Teacher Dana Stangel-Plowe has resigned from Dwight-Englewood School as a matter of principle. It’s becoming a recurring sad story. A dedicated teacher shouldn’t have to give up her job of seven years (or potentially, career) to protect students from being steeped in poisonous ideology. Here is an excerpt from Stangel-Plowe’s resignation note:

During a recent faculty meeting, teachers were segregated by skin color. Teachers who had light skin were placed into a “white caucus” group and asked to “remember” that we are “White” and “to take responsibility for [our] power and privilege.” D-E’s racial segregation of educators, aimed at leading us to rethink of ourselves as oppressors, was regressive and demeaning to us as individuals with our own moral compass and human agency. Will the school force racial segregation on our students next?

I reject D-E’s essentialist, racialist thinking about myself, my colleagues, and my students. As a humanist educator, I strive to create an inclusive classroom by embracing the dignity and unique personality of each and every student; I want to empower all students with the skills and habits of mind that they need to fulfill their potential as learners and human beings. Neither the color of my skin nor the“group identity” assigned to me by D-E dictates my humanist beliefs or my work as an educator. Being told that it does is offensive and wrong, and it violates my dignity as a human being. My conscience does not have a color.

D-E claims that we teach students how to think, not what to think. But sadly, that is just no longer true. I hope administrators and board members awaken in time to prevent this misguided and absolutist ideology from hollowing out D-E, as it has already hollowed out so many other institutions.

Stangel-Plowe has also offered this video explaining her concerns.