Elite Private School Labeled Students By Ethnicity, Restricted Groups Based On Race

A New York City school’s students were pictured wearing tags identifying them by their ethnicity while the school encouraged students to join ethnicity-based “affinity groups,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Students at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a private pre-K to 12th grade school, were pictured wearing name tags denoting their ethnic identity, such as “Black” “Jewish,” according to the NYT. Additionally, the school encouraged students to join organizations known as “affinity groups” that organized students by race, as well as religious and cultural identity.

The school’s spokesperson told the NYT that the name tags were only used at the beginning of the previous school year and were a mistake.

The school also encouraged affinity groups for parents; school officials in June emailed families inviting them to a “listening session” with the purpose of teaching parents about raising children in a “divisive moment,” according to the NYT.

The event was hosted by an affinity group for “families of color,” but was canceled and replaced by a meeting exclusively for non-white parents, according to the NYT. Jewish parents were welcome to the exclusive meeting, the NYT reported.

Fieldston School’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) department describes the groups as a way for “students to form community with other students who share their experiences based on identity.”

Some of the affinity groups the middle and upper school students can be in are for  “boys of color,” “gender and sexual alliance,” trans and gender non-conforming” and “women of color coalition.”

Fieldston School’s younger students participate in a specific curriculum called “CARe,” a school spokesperson told the