Texas Private School Defends Political Violence, Tells White People: ‘Re-Educate Yourself’

The Hockaday School, a private all-girls school in Dallas, Texas, has defended leftist political violence and encouraged white people to “re-educate” themselves to engage in racial accountability. 

Hockaday thus joins other schools in Dallas like the Episcopal of Dallas and Parish Episcopal School, both of which are also affiliated with the far-left National Association of Independent Schools and push leftwing racial grievance politics.

The Hockaday School Defends Looting

The Hockaday School, which recently abolished a century-old tradition of white graduation dresses in the name of inclusion, lists a number of different DEI resources on their website. Among the resources listed for upper school students was an appalling article titled “In Defense of Looting,” which uses the politics of racial grievance to defend acts of political violence, calling looting “one of the most righteous anti-white supremacist tactics.” 

It also defends looting on Marxist and anti-white grounds, saying that it “is extremely dangerous to the rich (and most white people) because it reveals, with an immediacy that has to be moralized away, that the idea of private property is just that: an idea, a tenuous and contingent structure of consent.” 

“When rioters take territory and loot, they are revealing precisely how, in a space without cops, property relations can be destroyed and things can be had for free,” it continues.

The article even went on to lament the police because they make it more difficult to victimize white people, reading “the history of the police in America is the history of black people being violently prevented from threatening white people’s property rights.”

School Tells White People: ‘Re-Educate Yourself’

In addition to the “In Defense of Rioting” article, Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility,” Carol Anderson’s “White Rage,” and other cornerstone texts of critical race theory, The Hockaday School also endorses a number of extreme leftwing organizations, such as Whites for Racial Equity. 

The organization holds trainings on “racial recognition” and “implicit bias in the classroom.” Its website list 11 suggestions for “white accountability,” instructing white people to “donate a percentage of your income to racial justice organizations led by BIPOC people,” “have people of color coaches whose services you pay for,” and to “re-educate yourself with non-white culture/media.”

Hockaday also linked to an article titled “Whiteness” from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which discusses white privilege, white supremacy, white dominant culture, and even the “internalization of whiteness.” It cites infamous critical race theorist Robin DiAngelo and discusses the ways in which white people can begin “confronting whiteness” and “facing your whiteness.”

The school discussed their DEI initiatives in a statement to The Federalist, remarking “The DEI initiatives on our webpage illustrate some of the transparent steps we have taken to support our students’ creative and divergent thinking.”

They continued, noting that the resources on their website “are not intended to advocate for nor approve of the theme, thesis, stance, purpose, or language used by any author or organization. They are, however, intended to stimulate discussion and awareness, agreement and disagreement, and other principles that support a comprehensive education and inclusive view of the world.”

The materials listed on Hockaday’s pages uniformly espouse leftwing perspectives on race, grounded in the precepts of critical race theory.

Wokeness Infects Curriculum And Student Life

The Hockaday School’s descent into wokeness has had significant impacts on student life. Like other schools affiliated with the leftwing National Association of Independent Schools accreditation agency, even classes that are supposed to teach students hard sciences like physics have been turned into a forum for extreme leftism. 

One parent, who wished to remain unnamed, provided documentation proving the school’s high school physics courses rely on curriculum supplied by e4usa, an organization that appears to focus less on engineering and more on leftwing indoctrination.

The organization’s website explains that students will “create their own understanding of the value of diversity in engineering, as well as build their own identity as a confident problem solver.” One of the course learning objectives is for students to be able to “articulate changing perspectives on one’s current identities with respect to engineering through regular reflection.”

The organization’s website also boasts a social justice statement, which reads “We acknowledge that our discipline developed in the U.S. via hegemonic systems of power and racism, and has for far too long failed to redress inequities perpetuated by many engineering advances.”

It also claims “it is the responsibility of engineers and engineering educators everywhere to fully engage in promoting social justice.” The organization’s statement calls on “all engineering and all STEM scholars to join us in holding one another accountable to continually developing culturally relevant pedagogy to promote social justice.” In a statement to The Federalist, Hockaday said that “With respect to the E4USA curriculum, Hockaday did utilize it in the past but is no longer doing so.”

Ninth- and tenth-grade students at The Hockaday School also had to attend a social justice assembly where they charted out their identities. The young people were asked about their race, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, and even their physical, emotional, and developmental disability status.

They were asked what identities had the greatest effect on how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them, among other questions.

Staff Attends CRT Trainings

The Hockaday School, which charges tuition of $28,950 to $34,350 per year, has also participated in a number of different conferences and professional development trainings that instruct teachers on how to implement the tenets of critical race theory in the classroom. 

Among the conferences that Hockaday staff have attended are the ISAS DEI conference, the NAIS People of Color Conference, and the NAIS Diversity Leadership Institute.

In addition, the school is currently undergoing curricular review, one facet of Hockaday’s diversity, equity, and inclusion institutional initiatives, which will likely further institutionalize critical race theory at the Texas private school. 

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