Editor's note: The author requested that his name be withheld because he still has a sibling in school at The Kinkaid School.
When the infamous “Tipping Point” e-mail from Barclays executive Hugh "Skip" McGee III first went viral at the end of 2009 all the Kinkaid alumni that I have remained in contact with could be divided roughly into two camps: those who thought it was hilarious that a Wall Street exec would personally attack a high school student body president over censoring balloon breasts, and those who thought it was hilarious that a Wall Street exec would be so careless as to put such a thing in an e-mail.
One point, however, we could all agree upon; it was funny and no big deal.
Shortly after the original e-mail, a hilarious spoof made the Kinkaid rounds in which, amongst other absurdities, a “parent” complained about the disruption of a polo team pep rally and that a pinko-commie teacher had brought her son to tears with the suggestion that mixing alcohol and prescription drugs was a bad idea. (It seems little Nigel had never heard his Mumsy’s famous Valium daiquiris disparaged in such terms.)
Some of us were concerned about the implicitly anti-intellectual message of the e-mail, but most just shook their heads and figured nothing would come of it. We were, it now seems, all too naïve.
In an article titled “Schoolhouse Rocked” in the March issue of Texas Monthly, reporter John Spong exposes something those of us long-removed from the moss-draped Kinkaid campus might have missed: This isn’t just about an e-mail. The problem is bigger, and could potentially endanger both the reputation of the Kinkaid School and, much more importantly, the well being of its students.
America is perhaps more politically divided than it has ever been, but one major division that seems to have faded is that of the infamous “culture war” which began in the 1980s and lasted, at the very least, through the Bush campaign’s infamous (yet successful) “gay strategy” of 2004. Today’s division is primarily over economics and philosophical differences; many modern conservatives and Tea-Partiers embody a more libertarian strand of the Republican Party that is largely unconcerned with social issues.
This is particularly true in Houston — a city where one frequently hears professions (particularly amongst the private school set) of,“Well, I’m a social liberal but an economic conservative.” Houston conservatives, in my experience, are far more Ron Paul than Pat Robertson.
Against this backdrop enters the Kinkaid controversy. I happened to be at Kinkaid for both of the events which the Texas Monthly article identifies as early forerunners of the more recent events: The controversies over an on-campus Bible study and a school-sponsored Gay-Straight alliance. I have to say that the school’s response, as guided by former principal Mickey Saltman, was nothing if not carefully considered, and, in the end, fair.
I started Kinkaid high school in XXXX as a liberal, only to drink the Neo-Con Kool-Aid after Sept. 11 and then, finally, began my drift back left after the beginning of the Iraq war. In my high school sojourn through the political spectrum, however, I never felt like any Kinkaid faculty or staff ever tried to hoist an ideological viewpoint upon me. I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, yes, but another history teacher was fond of referring (in jest… I think) to the Civil War as “The War of Northern Aggression.”
The point was that no one complained either way, and things were pretty balanced, if not tilted to the Right by the intrinsic nature of a private prep-school floating on a sea of oil money. These observations would be trivial, and constitute a mere dismissal of the argument of a “liberal bias,” if not for the fact that the school’s response to these outlandish accusations could have some very real, potentially tragic ramifications.
Here I’d like to digress for a moment and make something clear: Kinkaid is an amazing school that produces thoughtful, capable, and well-rounded students in a way that few other schools anywhere can. I am damn proud to have gone to Kinkaid. That being said, however, I am worried.
First of all, I worry that even if, as the article mentions, this scandal is unlikely to hurt the academic reputation of the school, it could very well leave graduates less prepared for undergraduate work. I have a news flash for all the “concerned parents” out there: Unless you plan on sending your little angels to Pat Robertson’s Liberty University (in which case you should just home school them), they’re going to run into “liberal” professors.
Sure, once they can narrow their schedule down to 18 hours of finance classes, things will get better, but little Lisa is going to have to take some humanities classes, and they’re not all going to be taught by Sean Hannity.
The tough part about this is that these professors get to decide little Lisa’s grades, and if she’s been taught to be closed-minded and lack critical thinking (the direction Kinkaid seems to want to take their academic approach) she’s not going to do well, and when the tears come on grades day you can’t just phone up the Headmaster anymore. The idea of purging anyone who might expose your child to viewpoints contrary to your own is, aside from being vaguely fascistoid, a huge disservice to your child when they reach the next level.
This negative academic climate, however, isn’t the worst take-away from the revelations in “Schoolhouse Rocked.” What’s worse is the report of Kinkaid’s rapid backpedaling from a policy of inclusiveness, particularly in regards to sexuality, that was never even that strong to begin with. Kinkaid is a small community, and that’s a big part of what makes it great, but it also makes it extremely hard to be different. I remember knowing who the “gay kids” were, and feeling terrible for them even while I sometimes poked fun with everyone else just to fit in.
The rumor mill was also constantly running about the sexuality of the teachers and coaches, another nonstop source of amusement in a culture that implicitly told us those individuals somehow deserved our scorn. It was only once I had graduated that I even felt comfortable grappling with my own sexuality, and I blame that high school culture, in part, for my seven years of absence from Houston just as much as I credit the election of Mayor Annise Parker for giving the “all clear” for my return.
The point is that even under normal circumstances, it is damn hard to be gay at Kinkaid. What then will today’s gay Kinkaidian, open or closeted, feel when she or he notices that gay staff members are being driven out, and signs of inclusion taken down or conspicuously omitted? This may have begun as a humorous e-mail, a misguided call for ideological purity, but I shudder to think what could happen as a result of the regressive tactics Kinkaid has adopted in response.
I guess my real message to the “concerned parents” and the Kinkaid board is this: Before you open your mouth to rail against what one Kinkaid parent quoted in the article called “a bunch of gay, lesbian, liberal, communistic crap” please try to think of the message that could send to the confused and scared teen who, for all you know, just might be sitting across the dinner table.
