New York City officials red-bait public school faculty
By
Daniel de Vries
11 May 2017
In a chilling resurgence of the tactics used decades ago to purge the New York City public school system of faculty deemed insufficiently pro-American, a school principal and two teachers at a Brooklyn high school are under investigation for alleged “communist activity.” The principal of Park Slope Collegiate (PSC), Jill Bloomberg, along with two teachers from the high school are targets of the probe.
The investigation comes in the context of outspoken opposition by faculty, students and parents at PSC to the unequal education afforded to the largely working class, minority student body enrolled at the school. While PSC is situated in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Brooklyn—Park Slope—its students are overwhelmingly drawn from poorer areas of the borough.
Opposition at PSC to school inequality flared following the 2011 decision by billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration to “co-locate” an additional, highly selective school—Millennium Brooklyn—on the Park Slope campus rather than dedicate resources to improving the existing three schools already on site. The Bloomberg administration carried out this move over the heated objections and protests by many in the PSC community.
Tensions recently spiked again over current mayor Bill de Blasio’s school security procedures, in which working class youth are treated more like criminals than students. Protestors demanded the removal of video cameras and metal detectors, and an end to the brutal treatment of students by police and school security guards. There have been several recent incidents involving NYPD and school security, including one in 2015 where a school security officer handcuffed a student who…