Who is Andrew Gutmann? NY dad says parents must fight critical race theory, pulls daughter from school
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A New York father pulled his daughter out from private school because of their critical race theory curriculum and then wrote a letter explaining why. This letter has now gone viral resulting in the father receiving responses from fellow parents which he shared with Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on Wednesday, May 26.
This father, in the conversation, said, "It's been crazy. My life changed after I sent that letter. I never expected it to be read from anybody other than the parents of my daughter's school and it got read by the whole world."
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Who is Andrew Gutmann?
Andrew Gutmann, the father who was overwhelmed with the kind of response he received for his letter regarding critical race theory curriculum in private schools said, "I have gotten thousands and thousands of emails to me and in one sense they've been overwhelmingly supportive, which is great. People have said they feel now empowered to speak up for their kids and their kids' education."
Gutmann is an investment banker who was shocked to see some of the changes made to The Brearley School’s admission process. Gutmann in the letter explained that his daughter had been going to this school since she was in kindergarten but the new changes pushed him to pull her from the school. According to reports, the school now asks that at least one parent/guardian must participate in "required anti-racist training and ongoing reflection."
The application also asks that it requires parents to "share how your family values align with the School’s commitment." The school's annual fee is reported to be around $54,000 a year. His letter of condemnation blames the school for its "obsession with race." This letter was also shared by former Wall Street Journal and New York Times editor Bari Weiss, posted on her blog.
Gutmann had said, "These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners." Since the letter has gone viral, Gutmann has found that many other parents also find themselves in a situation similar to his.
He added, "The flip side of that is I had no idea how entrenched and pervasive this critical race theory and anti-racism initiatives were in schools across the country. I knew it was in New York and California. I had no idea it was in public, private, religious schools in all 50 states. That's really the scary part. We really need to fight this to get it out of our schools."
Hemmer showed Gutmann a clip of a white woman declaring herself racist despite not wanting to be one during a Zoom discussion. When asked his opinion regarding the same, Gutmann said, "Well, she is using this view that this white fragility, this white supremacist view that everybody is racist and this is the founding doctrines of our country which I think is ridiculous."
He further adds, "The founding doctrines of our country are ones of freedom of speech without fear, which we've lost. Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, the Marxist concept. This is what we're teaching to kids as young as five years old and they're coming home to their parents saying how could you have raised me so racist. This will destroy this country and we'll fracture and have ethnic strife if we don't reverse it."
Gutmann added, "There has been enormous media coverage to this issue the last five or six weeks which is good. I think we're at the very beginning stages of this. It is moving so quickly in our schools and public schools' curriculums throughout the country. I think we need to fight this at all different levels but we really need to fight this. This is really dangerous."