Private Schools Spence, Brentwood Face Legal Action Over DEI - Bloomberg

Parents Sue Elite Schools for ‘Indoctrinating’ Their Kids With Anti-Racist Policies

  • Some claim diversity-and-equity emphasis is breach of contract
  • Clash comes as DeSantis, Trump make education a rallying cry
Andrew Gutmann, author of How To Be an Investment Banker, says it's been "nearly impossible" to find a school that challenges his daughter but is "not politicized." Gutmann now home schools his daughter.Photographer: James Jackman/Bloomberg

When Jerome Eisenberg enrolled his daughter at the Brentwood School in Los Angeles, where Adam Levine met some of his Maroon 5 bandmates, the investment manager says he expected her to get a traditional liberal arts education.

But after the murder of George Floyd, the $50,000-a-year school said it was reimagining its purpose “with an eye toward anti-racism” and diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. In Eisenberg’s view, Brentwood was pulling a “bait and switch” on parents. He sued the school last year for breach of contract, civil rights violations and emotional distress.