The Brokeback Mountain controversy highlights what some St. Andrew’s donors are capable of, and most importantly presents a success story when the school stood against wealthy homophobic families to protect its faculty and its values. In short, the controversy started because the Upper School English Teacher Kimberly Horne assigned the iconic novel back in 2005. Many families when they learned of this assignment rallied to have it removed. The McNairs were the first ones to write to the school about their outrage. They called it ‘porn’ and ‘inappropriate’. One particular family withdrew a 3 million dollars pledge they had made previously to the school. Another family, the Bowlings, wrote multiple letters and engaged aggressively in conversations directly with the school in order to remove the book from the classroom. They called Ms. Horne and Mr. Works Ms. Porne and Mr. Jerk. They also went on and insulted another assigned book that year, the God of Small Things, an incredible Booker prize-winning novel about a set of twins in Kerala, India, “God of Small Dicks”. Mrs. Bowling’s daughter Rachel also proceeded to boycott Ms. Horne’s classes on Brokeback Mountain. All the while, many faculty mainly John Works, the then head of the upper school Susan Schotz, and the then head of school Lucy Nazro were on Ms. Horne’s side. Many concerned parents printed out “I heart Ms. Horne” stickers and they were soon everywhere.
The importance of the controversy, in my opinion, illustrates three things. One, the school is financially supported by certain rich families who will do everything they can to get what they want. Two, the school has the ability to take a stand against them. Three, certain members of the faculty and the administration are important pioneers of revolution.
These three things have implications for the diversity and inclusivity issue. There will be families who threaten the school with money. There will be push back, many accusations, and arduous fights. However, there are also people within St. Andrew’s who are willing to fight. But it is for the school to decide whether it will place money above its values and identity. We want to see if St. Andrew thinks of diversity and inclusivity as its core, as important as its Episcopalian identity, or even because of it. Lucy Nazro said in the TexasMonthly article that “ being Christian is in how you treat people...What we’re hoping will happen is kids will learn about the world, its hurt and its brokenness, and then go out and try to make it a better place”.
In terms of the diversity issue, St. Andrew’s merely writes and gestures that diversity and inclusivity is one of its missions and part of its identity, even though it fails to teach and cultivate students to be culturally competent. Other than its growing numbers of minority students, St. Andrew’s has not made much progress on other essential tasks to create a truly diverse and inclusive place and dismantled the white supremacy this country was built upon. Otherwise, as Kennedy Mccormack ‘16 remarks, St. Andrew’s is a school of empty gestures.