“New Trier High School Led On Woke Education. It Should Lead The Way Out”
February 28. It’s probably coincidence, but remarkably so.
That date eight years ago marked the beginning of the backlash against school practices and policies that, today, go widely under the label of “DEI” – diversity, equity and inclusion. That was Seminar Day at New Trier High School in north suburban Chicago.
This February 28 marks the culmination of that backlash. It’s the Department of Education’s announced deadline for schools of any kind to put a firm end to DEI.
It’s not, however, the legal aspect of the federal government’s mandate that should matter, important as that is. Instead, willing compliance with the spirit of the new policy is simply the right thing to do, and there are reasons why New Trier should lead the way. Seminar Day pioneered the misguided and divisive approach to “social justice” issues now ridiculed as “woke.” Its critics were right then and their warnings came to pass. America ultimately agreed and rejected wokeness in schools and elsewhere, contributing in no small part to November’s election results.
Seminar Day was a mandatory, all-day event with the stated goal of “understanding today’s struggle for racial civil rights.” But the problem, from its critics’ perspectives, was that the agenda was brazenly one-sided, divisive, and radically that of the political left. Understanding civil rights, according to Seminar Day’s teachings, meant force-fed dogma of propositions that are now mostly rejected, such as all whites are oppressors and all blacks victims, micro-aggressions exist everywhere, America is systemically racist and white supremacists are lurking around every corner.
