Whiteness has become “toxic” under schools Chancellor Richard Carranza’s regime, insiders charge.
At least four top Department of Education executives who have been demoted or stripped of duties under Carranza’s sweeping reorganization are poised to sue the city, claiming he has created “an environment which is hostile toward whites,” a source told The Post.
The women — all white, veteran administrators — contend they were pushed aside for less qualified persons of color.
“These decisions are being made because DOE leadership believes that skin color plays a role in how to get equity — that white people can’t convey the message,” said a source familiar with the complaints.
“There’s a toxic whiteness concept going on.”
Davida Perry, managing partner of Schwartz Perry & Heller, a law firm focusing on employment discrimination and sex harassment cases, represents the women. She declined to comment pending the filing of the suit, which is expected within two weeks.
Under Carranza’s leadership, sources said, whites, in some cases, are being told they must give up power or lose responsibilities no matter how well they have performed.
More than a dozen high-ranking superintendents and deputies who had served under ex-Chancellor Carmen Fariña have been demoted — some with large pay cuts — or pushed into retirement, sources said. Others have lesser duties and new bosses.
“Since Carranza took office, he’s brought in a lot of new people. As a result, it’s been bureaucratic chaos and backbiting, with deputies and their subordinates seeking better perches in the pecking order,” said David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor.
“Racial tensions appear to be one manifestation of these internal battles.”
Meanwhile, the DOE has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants to coach supervisors on how to “disrupt the power structure and dismantle institutional racism,” a supervisor said.
“There’s been a lot of discussion of white supremacy and how it manifests in the workplace, conversations about race, and looking at how the white culture behaves,” said a white executive who received the training.
“White supremacy is characterized by perfectionism, a belief in meritocracy, and the Protestant work ethic,” the exec said, adding that whites who object when accused of deep-rooted bias are called “fragile” and “defensive.”
“Can you imagine if we scrutinized blackness or brownness? We’re being trained in anti-bias not to stereotype blacks, but they’re fostering a stereotyping of whites.”
Besides the four administrators who have signed up to sue the city, others may file Equal Employment Opportunity discrimination complaints, insiders said.
Several of the women work in Carranza’s new School Climate and Wellness division led by his appointee, deputy chancellor LaShawn Robinson.
That division includes the Office of Equity and Access, led by senior executive director Ruby Ababio-Fernandez, appointed by Robinson. Both women are African-American.
The office has adopted “Courageous Conversation,” a protocol for training on racism in the workplace founded by Glenn Singleton, the president of Pacific Educational Group Inc.
The DOE has contracted the company for $775,000 in services, paying $582,603 to date, records compiled by the City Comptroller show.
Singleton’s protocol defines racism as: “Any act that even unwittingly tolerates, accepts or reinforces racially unequal opportunities or outcomes for children to learn and thrive.”
“Whiteness” is defined as: “The component of each and every one of ourselves that expects assimilation to the dominant culture.”
The outline states, “It is not talking about these issues that create divisiveness. The divisiveness already exists in the society and in our schools. It is through dialogue, even when uncomfortable, the healing and change begin.”
Another consultant hired by the office is Darnisa Amante, CEO and founder of Disruptive Equity Education Project, or DEEP. The DOE has contracted the outfit for $175,000, paying $54,200 so far, records show.
“We work together to change mindsets around equity and dismantling systemic oppression and racism,” Amante is quoted on the DEEP website.
“They’ve trained people in these approaches — interrogating whiteness, examining its relationship to power and privilege,” said the DOE exec who had training.
“The intent is to create a shared understanding. They believe this is positive and helpful. But it’s resulted in a hostile environment where whites are subject to being criticized, belittled and harassed. It’s divisive, and has fostered disharmony.”
Bloomfield, the professor, called the efforts a minefield. “Anti-bias training often exposes these tensions, but in some cases leaders have not been adept at handling the raw feelings.”
Carranza announced a DOE restructuring last June, several months after he moved to NYC from Houston, where he was schools chief. He created a new bureaucratic layer of nine “executive superintendents” who cost at least $2.5 million a year in salary and benefits.
Carranza also ousted or reassigned several executives, both white and black, for performance issues. However, some who retired had stellar records. Bonnie Laboy, the 53-year-old superintendent of District 2 in Manhattan, led many of the city’s highest-performing schools. She now works as a consultant in New Jersey.
District 2 is a bastion of affluence with selective schools that admit fewer black and Hispanic kids. Carranza has blasted the “screens” as “segregating our schools.” The district has a modest diversity plan that sets aside up to 17 percent of seats in three top middle schools for kids from poor families.
“She knows it’s going to be really, really ugly,” said Shino Tanikawa, a District 2 parent leader and member of the DOE’s School Diversity Advisory Group. “I think she decided it’s not what she signed up to do.”
Laboy could not be reached for comment.
The DOE dismissed complaints that it has discriminated against whites.
“We hire the right people to get the job done for kids and families, and any claim of ‘reverse racism’ has no basis in fact,” said spokesman Will Mantell. “We’ll continue to foster a supportive environment for all our employees.”
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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