My High School’s ‘Antiracist’ Agitprop
Wall Street Journal | FAIR fellow Sahar Tartak
When Sahar Tartak, student government treasurer, didn’t pledge allegiance (and funds) to an anti-racist organization, teachers at her New York high school went after her with inflammatory accusations reminiscent of reeducation regimes.
“My mother escaped revolutionary Iran, and my grandfather escaped the Nazis,” she explained, and yet she was castigated for her views and upholding fiduciary duties.
After refusing to sign a check to anti-racist organization without due diligence, “the teachers who advise the student government berated, bullied and insulted me,” Tartak writes.
Meanwhile, students were being taught that “America is a place where racism is ‘no better today than it was 200 years ago,’“ Tartak explains. “I disagreed but didn’t mind the debate. Yet this wasn’t about debate: Immigrant children were being told to ‘pledge’ to defend a view many of them don’t hold…”
“That experience prompted me and a few like-minded others to look into our school’s curriculums. What we found was an arsenal of lopsidedly race-obsessed lesson plan…What we discovered was…partisanship and race essentialism, mixed in with administrative intimidation and bullying that our officials refused to address.”
Now a freshman at Yale, Sahar Tartak is also a FAIR fellow.
