Elite NYC private school updates logo, motto to combat racism as parents cry ‘wokeism’
It’s a Dutch re-treat.
Manhattan’s elite Collegiate School set up a special task force and spent three years debating its “Dutchman’’ mascot and motto — then issued a 400-page report that’s a lesson in wokeness-run-amok, critics say.
The Herculean effort at PC reform led the $60,000-a-year Upper West Side school to not only drastically alter its playful, winking mascot image — but also toss “God” from its motto and even “A.D.” from its seal, deeming both potentially offensive.
“A lot of folks think the whole thing was just ridiculous overkill,” a parent told The Post. “Four hundred pages? For a mascot? A motto?”
The K-12 school — which counts John F. Kennedy Jr. and David Duchovny as former students — began probing its “history and symbols” in 2019.
The 394-year-old institution tapped a 17-person task force — including Regina Lasko, the wife of David Letterman — to update its brand to help “combat within Collegiate the institutional and other racism that pervades so much of our society.”
The group issued a 407-page report in 2020 that advised the school to refresh its image.
After a lengthy design and feedback process, the school announced last week that it will replace its prior motto, “Unless God, then in vain,” with “Wisdom, Community, Kindness” — in Latin.
The school also completely refashioned its longtime mascot, the Dutchman, after debate over potential feelings of exclusion and excessive Eurocentrism involving it.
The mascot was generally considered to be a representation of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of the New Amsterdam colony.
The board ditched an image of the school’s happy-go-lucky Dutchman with a shovel for a wholly modernized character with a face shrouded by a hat.
Collegiate officials said that both the new motto language and logo design were voted on by 3,000 members of the school community.
While the task force said it suggested keeping the school’s Dutchman mascot to maintain tradition, it had urged the school to present Collegiate’s legacy in a “more complete and historical context.”
Collegiate had already opted to scratch the “A.D.” notation as part of its 1628 founding date on its seal, arguing that “Anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord,” was inappropriate for what is now a secular institution.
The task force also recommended that the school change its motto to something “which conveys a more inclusive message of aspiring beyond oneself, and is aligned with Collegiate’s Statement of Beliefs.”
The task force said it drew opinions on the branding remake from parents, alumni, students and faculty.
Responses to the changes ran the gamut, with some ripping the Dutchman figure of Stuyvesant as a racist anti-Semite, while others argued that severing such links with the school’s origins was misguided.
“This community worked diligently to design a process that was inclusive of our community, fully aware that a change such as this would garner a range of reactions,” school leaders wrote in last week’s message to parents.
Some Collegiate families argued that the lengthy process was indicative of the school’s embrace of woke priorities.
A parent said some faculty members led the push for a new identity and that parental interest in the overhaul was limited.
But others backed the new approach, saying the school — considered one of the best prep campuses in the country — had a responsibility to change with the times.
“The kids don’t have the same perspective as a lot of their parents,” a Collegiate mom said. “I think the administration is walking a thin line trying to keep everybody happy.”
