Left is angry because the Supreme Court ruled race-based affirmative action unconstitutional. President Joe Biden says he "strongly disagrees."
But Chief Justice John Roberts was right to say, "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it."
It's a victory for Students for Fair Admissions, the group that sued, thereby forcing Harvard to admit that Asians had to score 22 points higher on the SAT than whites, 63 points higher than Blacks.
How did Harvard justify that? They said Americans of Asian descent score lower in personal attributes, like "likability."
"Asian Americans are boring little grade grubbers," complains the Asian American Legal Foundation's Lee Cheng, in my video on race-based admissions. "That's bulls--t," he adds.
Economist Harry Holzer, who defended Harvard, says the school did the right thing.
"Asians are not interesting?" I ask. "They don't have interesting qualities?"
"Personal ratings reflect a wide range of characteristics," Holzer responds. "It's possible that some of that is anti-Asian bias, but you certainly can't prove that. ... When you have a long history of discrimination based on race, you have to take race into account."
"There are many, many, different ways to achieve diversity without discriminating against Asian Americans," Cheng responds. "Race-focused affirmative action helps rich people. Seventy percent of the students of every ethnic group at Harvard come from the top 20 percent of family income."
But Asians already do well in America, earning more money, on average, than other ethnic groups. Blacks have faced more discrimination. "Isn't it Harvard's job to try to make up for some of that?" I ask Cheng.
"The right path out of the history of discrimination based on race is not more discrimination," he replies.
Cheng is right. Affirmative action is racist, and therefore wrong.
I once tried to make that point by holding a racist bake sale. I called it an "affirmative action bake sale." I sold cupcakes at a mall. My sign read:
Asians -- $1.50
Whites -- $1.00
Blacks/Latinos -- 50 cents
People stared. Some got angry. One yelled, "What is funny to you about people who are less privileged?" A Black woman called my sign "very offensive, very demeaning!" "You got to be out of your gosh darn mind, boy!" said another. One man accused me of poisoning the cupcakes.
But after the initial anger, when people let me explain the reasoning behind my racist sign, many expressed second thoughts about affirmative action. "I guess it is unfair," said one Black student.
I modeled my bake sale on what a student group at Bucknell University did to call attention to the racism of affirmative action. Bucknell officials shut down the students' experiment. Schools that practice affirmative action don't like to be confronted with the reality of affirmative action.
Now that affirmative action is illegal, universities will still discriminate by race. They'll just hide it better. One tactic is to become "test-optional." Over 1,800 schools, including Harvard, no longer require students to submit SAT scores.
Already, schools practice legacy admissions, meaning that they favor the children of alumni. That's clearly unfair. It helps mostly rich people, who are mostly white people.
The problem with both "test-optional" schools and affirmative action is that ultimately, it harms Black students. Those admitted with lower standards often struggle or drop out. Had they attended other schools, they might have done well.
And of course some people look at even the smartest Black students and wonder, is she really smart? Or did she just get in because of her race?
If activists want to help young people, they should start before college. Promote school choice. It allows all kids to escape bad public schools.
That will help more kids than rigging college admissions.
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2023/07/12/college-racism-n2625584
************************************************University at Center of SCOTUS Affirmative Action Case Will Give Free Tuition to Specific Students
Late last month, the United States Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admissions policies, known as "affirmative action," at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional.
As Spencer reported, the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett stated that "Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today."
Following the Court’s decision, the UNC will offer free tuition to some undergraduate students now that it is not allowed to use race-conscious in its admissions process.
Beginning in 2024, the school will provide free tuition and required fees for incoming in-state students whose families make less than $80,000 per year, UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said in a statement published Friday (via UNC-Chapel Hill):
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held that universities across the country can no longer consider race when making admissions decisions, marking a fundamental change in the law that governs our admissions process, and that of thousands of other universities.
We will follow the Supreme Court’s decision in all respects. That means race will not be a factor in admissions decisions at the University. It also means we will comply with the Court’s ruling that an applicant’s lived racial experience cannot be credited as “race for race’s sake,” but instead under some circumstances may illuminate an individual’s character and contributions.
[...]
First, Carolina will provide free tuition and required fees for incoming undergraduates from North Carolina whose families make less than $80,000 per year. Beginning with the incoming class in 2024, we will expand the University’s long-standing commitment to access and affordability for North Carolina families.
[...]
Second, as part of our commitment to reach future Tar Heels throughout the state, we have hired additional outreach officers as part of our admissions team. They are serving in under-resourced communities to spread awareness of our affordability and recruit students from across the state. We want the best students to know that a UNC-Chapel Hill education is a possibility for them.
Our responsibility to comply with the law does not mean we will abandon our fundamental values as a university.
According to The Hill, the average cost of tuition at UNC for in-state students is $9,000.
“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the opinion. “Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”
Last week, Townhall reported how Harvard is now facing a legal challenge over its legacy-based admissions policies. The organizations behind the lawsuits claim that this kind of policy benefits white students.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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