New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
DEI takes a hit on Gold Coast
I probably should have checked my brain for hidden recording devices when I started having this thought.
It was Tuesday morning and I was trying to wrap my head around a column topic for the week. My internal dialogue went something like this:
“Gee, the New Canaan Board of Education members who managed to erase ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ from the school district’s goals really is column catnip,” I pondered. “If only a Democrat would do something that absurd so I can have some balance.”
Maybe hidden camera maestro James O’Keefe can read minds now. By the next morning, O’Keefe’s Project Veritas had delivered videos of Cos Cob Elementary School Assistant Principal Jeremy Boland apparently spilling secret discriminatory hiring practices to a mystery woman (identified by O’Keefe’s camp only as “Veritas Journalist”).
The man identified as Boland says he doesn’t even bother interviewing anyone over 30 (“sometimes the older you get, the more set in your ways, the more conservative you get”) and won’t hire anyone raised Catholic (“it’s like they’re brainwashed. You can never change their mindset,” he said).
I went to Catholic schools for 17 years, and my mindset has changed a lot since then (I no longer listen to Wang Chung, for example). I also tend to believe minds can change, but that’s also part of the job description.
As soon as the Veritas video hit the web, my email and phone started dinging with accusations that we were covering up the story. “Cos Cob Asst Principle (sic) not worth reporting?” read a sample gripe.
By day’s end, more insults came from O’Keefe himself, who literally waggled his finger at journalists during a rally hosted by Leora Levy, who is seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
“This is real investigative reporting. If all of you guys were doing your jobs there wouldn’t be a need for people like me,” O’Keefe chided.
Traditional journalists, of course, tend to want to vet a video using jump cut techniques like Wang Chung’s fabled 1986 “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” video, which was banned by the BBC for fears it would cause seizures (see Colin McEnroe’s column next door if you hanker for even more Wang Chung trivia).
Levy’s rally was like T-ball batting practice for Republicans. She invited other candidates to the mic to take swings, including state Rep. Kimberly Fiorello, state Rep. Ryan Fazio, former Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson (who is challenging U.S. Rep. Jim Himes), House District 151 candidate Peter Sherr and District 25 state Senate candidate Daniel Miressi.
It was a grand moment for the old party, an opportunity to unite during a divisive year. Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo remained on the sidelines during the event after officially calling for an independent investigation earlier in the day. That he choose not to take some swings could simply be because he is not a candidate this political cycle. But his distance seemed noteworthy given that even O’Keefe spoke.
Back in March 2020, I was giving thought to writing a different column. O’Keefe was slated to be the keynote speaker at the Stamford Republican Town Committee’s Lincoln Dinner, which would also have honored Camillo. It seemed like bad optics for Camillo, given O’Keefe’s controversial methods. I never wrote that column, as COVID canceled the event.
“I don’t know much about him,” Camillo said about O’Keefe at the time.
He certainly knows about O’Keefe now. But dodging the news conference would have been even worse optics for the party.
At Wednesday’s event, Fazio did me the favor of tying a knot to the New Canaan imbroglio with the words “we believe in inclusion.”
Since Fazio’s 36th district includes New Canaan, he may need a consultation on that statement. But while Boland’s alleged misdeeds seem as stealth as O’Keefe’s cameras, the New Canaan Republicans at least deserve credit for not being opaque.
New Canaan Board of Education member Julie Toal explained that “the term ‘DEI’ wasn’t a political term, and in the last two years, it has become a political term.”
So she and fellow Republican board members Dan Bennett, Hugo Ales and Philip Hogan stood foursquare in their opposition to the word “inclusion” and it was edited out of the district’s stated goals for the school year, along with “equity” and “diversity.”
Hogan referenced the motivation for “the least fortunate among us” to move to New Canaan.
“I don’t think they move here for DEI,” Hogan said. “I think they move here for a school system that is singularly and relentlessly focused on student achievement and aptitude.”
He does seem correct that no one is moving to New Canaan for DEI. The town has a Black population (pay close attention to the decimal point here) of 0.6 percent, according to the U.S. Census. Again, that is zeropoint-six percent.
At least the word “diversity” isn’t all the New Canaan Republicans care about.
“The New Canaan RTC, like most of you, is appalled with the video of Cos Cob Elementary School’s Assistant Principal boasting of his discriminatory and politically motivated hiring practices,” the party blared on its website.
I don’t think I’ve heard from anyone who isn’t appalled by the possibility of such discrimination. We should all hope such practices did not exceed the four or five people the guy in the video boasts about hiring. Embracing DEI must include varied political perspectives.
But I’d like to hear as much noise over the New Canaan issue. The school ranking organization Niche grades New Canaan Public Schools with an A+ for academics, teachers and college prep, but a C- for diversity.
Let me put this in terms that will be understood in New Canaan. Harvard Business Review data indicates that the frequency of CEOs mentioning issues of equity, fairness and inclusion in S&P 500 earnings calls has increased 658 percent since 2018 (no, there’s no decimal there, it’s six hundred and fifty-eight). You can keep DEI out of New Canaan, but that won’t prepare its students for life outside the town’s borders.
Maybe I’m just too set in my ways, what with being Catholic and over 30 (I’ve been over 30 for so long that I can remember when killing everyone over 30 was the plot of the 1976 flick “Logan’s Run”). But I have learned one thing ...
On second thought, I won’t share it here. It can wait until my thoughts are secretly recorded.