The student activities director at an elite New York City private school revealed in an undercover Project Veritas (PV) video that she “sneaks” her left-wing political agenda into classrooms “wherever I can.”
“I just keep trying to disrupt wherever I can,” Jennifer “Ginn” Norris is heard saying in the video, the second in PV’s “Education Series” that is titled “The Secret Curriculum.”
“And now that I’m in this position, I have so many opportunities to do that,” the administrator said, describing how she gets students to participate in political demonstrations during class time and, when they are given a “detention” for doing so, she and other staff use the “detention” time to indoctrinate them further about “social justice.”
Norris described Trinity School to the PV undercover journalist as “a really fancy private school up on the Upper West Side.”
Tuition at the K-12 school is nearly $60,000 per year per student.
“It’s definitely a school where conservatives would not feel comfortable,” Norris said.
“I don’t hide how I feel, but I can’t pretend I’m promoting an agenda even though I clearly am [laughs] with all the stuff I’m doing,” she continued.
In this exchange with the PV journalist, Norris explained that, initially, some of her ideological work had to be done subtly to avoid drawing the attention of the school’s administration. Now, however, she said, she no longer has to hide her “activism”:
Norris: There’s always groups of teachers who want to do these [activist] things but the administration just wouldn’t let us. So, we’ve been just sneaking things in [through] the cracks.
PV Journalist: You do what, now?
Norris: You know, it’s like they don’t – like, the administration was much more conservative than most of us. I’m really good friends with the associate head of school now. She was an English teacher, and then she just kind of moved her way up. She was department chair and now she’s the associate head. So, I go and talk to her all the time, and she’s been amazing. Like, she really cares and has the power to change things. So, I feel like I finally have an in to get it done. But when I started there, I hid my whole life. I felt like a double agent or something. It’s just nice we don’t have to hide our activism outside of school. We don’t have to hide who we are. Like, we can bring our whole selves to work and do the important work now.
The student activities director expressed her contempt for the “white boys” who have pushed back against her ideological activism:
Norris: Unfortunately, it’s the white boys who feel very entitled to express their opposite opinions and just push back. There’s a huge contingent of them that are just horrible. And you’re like, “Are you always going to be horrible, or are you just going to be horrible right now?” Don’t know.
PV Journalist: Is there any saving these Republican white guys?
Norris: I don’t know. I think they need to go. No, I think they’re really awful people. That’s kind of what I’m afraid of with my white students that are rich. I’m like – do you ever have to deal with this? They’re so protected by capitalism. It makes me sad.
Referring to the fictional serial killer “Dexter,” Norris is heard suggesting how to deal with the “white boys”:
We need to find some, like, Dexter, sort of like a vigilante, taking people out. You know the show, Dexter? … We just need some vigilante Dexters. Like, “Here’s your community of targets.”
Explaining how she incorporates her political activism into daily classroom work, Norris described how she can easily give her students “art supplies,” and “put posters together.”
“We have people go to every march,” she said. “They get excused from classes.”
Asked which marches Trinity Students attend, Norris responded, “They went to the women’s rights marches after Trump. They went to all the gun ones, the March for Our Lives.”
“It’s fun, too, because if they do march out of school – because sometimes it’s a political protest – and so, we don’t actually give them the grace period. But we do,” she explained the seeming paradox.
“We don’t punish them, but, if they do it, then they have to serve detention,” she said. “And, then, during detention, we talk about social justice.”
Norris elaborated on how she pushes her political agenda further, given her role.
“Two days a week I bring in speakers from outside,” she told the PV journalist. “So, that’s been a huge opportunity for me to just bring things … any social justice issues or just people with experiences … So, it’s been really fun.”
Norris also confirmed that, as student activities director, she would never allow Republican perspectives on campus at Trinity School.
“I won’t,” she said, asserting senior administration considers her to be “in charge” as well.
“So, if they want to do that, then somebody else has to do it because not on my watch, I guess,” she said.
The Star News Network reached out for comment to the Trinity School Alumni Association but did not immediately receive a response.
– – –
Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Jennifer Norris” by Project Veritas.
