Harvard-Westlake is a 7th-12th grade school. If you don't think the climate at a school can change significantly in that time, I'd say you're mistaken.

If it takes 6 years to change, there is plenty of time to move them somewhere else.

Funny stuff.

I wonder what the reception would be if poor urban students were afraid to speak up in class and their parents were afraid to register complaints about their schools.

My guess is that the response would be much different.

Presuming these poor, urban students aren’t enrolled in pricey private schools the response should be much different.

Well the opposite is true as well. They're paying $50k to send their kids somewhere, they should get a say in how those schools are run. They're the customer. They have every right to complain about the product they're paying for, and to try to get it the way they want it.

Sure, they could complain to the school. But that is not what we are talking about.

If you don't like the coffee at your Rolls Royce dealership, complain to the dealership, but I am going to laugh at you if you whine to some opinion writer. If the dealership doesn't listen to you, take your business elsewhere. They must living in some crazy bubble if they think anyone outside that school give a flying fuck about what these people are spending their money on.

If you don’t like the coffee at the Rolls dealership, and you complain, you’re not going to be blacklisted from all the other car dealerships, and potentially all your social circles, and your kids’ social circles.

Haha, yes changing your kids school is going to get you blacklisted. That is something that will happen.


I find if really hilarious that an author actually writes this:

"So it strikes them as something more than ironic that a school that costs more than $40,000 a year—a school with Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right hand, and Sarah Murdoch, wife of Lachlan and Rupert’s daughter-in-law, on its board—is teaching students that capitalism is evil."

How do you write that and not think, "Surely these people are telling me the truth and not just what fits my ideology." It is not Barri Weiss was just caught repeating some ridiculous claims that she published, because they fit her ideology less than a week ago! Barri Weiss just takes these claims as true without any thought or research. I will admit, maybe this librarian is an amazing rapper, but I think the librarian's colleague was correct that a rap was not the best way to present the library to incoming freshmen and that someone telling her that should not be traumatic. They probably saved her from a more traumatic experience of the reaction to a middle age librarian rapping for college freshmen. Also Barri Weiss should have contacted the school to see what was true before she repeated this librarians claims.

I don't know if you know this, but parents lots of parents are fucking nutjobs with regards to their children's schooling, parents sending their kids to 50k a year schools doubly so. I can't emphasize enough how crazy parents are in this environment. What they say should be taken with a heavy heavy dose of salt.

Also, you really should talk to high school teachers about how effective they are at getting their students to retain basic information, let alone indoctrinate them. I went to a fancy private school and was in the track with some very good teachers, and even they had a hard time getting everyone to understand some basic concepts.

I think the probability these parents are nutjobs is much higher than this school is indoctrinating these kids that capitalism is evil. I would not be shocked that these not very diverse fancy private school are going to be very clumsy when trying to tell kids they live in a very isolated bubble (because of course they can't leave the bubble, that would be crazy), but I think it is probably worse to not try at all.

You know who went to Harvard Westlake? Nixon's Chief of staff. He also went to prison. The editor in Chief of Breibart went to Harvard Westlake as did Trump's White Nationalist Deputy communication director.

So much for the "kriegsphilosophie of wokeness "

It's a fairly recent phenomenon there. My daughter applied in 2018, and so we toured 5 or 6 local prep school. Most of them with the exception of one were either transitioning to wokeness or were just a few years into it. HV was not the wokest of them to be honest - the worst one was Oakwood but they are smaller and have less of a cache I suppose. The weird thing was that HV is crazy opulent, but also has one of highest rates of suicidal ideation.

Don't forget that such blatant indoctrination is bound to produce some blowback in at least some of the pupils.