NYC public school educators allegedly told to favor black students over whites — in name of 'racial equity'

New York City's public school educators allegedly have been instructed to focus on black students over whites as part of "racial equity," the New York Post reported.

"If I had a poor white male student, and I had a middle-class black boy, I would actually put my equitable strategies and interventions into that middle-class black boy because over the course of his lifetime he will have less access and less opportunities than that poor white boy," a consultant hired by the city Department of Education told administrators at a workshop, the paper said, citing accounts of those in room.

"That's what racial equity is," Darnisa Amante, the consultant in question, added, according to the Post.

How did the president of the NYC Parents Union react?

Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union — and who is black — told the paper she's appalled by the alleged purpose of "racial equity" told to educators.

"It's completely absurd — they want to treat black students as victims and punish white students," Davids added to the Post. "That defeats the purpose of what bias awareness training should be."

What did the department of education have to say?

The paper said DOE spokesman Will Mantell wouldn't indicate if Chancellor Richard Carranza supports Amante's alleged statements.

"Anti-bias and equity trainings are about creating high expectations and improving outcomes for all of our students," Mantell added to the Post in a statement. "These trainings are used across the country because they help kids, and out-of-context quotes and anonymous allegations just distract from this important work."

More from the paper:

Amante, a lecturer at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, is CEO of Disruptive Equity Education Project, or DEEP, a group aimed at "dismantling systemic oppression and racism," it says. She did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The DOE's Office of Equity and Access has contracted DEEP for $175,000. Another anti-bias consultant, Glenn Singleton, the author of "Courageous Conversations," which includes a critique of the "white supremacy culture," has a $775,000 contract.

Disruptive Equity Education Project (DEEP) Promotion Videoyoutu.be

What else?

The Post also said the department's $23 million, mandatory anti-bias training has "irked some administrators, teachers and parents who contend parts are ugly and divisive" — including four white female DOE executives demoted under Carranza's new regime who intend to sue the city for racial discrimination, claiming whiteness has become "toxic."

More from the paper:

At a monthly superintendents meeting in the spring of 2018, shortly after Carranza's arrival, members were asked to share answers to the question: "What lived experience inspires you as a leader to fight for equity?"

One Jewish superintendent shared stories about her grandmother Malka who told of bombs falling in Lodz, Poland, and running from the Nazis in the wee hours by packing up her four children and hiding in the forest, and her grandfather Naftali, who spent nearly six years in a labor and concentration camp, where he witnessed the brutal execution of his mother and sister.

"My grandparents taught me to understand the dangers of 'targeted racism' or the exclusion of any group, and the importance of equity for all people. This is my core value as an educator," the superintendent told colleagues, according to the paper. "At the break, I stood up and, to my surprise, I was verbally attacked by a black superintendent in front of my colleagues. She said, 'This is not about being Jewish! It's about black and brown boys of color only. You better check yourself.'"

The Jewish superintendent also told the Post that "I was traumatized. It was like 1939 all over again. I couldn't believe this could happen to me in NYC!"

Two other superintendents — one black and one Dominican — defended the Holocaust comments as valid and vouched for their colleague as one who fights to level the playing field for all students, the paper said.

And a Manhattan middle-school teacher with her own children in public schools called the the DOE training "a catalyst for hate and division" and recoiled at training phrases like "replacement thinking" and the disdain for "whiteness," the Post reported.

"My ancestors were enslaved and murdered because of their religion, I am now being forced to become 'liberated' from my whiteness," the teacher told the paper. "I am being persecuted because of the circumstances of my birth. I was not aware that I needed to be liberated from how God created me."

The teacher added to the paper that despite the chancellor's insistence that those who complain about the training need it the most, "I will never be brainwashed by Richard Carranza and his minions. I cannot support a schools chancellor who is implicitly biased against me and my children."