The Megyn Kelly Show - A Teacher Speaks Out: Paul Rossi on Critical Race Theory and Anti-Racist Teachings "Demonizing" Kids at his School | Ep. 93

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Paul Rossi, the former math teacher at Grace Church High School who recently broke his silence about the Critical Race Theory and racial essentialism at his school, for his first long-form interview, to discuss the reason he spoke out, how teachings have been "demonizing" kids at his school, the specifics of the "anti-racist" teachings for faculty and kids at the school, how students are punished for their views, the "whites only" call he spoke up during, what happened to him after he spoke out, the tapes he recorded, and what he plans to do next.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, we have this man who you need to listen to. Paul Rossi. He has been in the news lately. We just taped with him. I'm stunned by how thoughtful he is, his grace, what he willingly put himself through for the good of his students. You may or may not know the name by now because he is the teacher at this very tony private New York school called Grace Church, who as a math teacher, put out a public letter saying, I refuse to allow you to continue indoctrinating these children and spoke up on behalf of his kids

who were being told that they were white supremacists by virtue of their pigmentation, not through anything they'd done. The faculty and the students were told that any questioning of the dogma being shoved down their throats in the name of critical race theory, just the questioning was somehow dehumanizing and damaging to their fellow students and people of color and so on. And here you have this guy who just stood up and said no more. It took a lot of guts. And sadly, they've now taken away his job. It's so infuriating. It's like, it's infuriating.

I want you to know him. I'm really honored that he gave me his first sit down discussion on this because it's important and it is a long form. These are the moments where I love podcasting. This could not have been handled on the Kelly file the way we just handled it with Paul, right? Like where you can actually get into it and you can talk about the history and how did he find himself in this position?

What did Grace Church do? And how did it go from like the slow boil to the full five alarm fire boil? He's going to walk us through it. And, you know, you may have seen in the news his head of school basically called him a liar. And Paul made tapes. And you're going to hear them and you'll figure out for yourself very quickly who, in fact, is the liar in this situation. Anyway, it's my honor to bring this guy to you. We'll get to Paul Rossi in one

second. But first this. Paul, how are you? Hi, Megan. It's a pleasure to talk to you. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm holding up. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for doing this. I, you know, I've been thinking about you since your letter came out, which I think is truly one of the bravest things I've seen anybody do in this whole school mess that we've been dealing with for months now. And, and you're, you're the only faculty member I've seen speak out in this way. And that carries particular risks, right? You're like sort of the, the K through 12 version of Jodi Shaw in

a way. She was an administrative assistant, but you knew very well that there's going to be backlash. And indeed, there has been. So let's just start at the beginning, because you and I are both in New York City. I've got kids that, well, you know, my daughter's still at one of these same Tony schools, not Grace Church, but another one. And she's leaving. You know, I've made that clear. We already pulled our boys from their school. But Grace Church is one of the greatest schools in the country. It's very exclusive. It's very expensive. And it's got a bunch of celebrity alums and kids of celebrities there. And just give the audience a feel for just how elite an institution it is, if you wouldn't mind.

I believe that, yes, we do have quite a lot of, you know, celebrities and wealthy children and wealthy parents at the school. I'm not sure that we have as many celebrities as some of the other famous schools in the independent school world. Independent school is the fancy way of saying private school, or I guess it's the not-so-fancy way. But we are, you know, we're a very high-priced institution. I think we're at $57,000 a year now. And there is substantial financial aid. I think we have the, you know, at Grace Church School offers, you know, the most financial aid, or they like to,

they claim so. I'm not sure. I haven't seen the numbers myself of any of similar schools. So they're trying, I mean, they, they, like most of these quote independent, which right is code for private schools, has, they've made, right, is code for private schools, they've made an effort, a conscious effort, to reach out and get more minority students enrolled so that the student body can be more diverse, right? I'm assuming that's true just based on the numbers I've read and what I've read about the school. Yes, that's right. And so that's kind of what's being offered here. I mean, if you think of an independent school as a kind of engine that moves forward if it offers different things to different groups and different people that apply. So diversity is something that is really important for applicants that come to the school because that's something that colleges value. But it's also something that I think rightly so the parents recognize that it's a changing world. And if, if, uh, if their children can, you know,

have experience with friends of all different backgrounds and income levels, that's going to be better for them as human beings. And I think they're right about that. Yep. Agreed. I I've been saying that all along, but I really think that the way you raise a non-racist is by exposing your children to great people of all races. I don't think it has to be more complicated than that. Just immerse them in a field of people of all different backgrounds and skin colors and cultures. And then they'll see, just like anybody, you know, black people, white people, brown people, they can be awesome. They can be flawed. They can be offensive. They can be loving it. Like that's the way you do it. But of course we've gone a different way.

So let's just start back to you're at, you're at Grace Church. You're teaching math, as I understand it, for how many years? This has been my ninth year teaching math. I started with the high school, the inaugural faculty in 2012 when Grace opened a ninth grade in a new building just down the street from their K-8 campus, which they had had for 100 years or so. So this was a new thing. When did you first start to see the change in curriculum, in messaging, and sort of this obsessive focus on race? It's a little bit blurry, the timeline, but I believe it can be traced to, you know, 2015. Although in 2012, we all faculty from the beginning of the school, we were,

we had to complete this training called Undoing Racism with an institute called the bizarrely named People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. And I did that training in the third year. So I did that in 2014, I believe. And that was quite an experience that was very interesting. And that was sort of my first introduction to what was to come. But in 2016, I believe, the school, I could be wrong, I could be off by a year or so, but they changed their mission to include anti-racism as part of their mission. And as they informed the faculty and the staff, they did this because diversity, equity, and inclusion were no longer enough. It was no longer enough to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We had to be anti-racist. And this

was a decision that was made at the board level. And it was laid out before us that there would be no debate. There would be no discussion about it. This was a commitment that we were all expected to make. And later I found out that I believe it was due to a board retreat. The board of trustees went on a retreat, I think over the summer, with an outfit called the CARL Institute. The CARL Institute, I think it was, yeah, CARL is an acronym, C-A-R-L-E, and it stands for the Critical Analysis of Race and Learning and Education. So I think this was when grace really cast its lot with the new orthodoxy. And since then, there have been several hires for staffing positions in diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging,

and they've created Office of Community Engagement. There's an Inst culture committee. And so there are these several, this increase of bureaucratic aspects to how the anti-racist programming is delivered and managed and how it has spread as a pedagogical priority through the various disciplines in the school. So this is in 16, you said. That's interesting because that's kind of early, right? We've all been seeing it explode over the past year, but Grace Church was on the leading edge of that, along with schools like Dalton. And we'll get to how that's worked out. So you were sort of ahead of the curve on that in a way that didn't work.

Yeah, we were early adopters, I would say. Not so great. So so what what did that look like? Because I can tell you, for example, at the at the school our daughter goes to, they're very bought into all of this stuff. They've got the Pollyanna program on race and what they what they've been doing, though, thus far, it's going to change, but what they've been doing is offering those so-called courageous conversations, retreats with these controversial figures who say very racist things and so on, but it's optional. So the parents can do it if they want. They don't have to do it. And I think, okay, that's fine. Optional is one thing.

Mandated for faculty, mandated for teachers is something very different. What was your experience at least starting in 16? Well, they eased us into it, I would say. And so I think they sensed that there might be resistance if they piled it on us all at once. Maybe that's a little conspiratorial. Maybe what it was, it was just a gradual evolution of the spread of the ideas in the school. But I think there was an early meeting where we all got together. I think it was during a faculty meeting and they said, well, what does, you know, we'd like to ask you, what does anti-racism mean to you? And I, you know, most people, I think myself included thought, well, that's just not being racist. You know, that's being, that's judging individuals as, you know, most people, I think myself included, thought, well, that's just not being racist.

You know, that's being, that's judging individuals as, you know, on their character and not the color of their skin, which is really, you know, what the common sense answer to what is anti-racism is. So, you know, I, they said, oh, yeah, that's good. You know, and they sort of, they were trying to get people talking and have honest conversations. And not much happened after that immediately. But I really knew that something was headed in the wrong direction when I think maybe a year later or perhaps 2017. The timeline's a little blurry for me, so I apologize if anyone's checking up on that. But they handed out this pyramid. So the pyramid of white supremacy or pyramid of racism, not sure have, you know, covert racism and then indifferent. There's an indifference layer at the bottom. there are two sides to every story or things like, um, uh, funding locally sourced schools or things that were part of the democratic party platform or things that were common sense, like,

um, you know, why can't we all get along or, you know, there are things that are essentially commonsensical fit ways for people to interact with each other. And one of the most disturbing things that they had were two things right next to each other. One of them was, you know, not believing POC, not believing people of color was one of the things on the pyramid. And right next to it was, but my black friend said, meaning you're supposed to listen to people of color so this this hodgepodge of contradictory um things and including you know making things that i consider to be virtues and devices by arranging them on a schema um that puts genocide you know in that schema i i refused to teach it i went to the i went to the um i think the then Dean of Equity and Inclusion. And I said,

I can't teach this. And they went, okay, okay. You know, we're not going to make you do it. It's fine. You know, maybe you need, maybe you're not ready. Right. And so they, you know, there's a, there's always a little back and forth there. And I must say that I must commend them on being flexible. And, and, you know, if people didn't want to do something, they wouldn't push it on you too much. And, you know, but the framework that they use internally is always towards the faculty, you know, you need more training, or you're not ready, or maybe we can send you to some professional development that will help you, you know, essentially, you're not, you're ignorant is the implication that you don't understand what you need to do and that we're going to help you. So it's very cult-like. And the idea that someone could actually understand the schema fully and disagree with it is not an option. I'm actually looking at it right now that this pyramid of white supremacy, right, that the worst, the top is genocide, mass murder, unjust police shootings, reading from the pyramid now, lynching, hate crimes. That's the farthest end of the white

supremacy pyramid. But also on the list, as you go down and the pyramid gets wider, is some that are the things that you're talking about. And it's so in the eye of the beholder, right? Like what you just said, not believing experiences of POC, people of color. What comes to mind is the girl at Smith College who said, I was kicked out of the dorm for eating while black. Meanwhile, it turned out she was not supposed to be in that dorm. Anybody would have been kicked out. It was made very clear to all students. They were not allowed. It was a closed dorm for the period. She got three sort of low level staffers fired who had done nothing wrong. We don't have to believe it's the, it's like the believe all women thing. You don't come with a special truth gene based on your pigmentation or your gender,

your lady parts or otherwise, right? And that's why it's absurd to say that because I might not believe the, quote, experience of a person of color, I belong on the white supremacy scale. So you're trying to say, I'm not gonna teach that because it's anti-factual. And their response is, sweet Paul, you'll get there. You'll get there, honey. Like, because I saw this at our school where one of the slides that was presented at, this is our boys' school that we were at.

What was presented was something like how you bring people along from their white supremacy. And one of the slides was like, they'll be in denial at first. And you just kind of have to work with them until they get over their denial of all of the stuff on this pyramid. And then finally they'll come along and, and, you know, but you have to like, you have to deal with them in their position of bargaining when they're, where they're fighting to let go of their supremacy. Yeah. Yeah.

They've created a sort of a timeline and a scale where enlightenment is at the end of some long journey, which is the work. And, you know, this is common of all cults, right? I mean, I think Scientology does a similar thing um you know i don't know if there's any scientologists out there but i i find lots of similarities there you know this idea that there are things inside there you have biases inside you which are very hard to detect but you know with practice you're going to be able to detect them it's very much like thetans uh as somebody described me recently you know these whenever you have a widely distributed um set of set of problems that have low effect sizes and are hard to detect

but they're everywhere then you then you're entering the danger zone uh with with any type of belief system and and if you're if they're expressed as a negative thing or they're tied to negative things, then it leads to, in a general sense, it leads to sort of witch hunts and purges and things like that. You're right about the Thetans. So that's a Scientology thing. And in Scientology, if you question any of their crazy beliefs, and I realize a lot of religions have some crazy foundations that, you know, if you really take a hard look, but they literally worshiped a clam. If you challenge any of that, you're deemed, and I quote, a suppressive person, which I am informed by one of the top grand poobahs of Scientology. I have been labeled

a suppressive person. I'm an SP, so Tom Cruise and I are never going to have a relationship. And that's okay. That's okay. Exactly. But just, just to, to finish it off, looking at the pyramid that they wanted you to teach.

One of the things on here is saying, I want to remain a political. That's not okay. You, you must get political and they certainly don't mean become a Trump supporter. Another thing is avoiding confrontation with racist family members. We've seen some of that recently on Twitter saying, now that the pandemic is coming to a close and people are getting vaccinated, you haven't seen your grandparents in a long time,

it is still your duty to get in there and challenge their racism. So it's like, Nana, Nana, so good to see you, you racist PO. Gosh, well, you know, the politics doesn't affect me thing is important too, because it makes sense from their point of view, because in their view, everyone is already political, whether you admit it or not. So because of our social position in society, you are politicized from birth by simply existing while oppressed or an oppressor. So you don't – according to them, you don't have the option – well, if you do have the option to not think about politics, well, then you are privileged. So even just saying that trying to even approach things in an apolitical way is, you know, a kind of political statement. I'm looking at one of the other things on this higher up on the list of sins is minimization. And one of the quotes is we all belong to the human race. And I'm thinking of Daryl Davis, right?

Who's like literally he's a black man who's literally gotten grand wizards to leave the KKK just by being amazing. Not trying to proselytize, just sort of sitting with them and showing them what a black man is actually like. And he's part of this group FAIR, which I know you've been working with too, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. Daryl Davis, black man, says that in the promo for FAIR about belonging to one race, the human race. So he too is a white supremacist, according to this, who needs to be deprogrammed of his internalized, I guess it would be internalized hatred. So this is how insane this stuff is. So it comes to you, they want you to start teaching it, like teaching it or just understanding it. Cause you, you know, you teach math. So like,

yeah, I get the pyramid. That might be helpful in math. How is this supposed to affect your teaching? Yes. Well, so one of the things that all the teachers are expected to do of any subject is to also, most, I would say, 90% of the teachers have an advisory. So it's a small, you're probably familiar with this. It's a small group that you kind of shepherd through their four years at the institution and you hear their problems and you work with them and you're there, you're like a confidant, you know, for them to come to if they have questions about, you know, social problems or academic issues, you can run interference with teachers. And Grace builds in a substantial

amount of advisory time so that advisors can, I guess I would say, talk about things that are important to the community or the social life of the school. And they're giving me this pyramid was, you know, they said, we blocked out time during advisory time, which is maybe 15 minutes a day for you to discuss this pyramid and start introducing it. And that's when I refused to do the pyramid. So they initially said, okay, we're going to bring you along because you're definitely on the pyramid, Paul. I'm on the pyramid.

Yeah, I'm on all the things. I believe in one human race. Color me problematic. Absolutely. So then how did it escalate well um i would say that because of racialized incidents in the broader society the presence of trump and and the uh the effect that that was having on um on sort on sort of, you know, people's psyche, frankly, and also racial incidents within the school, um, that were, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to

discount them because there are racist, you know, that does happen. You have different cultures coming into conflict, you know, when you have kids from different backgrounds and there are things that happen. You have different cultures coming into conflict, you know, when you have kids from different backgrounds and there are things that happen, but they, they all get fed into this framework. So when, you know, if somebody sings the N word along to say a Drake song or something in mixed company and it gets out, then someone can be, you know, this is a symptom of 400 years of oppression all of a sudden. So individual events that are, that are, that are misunderstandings between, you know, 13 or 14 year olds are being blown up to, to be an, to, to, to reflect some huge, vast historical framework for understanding our country and our country's history.

And so the weight of all this just creates an opportunity for conflict. And, you know, of course, there's also things happening external to the school that are generating conflict because it feeds into what they're teaching so that it, you know, it, it creates, it can create a lot of, I want to say, you know, a lot of upset, a lot of, a lot of anger. Yeah. You know, I was just thinking about this in the context of inconsistent parenting. Now, if you have the loving parent who is kind and, you know, a squish and, you know, is a soft place to fall, who then snaps and responds to a small transgression as though you're a Hitler-esque kid, it's very destabilizing and it's very damaging to a kid's mental health. And I see this as an example of that, right? Like a kid, these schools are small and, and the kids are there for 12 plus years with a very small, and the grades are like 50 kids. And so they know everybody and it's supposed to be a safe environment. And suddenly one transgression, like the one you speak of, right? Repeating a Drake song with the N word

in it. And you get no benefit of the doubt to the contrary, you're treated like you're at the top of this pyramid with the genocidal lynchers. It's very damaging to a kid's foundation and like trust in school, society, teachers. None of that counts, by the way, I get it. It's like, unless you're a person of color, your pain doesn't count on this scale. Like in fact, white people aren't even allowed to express any pain because that's all part of your white supremacy.

And they think you're trying to make black people make you feel better about your pain, which is again, part of your white supremacy. Like you can see how damaging this is for any white kid who transgresses or doesn't right right well you know and they this really gets to the heart of of the sequence of the way the curriculum around anti-racism is is taught and it's and how it's happening earlier and earlier you know know, Pollyanna, we, I think it was last year, we actually piloted their K through eight, I believe, their, you know, K through eight curriculum. And, you know, as early

as sixth grade, they are, they will try to get them to get a social identity before they've even formed their individual identity. So identity development is complex. You're trying to develop your personality, your interests, your aspirations, your affections. All of these things are internal to the self and you're expressing and they're coming out. Now, what they do is they say, yes, you have this individual identity and everyone is special, but what you also have is a social identity. And they talk about race and gender and, and, and how society sees you and, and how, you know, these, these categories have persisted through time through, you know, yes, real oppressive conditions. And they have been in, you know, in the case of race, you know, one thing I

actually agree with on critical history is that, that history is one-sided, but it is true in the sense that, you know, race is a construct that was created to, to, you know, maintain oppressive relationships through, through the history of the country. But, you know, they're saying that who you are as an individual is subordinate, subordinate to these social factors because, you know, in the blank slate model, you are affected so much by the society that you're in that you don't even know how you're affected by it. So up next, we're going to discuss this Pollyanna program, which if you're not familiar with this program, Google it because it's probably coming or has already come to a school near you. It certainly has come to my school here in New York.

And you need to be up to date on this because it has such a sweet name and it has a very different kind of message. We'll get to that with Paul in one second. First this. Our school uses Pollyanna too, the one from which my daughter's about to leave. And City Journal, which is an amazing organization. If you don't read cityjournal.org, you guys should. Oh, I do. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, of course you do. It's affiliated with the Manhattan Institute and it's wonderful. But here's just a quick description of Pollyanna, which is everywhere, by the way. It's everywhere.

It's not just New York City schools here. Quote, much of the content Pollyanna offers is based on its racial literacy curriculum, a suite of lesson plans imbued with the latest in pop progressivism. The curriculum offers middle schoolers a heavily slanted history lesson that calls racism a primary institution in the U.S. Thin on academic references, it relies instead on popular articles and left-leaning commentators

from Robin DiAngelo to Howard Zinn, right? Who hates America. His history is all about how terrible we are. The course begins in kindergarten and culminates in eighth grade when students spend class time on racial and or social justice projects, turning their lessons into activism. That's their goal. It's not enough just to learn, listen, hear the viewpoint.

You must become an activist for this point of view or you're failing, which is a point you get to in your letter to Grace Church, which was, I thought, really helpful when you were pointing out how it's like students who aren't saying anything are singled out and told, we really need to hear from you, which I do want to get to this, but I just, I want to build it up so people understand, you know, how this happened and how you got to the point of writing this letter. So was there, and when you say that there were racial incidents at Grace Church, I just want to be clear because there have been at a lot of these schools. It's not like, I don't think these schools are teeming with racists. I really don't, but they're kids and they do stupid things sometimes.

And so was there anything particularly egregious or that, you know, sort of set things off in a, in a faster way? Well, I, I, I have to say it's, you know, I, I don't have any, I don't have much firsthand experience. And so, but what generally I did a lot of investigating when I, when I heard that there was an incident, I did my best to talk to colleagues and I had many colleagues I was close with, deans and so on. And typically these incidents fall into three or four categories. One is confusing one Black student for another. And that itself is seen as a racially hostile act. That is so unfortunate. That's so, I mean, honestly, my audience has heard me talk before about how bad I am with faces and names. Steven Crowder came on this program and expressed his, how wounded he was that he'd been on my program on Fox. And later, I had no idea who he was. I'm so bad at faces and names and it has nothing to do with skin color,

done it to white people, done it to black people. It's, I feel for somebody who finds themselves in that position, because now it, it immediately is attributed to race. And it, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But now there's no room for that discussion. Right. Well, you know, the way that it's, you know, again, every part of the schema fits together. So, you know, I would say to you, if I was the Dean of Equity and Inclusion, I would say, well, Megan, you know, we really have to prioritize impact over intent in that situation. That is because these students have grown up in circumstances in a racialized America, when you confuse a black, one black student for another, then that is triggering for them an entire, you know, it is kind of negating them, negating them, negating their identity in a way where you wouldn't do that to, to, when you, if you did the same thing for two white students, just as a devil's advocate. And that is actually, I think, the biggest problem with the whole thing is prioritizing impact over intent because our justice system doesn't discount intent for a very important

reason. Intent is central to our understanding of our common humanity and and our are the building blocks of our society you know if if you do something um if you if you harm someone um it's a lesser degree charge right it's it's it it's can mitigating circumstances okay that's in the criminal level but on the social level, right? If I offended you because, you know, I confused you with somebody else, but it didn't mean that I didn't remember all the things that you were necessarily. Maybe I mispronounced your name or I did something which is superficially, you know, disrespectful. But if you asked me, I would say, you know, that's, you know, I'm sorry, you know, let's, let's move on. And I, I'm sorry, I hurt your feelings and, you know, I'll try not

to do it again. And then you just move on. But what's happening here is that when you have this, you fit everything into this massive historical framework of oppression, then you, you don't give people the chance to, you know, redeem themselves by their intentions. Well, and not only that, the second layer of it is what about spending some time minimizing impact? What about spending some time looking at whether it's a woman who's had a minor transgression against her or a person of color who feels slighted in some way and saying, not great. You're good. Let's move on. What we do, and that's not to minimize the offense felt. It's a problem solving method. It's a coping method because the reality of life is you can, I've said this before, you cannot whack a mole away all the people who are going to hurt you. You can't, they're going to keep coming over and

over and over. And the better tactic is to build up your resilience, strength, and ability to shrug off jerks and say, it'd be great if we can, you know, at the school level and otherwise work on awareness so that, you know, more awareness trickles down. But the truth is it's an individual coping mechanism that gets you through life. If you can't get rid of all the jerks, they've tried that. It doesn't work. They're still everywhere. Yeah. And I agree. And one of the things that I think is important is the burden of tolerance in a sense. So if you have two people, just to simplify the situation, one way for those two people to be tolerant of each other is for them to, overweeningly careful about offending each other. Right. So the other way is to simply be, you know, have tolerance in a sort of a mechanical engineering

sense. That is, you have tolerance, you can withstand the torque of being offended. Right. So, you know, that is, I think what you're talking about with resilience and we definitely need to put more of, you know, to, to, to, you know, guide students and, and sort of teach them how to put more, how to assume more of the burden of tolerance in a sense to, to be, to be tougher, to be more adaptable in those circumstances. They can be assertive about how they're hurt, but that, but then, you hurt, but then say, oh, that hurt me, but they can roll with it, essentially. I think they come into life.

I think children come into life with that as their default. They learn on the playground. Somebody does something to you and maybe your eye's well up, but you have to keep functioning because no kid wants to play with the kid who's over there whining and crying, right? Like they learn it at a very early age. Only in the past couple of years have we switched to no, let her, let her rip. Keep crying louder.

Everyone else should be crying. You are a victim, right? Only now we switched this whole messaging of like, it's better to are a victim, right? It's like, only now we switched this whole messaging of like, it's better to be a victimized whiner who's constantly complaining that is going to be rewarded. So you see some incidents you're, I mean, like, are you somebody that people have been going to, this is prior to all the craziness that's erupted over the past few weeks there, but like, were you a counselor to students who had been, who felt victimized or who felt accused? math teacher, didn't give a lot of extensions, I don't think, was a little bit rigorous. Rigor is very important, you know, and I think in math and exactitude is important.

I believe in, you know, lots of failing over and over until you get it right and just having that kind of resilience as well. And I'm very nurturing and trying to guide students to do that. But no, I wasn't, I was not what they call a safe space advocate. You know, I think there are other teachers that moved into that role. But I did, you know, kids would sort of come to me if they had, you know, other problems, I think, because they felt like I would be an ally for them if they felt they couldn't express their views in a paper without retaliation or if they, you know, they wouldn't necessarily ask this teacher for a recommendation because they thought maybe they would, you know,

sabotage their application, something like that. And I think there was probably some truth to those things. What do you mean, sabotage their application? Well, you know, write a bad recommendation on purpose because they may have had conservative views, expressed them in class and been chastened for it in some way. And so or. So you did see that. I mean, because that's something we talk about sometimes. But yeah, you you've witnessed that in real life. Well, I would really being concerned about their political views being punished? Yeah. And I would, you know, I wouldn't just take it on faith. I would be like, well,

did you cite your sources? Did you have quotations? Did, you know, a lot of times what would happen is the teacher would maybe question their sources, right? So if they, if they selected from the Wall Street Journal or something, or, you know, something, you know, something like the Daily Wire or National Review, even some things like that, that are probably, you know, on the other side, they may have, they may have allowed, you know, you know, something like Vox or some other similar, similarly status slate, right? So it, there's a little bit of shading on that. So I think some of that was going on. Although, you know, I can't remember any specific papers to that effect, but I would really question the kids and be like, are you sure that this is that you think like, you know, and I would say, do you want me to go talk to the teacher about it? And like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't I don't want to make a thing out of it. Right, because they because just just to just to underscore these kids. I mean, the reason these parents are paying fifty seven thousand dollars a year for their kids to go to the school, including kindergarten, is because they want their kids to get into good colleges. I mean, that's really that's the end game for most of these New York City parents. And especially when they get into high school, it's the worst possible time to start alienating your teachers who have to write the recommendations for you. So I can understand why the students would be like,

no, no, no, no, don't rock the boat. Like, I'm going to go along to get along. Well, there's so much other pressure on students that will really squelch and chill their free expression in that situation, right? Because the morality of the place is so heavily tied in with, you know, critical race theory and, you know, sensitivity and impact over intent that, um, if you, if you were to stick your neck out and take a stand, you know, you could be able, you could be alienated on social media. You lose friends. There's a whole cascade of things. Now, I think, I think that what I would love to do as, as someone at FAIR, um, someIR, as the work that I've done, is work on with some students, work on a student guide where students can stand up for themselves and express themselves and really listen to their conscience. Because to develop an inner strength, you need to hearken to and act upon your deepest instincts about what is true.

Now, we could talk a lot about truth and my truth and your truth. experience recently, um, you know, standing out the way I've done is that without a faith in my own conscience, um, I would never, I would never have the strength to do what I did. And I, I want to find a way to, to, you know, share that experience with young people who are afraid and who feel that they have so much to lose. I agree with you, because if you don't have that strong ethical compass, it's hard to take a stand. It's much easier to just swim with the rest of the fish and hope you don't get singled out in any way that might be painful, short-term painful, but long-term strengthening. All right. So let me just jump forward to the report. The first report I saw about Grace Church that caught my eye was Barry

Weiss's report where she, on her sub stack, had done a lengthy piece on the New York City schools and beyond. She had talked to folks in LA and elsewhere, and they were saying that Grace Church had banned the terms mom and dad and boy and girl to the point where if you were reading a book that had the term boy in it, like little boy blue, you were supposed to replace it with a proper noun, like little Billy blue, supposed to say, is this true? Did you see any evidence of this? I did not. I did not personally, because I'm siloed in math. So I didn't really have much to do with that kind of thing. And they did not introduce it or push it on me as an advisor, I would say. So whatever that's about, I didn't have any personal contact there.

All right. So that wasn't your thing. Okay. That was, she posted that actually in City Journal now that I think about it. But anyway, so I'm thinking, okay, Grace Church has lost its mind. Mom and dad is not an offensive term to anybody, trans, lesbian, gay. I know plenty of people in all those categories who would laugh at this and have laughed at it. But this is just an example of how far, you know, I don't even want to say left, just how far into the insane camp

the school has gone. And what was the final straw that made you finally speak out in this letter which i want to talk to you about what you said specifically what was the what what was the straw that broke the camel's back okay well um winding back well the straw that broke the camel's back was uh took place during a february 26th meeting, which was called Self-Care Through an Anti-Bias Lens. And we had had some programming during this intersession week where there were no academic classes because during the pandemic, we've had several of these weeks that are focused on a theme. And the theme of this week was self-care. And then this was a meeting that happened on a Wednesday, February 26th. I was on a field trip. I was chaperoning with many other chaperones. And I got on this call after the kids were on the ice and skating

around, most of them, and things were taken care of. There were other chaperones there. I felt since the call was mandatory, I should get on because one thing teachers do is they multitask all the time. And especially during the pandemic, we've been multitasking. And I was also curious, like, okay, what's this going to be about? Let's see. So after some meditation exercises on the Zoom call and some, I would say, mind-relaxing exercises, the facilitator put up a slide called Characteristics of White Supremacy. And she brought it up and wanted us to discuss it. On this slide were bullet points like objectivity, individualism,

the right to comfort, which I found curious given that the whole point of the meeting was a self-care meeting. Either or thinking and also fear of open conflict was on there. And to the best of my recollection, the facilitator was very nice, She had just a nice manner, very friendly, chatty, talked about what are some white feelings that you might feel looking at the slide. Andultaneously, the meeting is going on visually and also in audio, but also there are comments in the chat. And several teachers had already commented in the chat. And I felt, well, I could maybe ask a question here. And for the past few months before this, emerging from a conversation with my head of school, I was told, you shouldn't try to push your doubts on people, on colleagues, when they are busy going about their work. Because I had had a little bit of a spat with one of my colleagues over anti-racism. And I agree with him.

I say, you're right. You're absolutely right. I don't want to do that. I don't want to interrupt people's day with these things. And he said, okay, fine. But if you find yourself in an appropriate forum, you should feel free to to, you know, raise, ask questions. Okay. Well, since other faculty members had asked questions in the chat. Oh, by the way, I didn't mention the most important thing. This was a meeting that was mandatory and all white identifying students and faculty were directed to this meeting. While there was a BIPOC identifying meeting at a different Zoom room, later I found out there was different content there. So I asked, you know, in this chat, I had been kind of loosening the screws on what I felt like I could challenge.

And I thought about the prospect of another meeting in which so many of these students in the chat, their answers are very ritualistic. And they conform to a very narrow set of, of statements that are all, you know, engineered to validate the ideology. So I thought, well, I know there are students out there that don't feel this way. What if I just ask a question? What if I challenge this thing? What if I say, what do you mean by a white feeling? And, you know, the facilitator, I think she said, you know, those are just things that might be defensiveness or, you know, say, yes, but what makes them white? That is, you know, I'm, I was thinking to myself, you know, I live in New York, you know, if I have a, if I feel, you know, you know, a pain in New York, is that a New York feeling? Does that make it, you know, so I just didn't understand why this was tied to race to race in such a blatant way when, you know, all races might have feelings of defensiveness and so on. So I asked that question. And then what I noticed was several of the other students started asking other challenging questions in the chat. And some

of the faculty started to say things in the chat that were a little bit wider, like, well, you know, I don't, maybe I don't really appreciate being reduced to my like, well, you know, I don't, maybe I don't really appreciate being reduced to my race or, you know, I don't think I'm ignorant just because I'm white and things like this. And so the meeting started to sort of, I would, you know, to, to someone who was really focused on the purpose of the meeting, which was to get everybody to go along with these ideas. There was a little bit of anxiety because I had sort of derailed it. Yeah. So then, you know, one of my colleagues got on his high horse and gave a little bit of a rant and said, you know, don't all my colleagues understand that we are white and we

are here because we are white and we were privileged since birth and we are affected by certain biases. And, you know, I can't believe that this is going on and something like that. And I interrupted him and I said, well, I'm sorry that you're stereotyping yourself. And this interruption, you know, I felt like I would need it to sort of defend myself because, you know, I was being sort of called out in front of students. I felt like I should defend myself. And then this incident was unprofessional. I admitted that it was a little unprofessional. I apologized after the meeting. But I think, you know, the main problem, the main concern that led to a week of subsequent meetings, meetings about the meetings where people

were processing feelings and there were, you know, racially segregated meetings about the meetings where people were processing feelings and there were, you know, racially segregated meetings about the racially segregated meetings, because some of my comments had been overheard by, or had made their way, you know, outside the meeting to some of the black teachers and students. And they were upset by some of the questions that I asked, one of which was, you know, the necessity to identify racially at all. I mean, I was saying, you know, why should I be defined by what society thinks about me? Why is it necessary for me to interject in my essence of my being, my social identity? And they were, you know, there was a tremendous offense that was taken to that. It was just a question that I asked. And I realized later that that is actually

extremely destabilizing to question nature of race and why, why, why do we have the necessity of identifying with it? I mean, it i mean it if you lose that then the entire house of cards falls apart as as one colleague said later oh my god they're going to forget everything we ever taught them i mean this is why they're so anti the mlk goal right of colorblindness that was a hundred percent what he wanted for everybody and now now if you say it, you're a racist, right? You're right. The whole house of cards is built on race being everything, the foundation of America, the foundation of our beings. And what you were trying to say is, I don't know. I'm not sure. And that turned into a whole other round of meetings. The teachers, you were chastised.

Did you have to apologize? Like, were you reprimanded? What happened? Yeah, I had a long meeting with the head of school and the assistant head of school. And I was, you know, it started out, well, we want to know how you feel about it. And, you know, I said, actually, you know, I don't feel too bad about it, frankly. And then over the course of the meeting, yeah, I did. I, because that's how I felt. I mean, my conscience was, my conscience was exultant is how I would describe

my feeling. Right. And can I just say, just as a, just as a, let me meander down this side lane, Douglas Murray makes this point in his, in his writings and his lectures on this podcast. I'm in love with Douglas Murray. along just to get along when you know it's wrong and in this case potentially very damaging to students you know who are in your care it will create self-loathing you will wind up being disgusted with yourself you'll you'll be a sad little shell of a man and but it's hard to do so i mean kudos to you for what started as a, it shouldn't have been a massive step. It should have been a small step. It was treated as a massive step. Little did they know what was coming from Paul Rossi. But kudos to you for in the moment following your conscience.

Yeah. And I felt, you know, I was on sort of a real high for a week, week to two weeks after that. And during this meeting with the head of school and assistant head, as they realized that I was not contrite and I said, I am not contrite, the allegations against me started to increase throughout the course of the meeting. So first I had caused upset and then I had caused, you know, I had destabilized the school and then I had caused neurological disruptions and beings and systems and all of these, these things just, and then it escalated to where, you know, I had, I had harassed the students by my behavior. And at that moment,

just by saying why does race have to be the prism through which we see everything to paraphrase. Yeah. My identification, And at that moment, just by saying, why does race have to be the prism through which we see everything? I'm to paraphrase. Yeah. My identification, I phrase it as a personal thing. You know, we're, we're told to speak from the eye perspective. That's one of the norms. And I said, well, okay, you know, why, why do I have to identify as white?

Just because society sees me that way. Right. If, if, if we defined ourselves by how other people see us, we don't have a soul. Oh my God. If I did that, I'd never get out of bed in the morning. Exactly. Right. You know, are they right about me? So if I'm, you know, you wouldn't say that about anyone for any other defect, right? You wouldn't say that about, you know, if I lost an arm, would I consider, and people said, oh, there's that one armed guy. Would I, would it help for me to think, oh, I'm a one-armed guy. Would it help for me to think,

oh, I'm a one-armed guy. I'm Paul the one-armed guy. No, it wouldn't help. It would actually hold me back. And people who are disabled and successful will tell you the same thing. It is crazy because just looking at your letter where you documented some of this, I'm reading that you were told to the point you just made, you created a dissonance, which means disharmony, for vulnerable and unformed thinkers. Disharmony for unformed thinkers and neurological disturbance in students' beings and systems. So what the hell does that mean? That you failed to serve the greater good and the higher truth. It may be true that it's bad to identify everything through a racial perspective,

but the higher truth is just fucking do it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, community stability is the highest truth to a, you know, to when you, when you're focused on the, on a community or you have a group mindset, then anything that disrupts, you know, the stability of the group is dangerous. I mean, this is a totalitarian mindset. Let's not, let's not mince words. This is what happens when you prioritize groups over individuals. You, it leads inexorably to this mindset. And my head was reflecting that mindset. I think individualism is dangerous to that mindset. So then a couple days later, the head of school reprimands you on like a school-wide level. What did he do? What happened? Oh, yes. The head head of whole school the whole

school um had told me that you know a letter would be placed in my file and that you know at a later faculty meeting at which i wasn't really i was allowed to i made a statement but then i wasn't my mic was turned off but anyway he he decided Davison. Davison is the head of school. Yeah. He decided to have all advisors read the statement to all the students at 1030 in the morning on this day of the week after the meeting. And it didn't name me, but it was clear that a member of the faculty was disruptive and unprofessional. And then they went through a long description of how important it was, you know, even though race was a social construct, we acknowledge the paramount importance of race in society and in our school. I mean, that was the message of it. And we must undo history.

The history of- Good luck with that. Yeah, exactly. It's sort of like, I think of it as sort of like the far left version of pull Good luck with that. And I decided, you know, like, gosh, you know, I'm just sitting here in my office. I have to go to the bathroom. So I'm going to walk around the building and I'm going to experience this thing. Walked around the floor of the building. Out of every room was coming reverberating this thing while I just shuffled along. And I thought, wow, this is really surreal. I mean, they're making it sound like you ran through the school with an I heart Derek Chauvin sign. All you said was, why does this have to be my prism? This I'm not sure I want this to be my prism. I'm much more than my pigmentation.

Paul did something very smart, which was he decided to keep a tape recording of his discussions with the head of school. The head of school, unfortunately, did not realize that Paul had done such a smart thing and publicly denied saying some of the things that Paul accused him of saying. You're going to hear the tapes for yourself. First, this. I want to bring you a feature we have here on the Megyn Kelly show called Real Talk. And this is where we address something that may be in the news or that's on my mind or something that we just want to get into with you guys. And that today is NBA star LeBron James and his reaction to this situation out of Columbus, Ohio, where the 15-year-old girl, Micaiah Bryant, was shot by the police officer

to stop her from stabbing another young woman, right? It's all on video. You can watch it for yourself. It's undisputed and indisputable that Micaiah had a knife and was attacking the other girl with it, was about to stab her. So he shot her in defense of others, which is even by a lay person would be a legal defense that would lead to no charges. And certainly by a police officer called to the scene will protect him from any criminality in this case. And that's obvious to any sane person looking at this situation.

But of course, the usual crew trying to exploit, unfortunately, an all too common law enforcement encounter where people are hurting each other and the cops get called and try to break it up and it gets violent and in this case deadly, are trying to make this into a black white thing, a Black Lives Matter thing, a police don't like black people thing and so on, right? So LeBron James, who has 50 million followers on Twitter, 50, five, oh, million followers, tweets out a screen grab of the officer, the guy who saved this other girl's life, the life of a young black woman, by the way.

And the caption he writes, LeBron writes, is your next hashtag accountability, which was an insane and really irresponsible thing to do. I mean, in this climate, right, to sort of sick the mob. That's what he was trying to do on this guy, this cop who was just doing his job. And everybody on Twitter reacted. I mean, everyone who has two cents to rub together in between their ears, saying this is totally irresponsible. What are you doing? I like Steve, I know Steve Krakauer is our EP, he tweeted out something saying I had to read this three times to make sure this really was

LeBron James doing something this, this crazy, this irresponsible. And about an hour later, he deleted the tweet, which is good. But too late. I mean, the message was already out there. And about an hour later, he deleted the tweet, which is good, but too late. I mean, the message was already out there. And the tweet he sent afterward was basically like, oh, people are making a thing out of this, you know, so I took it down. But he was, he's not sorry. He still thinks what this cop did was wrong. He still thinks this cop ought to face accountability, rather than, you can make the good argument this guy deserves a medal. He saved this other girl's life who probably would have been dead if he hadn't shown up. And now you've got some people, crazy people like this Bree Newsome. She's

affiliated with Black Lives Matter in some way out there tweeting, let the girl's knife fight it out. Really? Okay. Is that how you want it to go? I don't know if the mother of the would-be victim would agree with that. I think she'd probably be pretty grateful that her daughter's life was saved. So anyway, the thing about this that is so upsetting is LeBron James is going to use his platform of 50 million, right, to call attention to this officer who was just doing his job. Has he said one word, one word about Jaslyn Adams, who we talked about the other day, the little seven-year-old girl who was shot to death in the McDonald's drive-thru in Chicago? One word about the 45 shell casings found outside of her car? It was clearly an execution. She was in there with her dad.

Nothing. He doesn't use the power of his platform to call attention to that violence. Where's accountability for Jaslyn? It would be great if LeBron and others would go into that neighborhood and try to lift people up and set a better example and show the way. Nope.

And to his credit, Jason Whitlock, who I love and who's been on this program, as you guys know, called him out for it. This is Jason's tweet the other day was black teenage girl tried to stab a black teenage girl, seven year old black girl gunned down at McDonald's drive through silence. No tweets. You're not tired of young black people killing each other. Silence. No desperation. How come?

Because LeBron's cover up tweet after, after he removed the first, was, I'm so damn tired of seeing black people killed by police. Took the tweet down because it's being used to create more hate. This isn't about one officer. It's about the entire system. And they always use our words to create more racism. I'm so desperate for more accountability. For whom? For whom? Accountability for whom? Whose, whose deaths matter? Which black lives matter? And if LeBron James is going to get politically active, with which I have no problem, he should be more informed and more responsible in doing it. And we'll get back to Paul in one second. First, this. As I understand it from your letter where you went public with this, you were reminded that your contract with the school requires you to participate in

restorative practices designed by the Office of Community Engagement in order to, quote, heal your relationship with the students of color and other students in your classes. Now, because you asked that question, now you have to embark on a mission of healing for all of the damage that you caused. I mean, it's getting insane. I'm going through it piece by piece because that's how people will understand how insane this is. It's madness run amok.

And the fact that there aren't thousands of Paul Rossis speaking out because this is happening at thousands of schools. It's not just New York City, thousands of schools across the country. Ames, Iowa, we just talked to Scott Walker about is that's what's crazy that, that you right now stand almost alone in having pushed back on it. All right. So this all happens. You do your walk. You're like, what's going on? I mean, I don't know if you felt like I've talked about how when NBC was putting me through the ringer, I felt like I was being gaslit. I don't know if you can relate to that,

but it's like, wait, what did I say that it that's so awful. And then there was a moment that you wrote about in your letter where a student came to your, to your office. And do you mind if I just read from your letter? Because it was so beautifully said. One current student paid me a visit a few weeks ago.

He tapped faintly on my office door, anxiously looking both ways before entering. He said he had come to offer me words of support for speaking up at the meeting. I thanked him for his comments, but asked him why he seemed so nervous. He told me he was worried that a particular teacher might notice this visit and quote it would mean that I would get in trouble end quote. He reported to me that this teacher once gave him a lengthy talking to for voicing a conservative opinion in class. He then remembered with a sigh of relief that this teacher was absent that day. I looked him in the eyes. I told him he was a brave young man for coming to see me and that he should be proud of that. Then I sent him on his way and I resolved to write this piece.

And you went public in a way that has now cost you your job. Are you officially fired right now, Paul, or is it just fired from teaching? Yeah, I've had all my classes taken away. My math classes, my advisory. I was in the middle of putting grades in a couple of days ago and they cut off my access to the intranet. So I couldn't, couldn't get my grades and I'm going to try to get the comments in, um, through a colleague,

um, who can maybe put them in there. Um, luckily I was able to get the actual marking grades done. Um, but yes, they, they, they also had a, they had an offer for me to participate in a task force or a subcommittee of the Institutional Culture Committee where I would report to the assistant head. But I don't think I would be allowed to participate in the committee itself. So it was kind of like a rubber room situation where, you know, like they have in public schools. And I would serve out the remainder of my contract, which is, I think at this point, it's four to five months on my current contract. Maybe not that much, four months or something like that. And that was, of course, after initially they said, all right, we're not going to,

because you wrote this piece, you came out publicly and started to document some of these problems, which was incredibly brave and just said that the headline was, I refuse to stand by while my students are indoctrinated. And this is, of course, unacceptable. You're not allowed to do this. And at first they said, all right, he's not going to be disciplined because they knew that that was wrong. And then almost immediately they switched.

And the school came out, Davison, head of school, on April 18th, sent out a letter to students and faculty saying, numerous students, parents and faculty have expressed discomfort with Paul's continued presence at the school. Just you writing this, just this discussion. Paul has declined his contract, so will not be returning in the fall. Students have requested to be removed from his classes. As soon as I read that, I was like, you know, any school with a spine would say, thank you for your request. The answer is no. You'll go to class. This is your class. He's your teacher. He teaches math. You listen to his math. You're not unsafe. You're fine. And then it is clear to me Paul cannot be effective as a teacher at Grace anymore. I've informed him he's relieved of his

teaching duties. He's been asked not to come into the building. I mean, truly, it's like now you've crossed over into ISIS territory. Stay away from the building. Um, and that your letter contains glaring omissions and inaccuracies. So Davison decides to go on the offense against you. Rossi's got a screw loose. Rossi's not telling the truth. You know, the school stands, the faculty, the students, the parent body against Rossi. And then what happened? Oh, well, um, you know, I, I, I wrote a letter basically disputing, um, the claim that I was a liar. Um, and I asked, you know, I was wondering, well, if they've done all these, uh, omissions and inaccuracies, well, what are they? Uh, I, you know, I published, I published some things that I, you know, that we had a conversation in March. Um, and that, you know, I, I have to defend what, what I,

what I said or what, you know, what, what happened. Um, he's pushing me against the wall here and he's calling me a liar and I will not stand for that in no, no uncertain terms. So I, you know, I wrote a subsequent letter in reply to his letter to the community saying that, you know, he definitely went against things that he had told me in conversation. And, you know, I said what those things, what those things were. And that, in fact, he did agree with me in many cases with my objections, and that showed hypocrisy, frankly. Right. So you come out and you say, behind the scenes, the head of school expressed to me, quote, grave doubts about some of the doctrinaire stuff that gets spouted at us in the name of anti-racism. And you said, when I told you, this is your letter, that they're fighting a revolution and will hollow out grace and move on to the next institution, you acknowledged, quote, they've hollowed out a bunch of other

ones ahead of us. And you go on and he, he comes out and says, you misquoted me. You attributed to me things I I never said. And that is when you drop the hammer of the tape, which was just I'm sorry, but so smart. It's lawful in New York State to tape somebody as long as one party to the conversation is consenting. And you were that party and you've got it and let's just let's start with this with this that the first claim about white whether whether people are being linked to white supremacy just because of the pigmentation they're born with and your exchange with Davison on that this is our first soundbite go ahead and run it you can you you can have and i'm happy to keep debating and i don't actually have any doubt because i've known you for nine years of your sincerity in your belief and i also um have grave doubts about some of the doctrinaire stuff that gets spouted at us in the name of anti-racism. Like what? And so I don't disagree entirely with some of your points of view. Can you elaborate?

Because it would help me. It would help me understand what's going on. I think that one of the things that's going on a little too much, and we've talked about this, is that the demonization of being white and the attempt to link anybody who's white to the perpetuation of white supremacy. Thank you. Thank you, George. So there is no question that there is an entire strain in here that caused that misinterpretation. Now, I am someone... Wait a minute. But what about impact over intent? Don't those kids get the benefit of impact over intent?

Exactly. What about the white kids who are linked to white supremacy because of the pigmentation they were born with over which they have no control? And you you're putting it back on him. The whole you've said it this entire interview. They told you it's about impact. It's about impact, not the intent of the speaker. And what about the impact on these white kids who are tarred with one of the worst sins of our country's history, white supremacy, through no fault other than a gene that they are born with. Yeah. And moral inferiority, which I think is, which I think is just so damaging to the spirit. Um, just as much as moral superiority is, is also damaging to the spirit. Do you think, what do you think he, his reaction was when he found out you taped him? Um, I can't, I can't imagine. I can't imagine.

Was that scary to release that? Yeah. I feel like it was the right decision. I still feel it's the right decision because what I think it needs to be said here is that you cannot have a public face that says one thing and you're saying different things to different people and then in private, you know, placate people endlessly and try to manage things or to make claims that are moral when you don't believe those things in private. I think that that's wrong and people need to know it. And I don't think that he's unique in this respect based on whatever. I don't think that this is something that is confined to George Davison.

I think a lot of these institutions are actually extremely hypocritical in the way they deploy these virtuous, seemingly virtuous belief systems. But it comes down to the main thing is that this is affecting kids. Okay? You cannot play games. Now, if he knows that this is going on, he has a duty to shut it down like yesterday, immediately. Because how can you possibly allow one day to go by with kids being demonized like this? Wait, and let me pause you there. Let me pause you there because I want people to hear that soundbite.

So you came out in your letter on April 19th and you said, hey, George, you said, you admitted to me that Grace Church is demonizing white people for being born and that the school is making white students feel less than for nothing that they're personally responsible for. You said this in a letter. And he came out and said, you misquoted me and you attributed to me things I never said nor ever would say. And this is the soundbite number three. Let's listen to what he said and whether you were right. Let me ask you something, George, because I think those are I think there's something very different about having a single experience where you make sense of it. Right. And having a teacher, an authority figure, talk to you endlessly, every year telling you that because you have whiteness, you are associated with evils, all these different evils.

These are moral evils. It's not the same as taking a physical thing, because it doesn't affect your moral value. That's the problem. The fact is that I'm agreeing with you that there has been a demonization that we need to get our hands around in the way in which people are doing this understanding. So you agree that we're demonizing kids? We're demonizing white people for being born. And are some of our students white people? What? Are some of our students white people for being born. And are some of our students,

white people, but are some of our students, white people? Yes. Okay. So we're demonizing white. We're demonizing white kids. Why don't you just say it?

We are using language that makes them feel less than, um, for nothing that they are personally responsible for. Shame on him. Shame on him for letting that happen. I have to tell you, Paul, I'm infuriated when I listen to that. He can blame it on the board. He can blame it on the faculty. He can try to blame it on the movement, the culture. I don't care. He's the head of school. And he knew, he admitted to you on tape that they are demonizing children at that school, white children, for being born. And he understands that it's making them feel less than.

In an age when the teenage suicide rate is climbing, it's now the second leading cause of death among kids between the ages of 15 and 19, especially in this pandemic year. And he sat by, let it happen. And then when you called him out publicly on it, lied. I realize he already said he's leaving that school. He said it in January. He should be fired immediately. He said it in January. Um, he should be fired immediately. He should be fired. He should not be allowed to walk out of that school

with his head held high. He should be ashamed. Well, I agree with you. Um, and I think that I'm more of an, I I'm, I'm more of an anthropologist or, you know, I like ideas. So I think about what this means. You know this term between a rock and a hard place? Okay. Well, this is like the same, but also opposite. So imagine being pulled in two different directions by two different constituencies and needing both of them to get along. So, so much that you say one thing to one side and one thing to the other, and then it

reaches a point where you, where you're, if you're exposed that the thing that you say to one side is not what you believe or the other side, what happens is you, you really just get pulled in half. And these independent schools run, you know, on as this sort of engine, right? So you have different constituencies, you have under-resourced kids and the parents of those kids, and then you have, you know, wealthy donors and other kids and parents. And in order for the whole engine to move forward, you have to sort of have things to offer, right? So for the, you know, for the wealthier families, you get exposure to diversity and different things and they get out of their wealthy bubble. And then for the under-resourced families and kids, they get

opportunities and social capital and, you know, and colleges that offer great educations as they move on. But for that whole engine to function, there are cultural issues. There are differences. And so this sort of outrageous, what sounds like outrageousness, this anti-racism is sort of just a way for the institution to get, to just keep moving. And I think that it is, it is, you know, it's just breaking down to the point where it's going to fly apart because, you know, you cannot, you cannot have unity within a culture that doesn't treat people as equals. You just can't do it.

It won't work. It'll break down. And that's a microcosm of our country. I look at the things that I went through at Grace as being a microcosm of our country. And we must break out of this racial madness. We must understand that we have so much in common at the spiritual level and at the individual level, and we are all God's children, essentially. And we have to proceed according to universal principles of humanity and dignity. Yeah. Yes. And not wide swath assumptions,

always pejorative in this case, about people based on skin color. It's something we've been fighting for most of our history to stop. And it doesn't make it any better because the, generally the way it works is the board of trustees goes around and raises the money, gets money from people to donate to the school and the administration. They're the ones who set the agenda, the academic agenda. But this board of trustees is on notice. You've come out in a very public way now. He's on tape admitting their approach. And forgive me, this is me. This isn't you, but I am going to name them. I want this board of trustees to be held accountable for what's happening here, not just at Grace Church, but at all the schools. So I am talking to you, Chair Olivia Douglas, Vice Chair Ann Mello, Treasurer Tom Janess, Secretary Karen Greenfield Sanders, and there's just a few more who need to be named. There's our old pal Jim Best, the guy who just got bounced out of Dalton as head of school for doing exactly the same stuff,

going way too far in this crazy anti-racism program, which is, of course, is a misnomer because it's a very racist agenda. Kirby Chin, Carolina Esquinazi-Shio, Donna Garbin, Greg Gushy, David Heller, Eugene Kim, George Majoros, Renee Noel, Naomi Nwosu-Stewart, Folek Olodgunja, Camille Orme, Dominique Schulte, Barbara Sibley, Jason Slybeck, Eric Sorensen, Valerie Toscano, Felicia Washington, Melanie Weston, Kenji Yoshino. I'm looking at all of you. You're now on notice that actual racial discrimination is happening in your school based on skin pigmentation and students are being made to feel less than in the middle of a suicide crisis amongst teens. What are you going to do about it? I'm just, I don't understand, Paul. I understand people don't want to be called racist. They want to be supportive.

They want to be, quote, allies. When it's at this point, everyone has to stand up. The time for polite silence is over. Well said. Well said. So what's going to happen? Are others going to follow? Have you heard from any teachers at Grace Church or elsewhere who are thinking about

following in your footsteps? Well, I set up an email, and Fair helped me set it up, teachingfortruth at gmail.com. And I've received, I think at this point, over a thousand emails from around the country. People who have told me so many stories about what they're going through. And it's in many instances worse than what I'm going through. I'm a normal, regular guy. I'm a normal, regular guy. I'm a math teacher. I don't have as much to lose as some other people. I don't have kids, but anybody can do it. Anybody can stand up and in whatever small way you have,

listen to and prioritize the thing inside yourself that's telling you this is wrong and act on it. That is the place where I drew my strength. It was something within me that had been trying to get my attention for years. And I would think about it and I would think about it and ruminate about it, but what it really wanted, it didn't want me to, it didn't want me to agree with it. It wanted me to do something about it. It wasn't just satisfied with me saying, oh yeah, that's true. That's true. And I could think all kinds of ideas. It wanted me to, to do something about it, to, to, to, to stand up, you know, in some way. And anyone can do it. Anyone can do it in a way that makes sense for you. We have a duty to the truth

and we have a duty to our families and how you balance that out is up to you, but try to balance it and you might be surprised and you will get stronger the more you listen to the truth and you act on truth. Well, I don't think it's any accident that now we've seen Andrew Gutman, the parent at Brearley, which is one of the most elite all-girl schools, one of the most elite schools in the country, never mind all-girl schools, speak out. He's a parent saying, this has got to stop.

Same thing, saying, we no longer believe that you have our children's best interests at heart, any of them, and that the obsession with race must stop. It has to stop. And in his case, the head of school responded, I think, similarly to the way Davison first responded to you. Her name is Jane Freed. She's a complete coward who basically just called his letter deeply offensive and harmful and promised to double down, promised to double down and then played the old, everyone's afraid now. They're afraid of Gutman. They felt frightened and intimidated by his letter same way as it was like we need school-wide

meetings on paul and his crazy talk about how he feels as an individual this is what they try to do you you've made them feel unsafe with your offensive and harmful language as opposed to saying words are how we identify and solve problems. And a difference of opinions is as American as apple pie. Group think is what the Chinese do. It's not what America does, right? The People's Republic of China makes you not say the certain things that they don't want said. That's not what we do here.

You can go live in North Korea if you want to live like that. But I do think Gutman speaking out, I think it's very encouraging that Dalton booted the head Jim Best of school. They can say all they want that he left voluntarily. That guy got booted out because he went too far. Now the head of Grace Church is going, not because of this, but we'll see what they replace him with. But these schools are on notice now.

They're on notice. And the more people who follow your lead and the lead of Andrew Gutman, you know, the parent who pulled his kids from Brearley, the better off we'll be, the stronger we're going to get in this fight in which a very short time ago, we had nothing. We had no one. We just had scared parents. Scared. Yeah. And then scared kids. I mean, I want to say something to the students, to my students and to students all around the country. One of the things I want to work on at FAIR is a student guide, and there's a student who's come forward to help me with that,

to help students take a stand in their classes or to take a stand in their papers or to write from their conscience and to back it up with scholarship and facts and all those things. But to never compromise your thinking for yourself about things that are so important to the world because we need to have a diversity of views. We need to have a diversity of opinions. That's how we progress as a country. That is a great necessity. And so, you know, I think that having some support through FAIR to do that is really important. And that way, that'll give strength to students. Well, and just to underscore the organization,

because I love FAIR and I'm on the advisory board, you've mentioned it a couple of times. So FAIR stands for Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. And if you want to check it out, go to fairforall.org, fairforall.org. That's the organization that Paul and I are talking about. And we're trying to make this into kind of what the ACLU used to be, an organization that actually does fight for civil liberties, irrespective of political position, right? Irrespective of political correctness, the ACLU used to stand up for the right of even white supremacists to go out there and say all the crazy stuff they want to say. The crazies at the Westboro Baptist Church to go out there and say all the crazy stuff they want to say. Why? Because

this is America. That's why. Not because they agreed with any of it, because this is America. And FAIR is focusing on education in particular as well, which is obviously sort of ground zero in this bite right now. So what does this mean for you? So, I mean, I'm sad that you don't get to teach math. I'm sad that this, I don't know, that this soft place to fall inside the Grace Church community is now gone, effectively gone and not going back. So what's next for you professionally and personally? Well, you know, I think, you know, the way I got into teaching math was through tutoring. And I had been tutoring, you know, my background was in the humanities in college. And I always loved math in high school, but I came back to it in tutoring for standardized tests and tutoring for enrichment. And so it's, it's, it's so wonderful

to, I've started doing it again to tutor with, you know, working with the kid one-on-one and you really can understand how they think and you can help, you know, almost in a mentorship kind of way. And that's, that's, that I think could be very rewarding. And, you know, there, there have been offers coming in from schools. I will say this to teachers. If you stand up for this, um, you know, I, there, there's a school in Coral Gables that wants, you know, to hire me. There's schools that, that are reaching out to me now. So, um, wonderful, you know, things, things will happen when you, you know, when you act in accordance with your deepest beliefs. And I think, I don't know whether it's like the universe or what, but you know, I think as you grow stronger,

um, good things happen. So you, so, you know, and also you may lose friends, but you will make better ones, you know, because it settles where it's supposed to settle. It, it, it's almost like a cleansing, you know, it. It cleanses you of this veneer of people you thought were in your corner and replaces them with people who actually are. They don't have to agree with you on everything. They just have to agree with you on certain foundational principles like free speech and the ability to disagree, even if you are disagreeable at times, the ability to disagree and still go on in an adult respectful relationship. And certainly in the case of education, the respect for students and the unwillingness to demonize whole groups of them based on things well beyond their control. Yeah, absolutely. And it's fun. It becomes fun to disagree with people that you share the same foundational principles with, because then, then it's like, it's almost like, uh, there's a camaraderie and indifference, you know, and you can, you can see each other's differences and respect those because you know that you share those foundational principles and that you, you would have each other's back if anybody challenged those things and tried to

take them away from you. But what a But it's such a loss for Grace Church. But I have to say, so I feel about Andrew Gutman, who wrote the letter after pulling his child from Brearley, and you with your barn burner letter while still at Grace Church, now on your way out. I did the similar thing after pulling my kids from the New York City privates, which is, it's not enough to get out. You know, you've got to remember those behind you, right?

So it's like, that was the reason I spoke out after pulling my kids. I got them out. I got them to what I consider safety. I really feel like I protected my kids. That's really why they're gone out of those schools. You did the right thing, for sure. And now we do, but we do have an obligation to worry about the kids who are still there, still being hurt. Kids who completely want to be supportive of diversity and positive race relations and a totally realistic assessment of our country's

history and the sins of the past and the sins of the present and the fact that we haven't solved racism, but don't want to do any of that by just creating more racism, right? And creating more division and breeding little racists. That's what's going to happen if these lessons continue to stand. That's the thing that really scares me. Yeah. I don't understand how you can be anti-racist, but also pro-race. Like, you know, I understand like people, like, how does that work? Like if you, if you constantly are so aware of race, what, at what moment is it going to come when you, you, you actually come to terms

and it all flips upside down and now suddenly race is as meaningless as eye color, which I think is actually the only sane way to future that makes sense is to dismantle, actually yes, dismantle this folk taxonomy that race is, you know, which, you know, there's hundreds of ethnicities of white people, hundreds of ethnicities of black people, and they vary, you know, within more than they do between. And so we know that race is a social construct and really, you know, a falsehood, ultimately. So how do you get there when you're constantly being you know pro-racializing and pro-reifying you know this fundamental delusion that people have i mean you can't it's staying in the cult you can't you can't get out of the scientology cult you know by by continuing to label people

suppressive people and relying on the thetans and doing the sessions with the Campbell soup cans. And so you're like, you've got to take a step away from the cult. I don't know what that is, but I don't want to know. I don't think I want to know. It's a thing.

Wait, I want to ask you before I let you go. I do. I'm interested in how you got to be this way. Cause I do think whatever moral code was imprinted on you made you one of the ones who said, no, no, I'm going to stand up. I'm not, I do think whatever moral code was imprinted on you made you one of the ones who said, no, no, I'm going to stand up.

I'm not going to have the regrets that Douglas Murray talks about. So is it a religious code? Where are you from? And just give me a feeling for your background. I grew up in Ithaca, New York, and my father- That's why I like you. Yes, I'm from Syracuse and Albany. Oh, yeah. Great. My father was a law professor at Cornell University. He taught evidence and civil procedure since, I believe, 1968. And I think he retired, I'm not exactly sure, but maybe seven, eight years ago now, perhaps a little bit longer. And, you know, he always was a true civil libertarian. He was, and, you know, to this day, he was a fierce liberal

in, you know, the age of Kennedy, and he was a Reagan Democrat, and then he became a conservative in his later years. But, but, you know, the first amendment, uh, and sort of not just the legal quality of it, but the social good that comes of it is he is a fierce defender of it. And he always, he always, he really did transplant those values to me. And, you know, I've tried to, I've tried to nurture the, you know, that in myself. And, and, you know, I think he, he, he taught me how to write. He, he taught me how to question. He taught me really how to think for myself. And I'm, I'm just eternally grateful to, to have him as a father. And he still gives lectures at 88. He's, he's in a assisted living facility and he gives lectures to, to, um, the P and he's, and he's, you know, people really love him there. And, uh, he, he actually gave a, he gave a speech about,

you mentioned the Skokie trial. He's about to give a speech about the, uh, the Skokie trial. That's amazing. He's got to put it on zoom so Skokie trial. That's amazing. He's got to put it on Zoom so we can all see it. You're not the only one grateful to him. Yeah, I've been trying to get him set up. And he's like, no, no, I just like a room. I just want to talk to the room. So yeah, he's an old school teacher, I think, which is he really valued teaching in a world that became more and more about publishing.

And so, you know, that he's also a big reason why I think I really enjoy teaching. Yeah. Well, I mean, growing up in upstate New York and Syracuse and Ithaca or more western New York. But I do think I've always said this, but I think that it's sort of similar to growing up in the Midwest. You have a sensibility about you, about life that I find very appealing. I think most people in those categories also have a connection with nature that is important. Like when you grew up surrounded by trees and in Ithaca, the gorges, and you just water and fresh air and time outside under the moon, under the stars, under the sun. It's just, it makes you smaller in a good way. It makes, you know, you appreciate your time here in an important way. And I don't think it's any accident you're from Ithaca and had that dad wound up choosing the course you just chose. Yeah, maybe so. I used to love the woods. I was a kid that used to play in the woods with the neighbor kids.

And we had, you know, we used to have these big rusty iron bars and we would play army and we would just, you know, smash each other with them, uh, get, you know, just for fun, um, play, play nights. And, you know, it was, it was a wonderful childhood, you know, in these, in these woods, um, where, you know, it was, it was sort of the last, I think the last time when, you know, the kids would play together, you know, after school and then they would go home for dinner, but they were unsupervised. I mean, we were essentially unsupervised. Yeah. And, you know, having the freedom to, to work out our differences, you know, and to sort of a little bit rough and tumble. I, I, I'm sad. I mean, I'm grateful to have grown up then, but I'm sad that a lot of kids don't have that today. Yeah.

Well, it is one of the, one of the side effects of me pulling the kids, Doug and I pulling our kids from the New York City schools is we're going to move to the Burbs and our kids are going to get a childhood like that. I'm happy for it too. The woods is, I can relate to that. I spent a lot of my time in the woods too. And I can't wait until they play games like the ones you just outlined instead of Dodge the Rat, which became a thing here in New York City over the pandemic.

Yeah, right. Gosh. No one wants to play Dodge the Rat. I know it sounds kind of fun, actually. But you can get really good at it with the streets empty. Yeah. Listen, I'm so grateful to you for speaking out in every way and for speaking to me and our audience and rooting for you and looking forward to working with you at FAIR. Likewise, Megan. Thanks so much for having me. Our thanks again to Paul Rossi for today. I want to tell you that on Monday, we have a great show. We were going to air it this week, but we postponed it because the Chauvin Vert came out. We wanted to get you a reaction on that, but it's such a good show and it's on climate change. And what I think you're going to love about this

is this is one of those areas where I just haven't been that studied. You know, I just, I'm not as well as, I'm not as well informed as I should be. And I kind of think sometimes that's a benefit to the audience. Because if you are in the place I was before we did this interview, you're going to leave being like, oh, okay, I get it. And I don't feel alarmist about it. But I did learn and I understand the options better. And our guest is amazing. Walks you through it really clearly.

He authored the book Apocalypse Never. Really cool character. Very well respected. So anyway, we're going to get into it on Monday. I think you're going to feel again, you know, like we say in the Kelly file, like cool water over a hot brain when you're done with that hour.

I promise you, you will. I know you're going to like the show. So anyway, go ahead and subscribe, download. Give me five stars. That apparently helps me somehow. I don't know. But Apple and its formula, you should see they give all this free promotion to like Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Megyn Kelly, zero.

Our ratings on Apple, which do help the show like get more circulation, are all based on you, based on like reviews and ratings. So we do appreciate it. And screw Apple. We have to use them, but we don't have to like them. They don't appear to feel particularly generous toward us. Anyway, that's where you guys come in. Go ahead and give us a good review. I am reading them and a five-star rating would be awesome. In the meantime, have a great week. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in

collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.