An elite private school in Ohio refuses to share copies of its race-based curriculum with parents, even as students were subjected to a“civil disobedience” walkout orchestrated by the school’s top leadership.
For the price of $30,000 per year, students at Columbus Academy (CA) are being taught left-wing political opinions as fact, according to parents at the school. The school — like other elite institutions across the nation — has allegedly opted to teach “anti-racism” and “critical race theory” in the classroom.
Andrea Gross and Amy Gonzalez are two parents spearheading a coalition to push back on what they call the school’s “intimidation and bullying” campaign against students and parents with non-progressive views. In an open letter to the school, Gross and Gonzalez — on behalf of 160 parents, students, alumni, and faculty with differing political views — presented evidence that the school has been intolerant towards people that view “anti-racism” and “critical race theory” as a form of racism.
The duo created the organization “Pro-CA Coalition” in hopes of standing up against the newfound racism that has sneaked into their children’s health, science, and English classes.
“Unfortunately, we believe that CA leadership has failed to address diversity and inclusion for all CA community members, which has led to intimidation and bullying of our students and community members based on political ideologies,” the letter from the Pro-CA Coalition reads.
In an interview with The Daily Wire, Gross and Gonzalez said that there has been a fundamental shift from the school’s core value from “academic excellence” to “woke supremacy.”
“Instead of keeping our core mission as academic excellence, they really invited social justice into our school more blatantly,” Gonzalez told The Daily Wire. Their parent group has documented a slew of incidents that they believe are inappropriate, though tolerated, at Columbus Academy.
Columbus Academy denies that it teaches “critical race theory.”
According to a statement from a high school freshman, on the first day of the 2020-21 school year, an English teacher informed his class that if any students supported President Donald Trump, he would prefer not to know because he did not believe he would be able to speak with them.
Parents claim the intolerance came to a head on January 15, when the high school’s Dean of Students, Head of School for Student Outreach, and Director of Diversity and Community Life hosted a “civil disobedience” walkout for students. Students were asked to leave their classrooms and come to the gymnasium to participate in a “Black Empowerment” tribute.
Students were shown multiple “video interruptions” in the middle of class, encouraging them to leave their classrooms without their teachers’ permission. According to statements from Columbus Academy high schoolers, students were called “racist” by their peers if they “did not get to the gym fast enough” or come during the first “video interruption.” One student recalled being dubbed a “racist” next to a faculty member who said nothing about the name-calling.
The school claims that the exercise was intended to be a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., though the walkout was more focused on Malcolm X, the idea of “Black Empowerment,” and the slogan “Silence is Violence.”
In a since-deleted Instagram post, Columbus Academy leadership can be heard explaining the walkout to students.
Watching a video is easy, making change is not. Progress is uncomfortable. Now, we are going to ask you to do something that will make you uncomfortable. If you want to learn about real civil disobedience, stand up and leave your classroom. Do not look to your teacher for an answer. Make your own decision. If you prefer to stay where you are, remain seated and the video will continue.
On your way down we suggest you think about why you didn’t come after our first interruption.
Some parents were upset that students and staff ignored COVID-19 protocols and congregated in the school’s gym for the walkout.
The indoctrination is not specific to Columbus Academy’s high school. According to one parent, first-graders at the elite institution were asked to stand in a circle and declare who they would vote for in the 2020 presidential election.
Elementary students are also being taught in health class that there are 80-plus genders. One gender that the school highlights is “lunagender,” which is defined as a fluid gender identity that changes with the moon.
The school has posted pictures of animals identifying with different sexual identities in the elementary school hallways. One sign shows a “pansexuwhale,” which is a whale that is attracted to whales of all genders. Other animals include the “transgendeer” and the “asexuwhale.”
Parents have raised questions with Academy leadership and gotten minimal response. Parents have specifically requested copies of materials being used to teach about racism and the school has refused to provide any information, Gross and Gonzalez said.
The Pro-CA Coalition believes that parents should be informed of the specific materials, books, exercises, videos, and speakers that are being used to address racism in the classroom.
On October 20, in what the Pro-CA Coalition believes to be a response to their activism, students were issued a survey asking if they felt the school was “highly, somewhat or not at all” biased towards Democrats or Republicans. The school never released the results. Parents believe the results were likely damning and showcased that students felt intimidated by the school’s left-leaning culture.
“The anonymous October 20 survey was a student-driven academic exercise in the high school math and history classes, with questions about the political climate viewed through statistical analysis,” Columbus Academy told The Daily Wire. The school declined to share the results.
Gross and Gonzalez have received intense backlash for speaking out against the school. The high school daughter of a fifth-grade teacher at Columbus Academy posted a TikTok telling the Pro-CA Coalition parents to “suck [her] fat f—king horse c—k.”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to know about it, so I don’t know what I can and cannot say, but if you seriously don’t like that Columbus Academy is a more left-leaning school just send your f—king kids to another school,” the Columbus Academy student said. “Liberal views that are being ‘pushed’ aren’t harming anyone or making anyone feel unsafe. But, the more conservative, or dare I say Trumpy views were being pushed, people would feel f—king unsafe. If you’re a parent and you’re in the pro-CA thing, suck my fat f—king horse c—k.”