The Dark Side of Poly Pride

When I saw this "Poly Pride" sweatshirt, my first thought was "polyamorous."  But surely this high school student wasn't aware enough to identify  as polyamorous (attracted to people across the spectrum of gender): that's a long coming out process.

And even if he had figured "it" out, the administration would never let him wear a Polyamorous Pride shirt to school.

Or maybe they would.  Turns out that he attends Poly Prep, aka the Polytechnical Preparatory Country Day School in Brooklyn, founded as the oldest boys' school in New York (co-ed since 1977).  There are two divisions,  lower in the ritzy Park Slope, and middle/upper in the even ritzier Dyker Park neighborhood (where 2-bedroom apartments start at $3000 per month).

It's not a boarding school, so students all come from Brooklyn or nearby.  This athlete transferred from the quaintly-named New Dorp HIgh School on Staten Island.

Tuition is $49,000 per year, more expensive than Harvard ($47,000), where many of the graduates will be going.




Behold the faces and physiques of the 1%

Interested in knowing what the 1% gets for lunch? Sample menu for a day in April: Mint Pea Soup, Spanakopita or Roasted Lemon Chicken accompanied by cauliflower au gratin with roasted tomatoes and gruyere cheese.

Upper School has a 56-page curriculum guide detailing courses like "Gender Studies through Literature" (beginning with Judith Butler, a theorist who I didn't get until grad school).

Student groups include the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, of course, plus Girls Who Code, Ink Drinkers (for writers), The Sustainability Club, and War Child (awareness of child soldiers).

Athletics include football, soccer, tennis, fencing, lacrosse, squash, fencing, and wrestling.

But all is not gender studies and cauliflower with gruyere cheese at Poly Prep.  In 2018, a video surfaced of two female students wearing blackface while making monkey sounds. The administration did not discipline the students (although they both dropped out), or even acknowledge that the video was racist, leading to a rally and protest by a group of students of color.  The students also alleged that they face regular racism on campus, including harassment from their peers and teachers who single them out for abuse.

Well...Poly Prep has a Diversity, Equality, and Social Justice division with a full-time director....





A 2016 exposee in Esquire alleges that a former Poly Prep football coach sexually abused hundreds of 5th and 6th grade boys from the 1960s through the 1990s.  He also bullied them and created a hostile homophobic environment with terms like "fag" and "homo."  A student who complained to the administration had his scholarship revoked.

Um...ok,just to be clear, this photo is of the high school swim team 20 years later.  The the age of consent in New York is 17, so many high school students are legal for dates and hookups.  But only if they consent, and never if you are their teacher, coach, or anyone else in a position of authority.

Geez, peering into the lives of the rich and famous is supposed to be fun.

A 2015 lawsuit alleges that a Poly Prep administrator used school funds to take some students to Cuba, where he bought them booze, cigars, and hookers.  Additional allegations had Headmaster David Harman hiring "goons" to intimidate anyone from speaking out.  The Headmaster soon resigned.

Um...skip it.

Next up: P.S. High School 323 in the poor, crime-ridden Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.  Lowest percentage of graduates going on to college in the state.