Educational McCarthyism: Racism, Segregation and the Defamation of Jill Bloomberg

In the late 1940's and early 1950's, one of the ways the FBI tried to determine whether a white person was a Communist was to find out whether they had Black people as guests in their home for dinner or meetings.

Apparently the Department of Investigation of the NYC Department of Education is taking a page out of the FBI playbook and applying the label of "communist" to anyone who complains about segregation in schools or racially discriminatory distribution of resources. This is exactly what they have done in launching an investigation of the great principal of Park Slope Collegiate, Jill Bloomberg, who complained that the predominantly white school in her building got more access to team sports than the other schools located there.

This is absurd for many reasons, First of all, it is not illegal to be a "communist" or a member of a communist party. But secondly, putting the label of "communist" on someone who speaks out against what they see as racial discrimination represents an ill-disguised attempt to discourage open discussion of a major issue in the NYC school system

The entire leadership of the NYC Department of Education is tainted by this investigation, and the absurd charges that have accompanied it. The investigation must end immediately and an apology given to Principal Bloomberg, who is a neighborhood hero for speaking out about what everyone knows is wrong in the John Jay Campus and reinforces the argument made by NYC Let Em Play about the unequal distribution of sports resources by race among schools