On Tuesday, the culture warriors at Project Veritas released another damning video of an educational administrator admitting that he engages in discriminatory hiring practices. Todd Soper, an assistant principal with Neighborhood Charter Schools based in Harlem, admitted that he will not hire a candidate who might not share his vision of “Diversity-Equity-Inclusion.”
Neighborhood Charter Schools has a school in Harlem and one in the Bronx.
Soper is the third administrator in the past week to be outed for anti-conservative bigotry. Last Tuesday, a video featuring a Greenwich, Connecticut, assistant principal revealed that he refused to hire Catholics at Cos Cob Elementary School. That administrator, Jeremy Boland, has been placed on administrative leave by the Greenwich school district.
On Thursday, the watchdog organization released a video of Jennifer Norris, Director of Student Activities for the Trinity School NYC. Among other incendiary snippets, Norris wished that she could employ a “Dexter” style serial killer to get rid of students with more conservative voices. Norris has been placed on paid leave while the school investigates. In a letter to parents, Trinity School said that it was”deeply disturbing” that Norris was recorded “without her knowledge or permission by someone who misrepresented himself.”
Soper, who works with students in grades K-4, was asked what he would do should a conservative consider applying for a teaching position at Neighborhood Charter Schools.
Asked specifically whether he would consider hiring such a person, Soper was clear: “No.… We have very specific questions, and ultimately our Diversity-Equity-Inclusion question, our DEI question is — it’s very telling if somebody has done a lot of work within themself, within the profession.”
“If people don’t answer that question right, they are just an automatic not hire,” Soper said.
Asked what type of answer would get an applicant disqualified, Soper said:
If they [a potential hire] say that diversity is about — if they say something that lends itself to be colorblind, which could happen, like, “Oh, it’s like, you know, like everyone is equal.” Those things that are well intentioned statements, but they’re missing the depth of understanding of how the intersections of our identity live out in the world. So, that person wouldn’t get hired.
Soper went on to recount the story of a teacher from the past who didn’t wish to toe the intersectional line when it came to teaching about Juneteenth Day.
“So, there’s this one teacher who almost refused to talk about Juneteenth a few years ago, and didn’t want to teach a lesson,” Soper recounted. “Like, in addition to their neurodiversity and their special needs, like our students’ lives matter based on the color of their skin, and how that intertwines into the context of the world.”
(Some people believe that June 19 of 1865 [Juneteenth] was the official end of slavery when Major General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War was over and that the slaves were now free. In actuality, slavery ended on December 6, 1865, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified.)
“So, if you’re not willing to embrace fully that aspect of our students — and that means talking openly about race and talking about injustices in the world, then I don’t know if you’re going to be able to fully fulfill your [teacher] responsibilities,” the assistant principal explained.
That specific teacher, who is no longer at the school, according to Soper, was resistant about teaching on the neo-Marxist Black Lives Matter organization.
“She didn’t want to teach Black Lives Matter,” Soper explained. “I don’t think that she thinks that their race is a big deal. So, she was just kind of like, ‘I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. Like, I love kids, so it’s fine.’ I was like, ‘Well, no, you have to love all of it. So, you have to acknowledge that there is the potential for them to experience discrimination.'”
Additionally, Soper revealed how radical gender ideology and LGBT issues were introduced in grades as early as kindergarten and first grade.
“Like for kindergarten, for Pride month, we got — every kid had a mirror and we talked about — a read aloud about an animal, or about a boy that said he wanted to be a mermaid. It’s a way to start, like, ‘You should be whoever you feel like you should be.’ That was kind of the message of [the] read aloud,” Soper explained.
“It’s delicate, right? So, in kindergarten and first grade, they are five and six [years old] — but I think we start with the umbrella theme of, ‘Embrace who you are. You have to love who you are, and each part of you is beautiful, whatever you feel.’ As kids get older and the idea of gender becomes more salient, which happens more towards fourth grade … the conversations deepen as the kids get older.”
“Delicate” indeed. So delicate that maybe such things shouldn’t even be addressed in an elementary school.
