Dear Editor,
A letter to the editor in this periodical called me out by name for my stance against re-tracking 9th and 10th grade English in Culver City Unified. The author suggested I had “suicidal empathy.” My empathy was “suicidal,” supposedly, because I wanted other people’s children to have the same educational opportunities as my child.
I had never heard of the concept of suicidal epmpathy before, but I found it odd. I heard it again this week from a MAGA conservative in reference to the new pope for speaking out against the Trump administration. And then I saw that it was being used by Elon Musk to justify cutting foreign aid to sick children in Africa.
What I first viewed as a curiosity, I now view as terrifying. Ridiculing empathy as “suicidal” is part of an extremist ideology that has made it to our politically progressive community in Culver City. Empathy is the thread that ties communities together. It allows us to care for our neighbors and support families in need. It ensures that democracy does not descend into tyranny against minoritized people. The fact that the leaders of our lone educational institution, the Culver City Unified School District, have adopted this anti-empathy ideology as their own troubles me even more. They are teaching our students that basic empathy for their peers will harm them.
As this newspaper has reported, the Culver City Unified School District seeks to re-track ninth and tenth grade English. This move goes directly against the district’s stated goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a professor who studies tracking, the data on this is not debatable. Tracking undermines diversity and inclusion by dividing students by race and socioeconomic status. It undermines equity by harming the academic achievement of the low-track students. Some data presented at the last school board meeting was imperfect, but it was suggestive that de-tracking English in CCUSD has benefited these most marginalized students.
But apparently, caring about these students is suicidal. A majority of the school board seems to feel this way. They seem primed to vote soon to resegregate English classes at Culver City High School. Indeed, the students most harmed by this decision will be students living outside of the district whose families have no vote in this process. They are in short, enduring an education without representation. The school board representatives get no personal gain from considering their well-being. Doing something to support these students would require empathy.
Unfortunately, though, empathy is now suicidal in Culver City.
Suneal Kolluri, PhD
