The Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings have been an utter embarrassment for the GOP members of the judicial committee. Take Ted Cruz, for example. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. Earlier this week I wrote about Ted Cruz’s attempt to demonize Georgetown Day School (where Jackson serves on the board) for its commitment to what he believes is critical race theory. Today we learn that Cruz sends his daughters to St. John’s School in Houston, an elite prep school that appears to share the same view of education in matters of race as Georgetown Day School.
Here is Timothy Noah at The New Republic:
Cruz’s own two daughters attend St. John’s School, the elite Houston prep school on which Wes Anderson (St. John’s ’87) based his 1998 film Rushmore. Let’s look at its “Statement on Community and Inclusion.”
“For us,” the St. John’s statement reads, “community means respecting differences in ability, age, ethnicity, gender identity, race, religion and belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and thought.” But respecting these differences isn’t enough. St. John’s School listens, too. “A diversity of worldviews challenges us to consider other points of view.” To achieve that, St. John’s incorporates “cultural proficiency, diversity, global awareness, and inclusivity into all facets of the K-12 curricula and co-curricular activities.” There’s even a video.
My point is not to make fun of St. John’s. Rather, it’s to underscore Cruz’s hypocrisy. He sends his own children to a school that embraces pretty much the same exact ethic that Cruz pretends to be shocked by at GDS. There’s an awful lot of this diversity talk going around, and sometimes schools, especially the more expensive private schools, will lay it on a bit thick. But the goal is entirely praiseworthy: to increase mutual tolerance and understanding among people whose differences can’t really be ignored.
How’s it going at St. John’s? In December, the older of Cruz’s two daughters (she’s about 13) said of her father on TikTok: “I really disagree with most of his views.”
Read the entire piece here.
I notice that there are a number of Christian K-12 schools in Houston whose political and religious teachings would be much closer to those of Ted Cruz. Is it that elite status means more to his family? This from the guy who says the elite in America are ruining it. But you have to have a little sympathy for a guy who is losing the argument at home with his own kid.
Good point, Ron. Cruz graduated from a Baptist high school in Houston. Back in 2016 I believed that Cruz was an ideologue who was promoting a set of dominionist ideals that he lived by. I wrote about that here: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/april-web-only/religion-of-ted-cruz.html Today I just see another politician who throws-out Christian Right talking points as part of his political brand, and conducts his life very differently privately. His kids seem to hate him, he showed no compassion for suffering Texans during the ice storms, and now this hypocrisy.